Hi from Adelaide! I’m a bit backlogged on posts, but will try to catch up in the next couple days, maybe.

Here’s me and Hayden on the airplane. Hayden got on the plane and immediately started making an itemized list of every component we would need or want to build a ChumpCar, including component costs. There he is looking at the ChumpCar rules on his phone.

For the first time ever, we were lucky enough to not have a third seatmate on our flight, so I got to lie down across two seats in a comfy little ball. I got basically 8 hours of sleep like that and it was fantastic. Hayden slept sitting up but said that he had a good flight too. I also watched the latest Pirates of the Caribbean movie. My dad would hate it. I liked it. Hayden did too.

We had a layover in Sydney and looking out the window as the plane landed was just WOW. It was so beautiful. No photo could capture such a stunning view. I shed a single tear as our plane took off towards Adelaide.

Hayden comments that “The pilot did a really good landing. It was smooth.”

Hayden and I did not make plans to visit Sydney after the race, but it’s been added to the growing pile of ‘Sometime After Solar Car’ things to do.

I was so mildly rested by the time we reached Adelaide that I had the energy to go to the market for supplies and even get myself a Telstra sim card. What a deal that sim card is! I have so much data for playing Pokemon Go. More than 6 times the amount of Pokemon Go data that Hayden has, for less than half the price. *dabs*

The team had rented a house in the nearby suburb of Croydon for our time in Adelaide, and it was a pretty nice house with 2 little studios and a main house. Hayden and I were assigned to one of the little studios and I liked it a lot. We put the food that we bought at the market in our kitchenette fridge. (Later, we ate the food. No oatmeal yet. TBD.)

Also, Sharky was there. He liked it too.

There were a bunch of delays with customs so we ended up having a lot of free time while at the house. Hayden and I went on a morning/evening run every day and caught lots of Pokemon on our runs.

We discovered that 5 of us on the race crew all played Pokemon Go, so we went on adventures all together. Pokemon in the city:

I was level 23 back then. (Stay tuned to hear about me leveling up!) We even stopped by Movenpick for ice cream.

Hayden: “I liked the ice cream.”

Speaking of ice cream, my mom commented to Hayden “you really like ice cream, huh :)” and ever since then Hayden has been mumbling things like “maybe I do like ice cream” to himself at random times. He asks for ice cream pretty much every day, like “WHERE’S THE ICE CREAM :)” so I’m not sure why he’s surprised people think he likes ice cream.

Ice cream = new oatmeal ?

Hayden: Noo…

Other adventures included:

Above left: a really high tech bathroom at the park next to our house that locks you in and instructs you on how to use the potty.

Above right: throwback to our D&D crew. For our travels, I packed a small Ziploc bag full of a few bandaids, some gauze, Neosporin, etc. At an outdoors store, we found a legitimate first aid kit that Hayden asked if we should get. The above picture is my reaction to his question. “We already HAVE some bandages and gauze.” #throwback

On our last morning at the house, Hayden and I went to go get the car crate from customs only to find out that our quarantine inspection had been cancelled due to The Man or The System or The Bureaucracy. All that red tape. And stuff. That was Friday, so we were pretty resigned to waiting until Monday for our car.

The team moved to the Big4 Adelaide Shores Campervan Park with the intention of working on the car over the weekend, but since the car was delayed, we ended up with a free couple of days instead. I’ll talk about that weekend, along with the progression of my Pokemon Go level, in my next post!

The New “In Case Anyone Cares Column” for Random Things Not Related to Australia:

Last post, I showed you how well my dog Tazi can fit in a box. So, the day I left for Australia, I found the 15 baby dolls that I had as a kid, which now look really creepy to me as an adult. Hayden said that it’s really creepy that there are so MANY of them. The reason for this is either 1) I would touch the dolls’ eyes because I said the eyes felt cold and I apparently liked that, which would result in the eye paint getting rubbed away and me needing a new doll immediately, or 2) I would lose one somewhere stupid and request a new doll immediately, but would find the old one the next day. So yeah, I have 15 of them. Each creepier than the last.

I decided to hide these in places my dad would find them. I think I hid most of the 15. I was giggling like a hyena the whole time I was hiding the dolls and Hayden probably thought it was not nearly that funny but he was an accomplice anyway.

My dad found some of them while we were on the airplane. Can’t tell where the rest are in case he hasn’t found them yet. I’m pretty proud of this. The beer fridge was Hayden’s idea.

*laughs quietly to myself*

*hee*