I'm spending too much time in The Lounge, so I'm back for a visit...
 

I have been spending too much time in the lounge! I don't have any trips to plan (economy has put the kibosh on a planned visit to Australia in September) and no one seems to want any travel information to Excelsior Springs, MO, so my contributions seem to be few at the moment.

Thus, like I said, too much time in the lounge. So, I needed to come back and visit one of my favorite forums! What's been happening on the Australia and the Pacific Forum? Who's had the best trip report? Any scandals or controversies? Who's new!?

Sorry, can't help as I'm just going for a lounge about myself.
But not a trip report but 70 replies and counting for a week about Darwin and Kakadu.
There better be a trip report out of that!

The Darwin/Kakadu thread was an interesting read, lots of advice given that would be good to check out in the future when we can hopefully come back.

Welcome back Toucan2

Not much on the board and a lot of hot air in Australian politics. weather has been great in most places for tourists. Yesterday we had 10*C - 26*C with little cloud and light winds. A bit more cloud today, not as cool to start with and slower to warm up.

Wow. We started today at 26 C or thereabouts. It's gotten very hot and humid very fast this season. Luckily I got to golf at 8 am and was done by noon. It got to 92 (33?) today, and at 9 pm it's currently 82 (27?). I'm glad the weather has been good there for the visitors.

I'm sadly fairly unaware of Australian politics. I don't even like our politics that much! But if there is a lot of hot air, sounds like status quo, no? :)

Have you been doing any birding S?

Last Thursday week Canberra had its coldest day since 1966, a maximum of 2-4 depending on which part of the city you were in. Just thought you'd like to know.

Toucan2, maybe you need to promote Excelsior Springs more. Does it resemble Elmwood Springs MO, the setting of Fannie Flagg's "Welcome to the World, Baby Girl!" and "Can't Wait to get to Heaven"?

Yikes Neil, that sounds cold!

Excelsior Springs does have an interesting history, unfortunately it is not as well preserved as some other midwestern towns so the tourist trade is not as large as it could be. It was once quite the destination for folks including Al Capone and Harry Truman. People came here to "take the waters." There are multiple natural springs in the area, including sulphur springs, magnesium springs, calcium springs, and some others I cannot remember. Many of the old buildings downtown still have the lettering in the windows where people could come to take "baths."

The course I golf was built in 1915, one of the oldest ones hereabouts. Al Capone also used to golf there...and on the course there is a stone commemorating a Civil War battle. There is a hotel called The Elms where supposedly Harry Truman spent the night when Dewey was declared the winner of the election that Truman actually won. I really need to look that up to see if it is true!

We have a really good barbecue restaurant with fall off the bone smoked ribs and more, and in the summer on Saturday nights they have an outdoors Blues garden where you can eat ribs, drink beer, and listen to really great music. You can also get great tenderloin sandwiches at Ray's Lunch (a diner) and my personal favorite, the one at the clubhouse. There is an ice cream place--the Dari B--open from about March to the end of October where there is always a line...no seating inside.

So, are you tempted? Except for the really hot and humid summer and often bone-chilling winter? :)

Toucan, if I'm ever in the vicinity I'll definitely attack those ribs. The Midwest hasn't featured in either of our fairly extended visits to the US, which is a pity, as I'm sure there's more to see and do than most foreigners appreciate. Unfortunately, I think Europe is going to consume our travel dollars for the next few years.

Re Australian politics, you'd probably find our parliamentary debates a bit less polite than those in the US Congress. I tuned into Question Time in the House of Reps the other day and was rewarded with this exchange (just to give you the flavour).

Speaking: the Minister for Finance, Lindsay Tanner (Labor).

Loud interjections from Opposition (Liberal) MP Tony Abbott, a.k.a. "the Mad Monk" (he once spent some time in a Catholic seminary).

Speaker: "Order! The Member will resume his seat."

Minister Tanner: "Tony, I thought I told you to stay in the car and bark at strangers."

Not really up to the standard of former Prime Minister Paul Keating, who was wont to deliver such gems as "Mr Speaker, being attacked by the Leader of the Opposition is rather like being savaged by a dead sheep" (or, on another occasion, "like being flogged with a warm lettuce".)

Another time, Keating was asked by a journalist whether he believed the rumour that the former Leader of the Opposition, Andrew Peacock (a.k.a. "the Sunlamp Kid") was set to return to the leadership of the Liberal Party. "Not possible", said Keating. "A souffle doesn't rise twice."

Tony had given Tanner a real dipping in his own on the 7:30 report last Friday so he was biting back a bit I'd reckon.

Your politicians sound much more colorful and quick on their feet with a word. I can see I will need to tuck away such gems as "like being flogged with a warm lettuce" and "a souffle doesn't rise twice." I'm sure there will be an occasion where I can whip those out and sound much more clever than I really am.

It's true the Midwest doesn't get as many international visitors, but as we have often discussed, it's a big country (as is Australia). I understand it. People have to choose, with limited time and money, and of course there are the natural wonders and grandeur (SP?) of the West, New York and Washington DC and other cities, and the playgrounds such as Las Vegas and Disney to visit. But I have found that people are pleasantly surprised by these other parts of the country when they do get a chance to visit.

Through my job I have been lucky enough to visit places in the US that I never would have probably thought of visiting. I'm sure the same could be said of any country, there are all sorts of nooks and crannies to explore.

So, the ribs will still be here should you come our way :)

Toucan. The golf and ribs sound pretty appealing (although I have never figured out how to eat ribs with decorum, and broke a tooth on them in Santa Monica last year).

I was interested in your comment about the time taken to play your round of golf -- "Luckily I got to golf at 8am and was done by noon". What is regarded as a reasonable time for a round of golf over there?

I play in the morning, and we usually get around in 3.40 to 3.50. Anything over 4 hours is, to us, slow. When I do play in the afternoon, however, it seems that 4.30 to 5 hours is the norm!

I detest slow play and that sort of waiting around removes a lot of the enjoyment of the game for me. Is 4 hours about the usual time for you?

Rob.

You probably get some of the older guys out in the afternoon Rob, ones who like to have the day warm up a bit so they do not keep oiling what they may think will be a squeaky wheel.

They always not be racing around so much.
Four hours is a reasonably speedy round in my book and 4.5 + more the go on packed course days.

Yes, often golf courses here will advertise the "four hour golf round" meaning you won't have delays. Often that can depend on good course management in terms of reasonable start times and length between tee times. 8 minutes between tee times is the norm at our course. Sundays are the busiest day of the week on the course, and can get quite slow, but usually in the afternoon. Usually the better golfers are in the morning (not to say I am one of the better golfers.)

I don't like to mess around on the course, I pretty much want to get to my ball, prepared to hit, and hit. My friend Jill and I once did 9 holes in 1 hour, which was a fairly brisk pace as you can imagine.

There is no way to eat ribs with decorum, Rob. You need to pick them up and gnaw on the bone...that's why there are large rolls of paper towels on the tables and they bring wet wipes with the bill :) This is not the time to wear snowy white tee-shirts.

I think it might have been that fact that I was growling as I was eating them and then snarled when the plate of (now bare and licked) bones was taken away that caused most concern.

LOL Rob!

Hi, Toucan! I hang out here, too, just to have a connection to Australia. Sad, I know. We have a big anniversary next year (40) and are planning a trip sometime in 2010. DH wants "another continent" so we WERE planning on going to Argentina, but I found out that Alaska Airlines is newly a partner with Air Pacific which goes to Fiji (AND AUSTRALIA!!!) so we are thinking of that--hitting South Australia and Victoria and/or Tasmania and doing our snorkeling in Fiji instead of FNQ. Not alot of snorkeling in Patagonia, and I think we ought to do it while we can. What are you doing for bird watching while waiting for the economy to allow international trips?
Sally in Seattle, waving HI to Neil, too, and inviting him and any Fodorite to visit SUNNY Seattle where we just had 20 some days with no rain. Not so good with the ribs, but salmon to die for!

Sally! I've missed you.I remember you were thinking about Argentina, which does sound awfully tempting as well. I hope the Australia trip works out for you. How long do you think you would be able to take this time? That would be a heck of a fun trip to plan. We were planning on this September, then things got so bad, we all took pay cuts etc so just trying to hang tight at the moment.

We took a road trip in December down to the RGV and saw lots of birds, worked our way up the coast and I got to take the Whooping Crane tour out of Rockport and that was very cool. We also saw bunches of Sandhill Cranes. We spent most of April in Texas, staying with friends, and doing the spring migration bird watch. So we are getting some bird watching in, just not quite as exotic as some of our past trips.

I'm not sure when I'll be back out in Seattle. My mom passed away New Year's Eve, so I was out there for several weeks while she was ill, and then of course back for the funeral. Tickets to Seattle from here right now are ridiculous! Anyway, hopefully next spring, and I would love to meet up with you again and either hear about your Australia travel plans or your trip report :)

And 40 is worth a big trip!

I thought I had posted about bibs Toucan for at a feature night our local tavern ran which it used to from time to time, the American diet was on the menu complete with ribs.

They had white paper towelling material bibs available for people to use - anything like that in the US?

Indeed there are. Sometimes paper or plastics. you will see them sometimes at places that serve crabs and such sometimes as well. I have managed to avoid bibs thus far in my dining activities.

I can't have ribs very often, they are just too rich, but I am starting to get a hankering since we keep talking about them!

Sorry about your mom, Toucan. My mom was in the hospital at the same time with surgery Dec. 19 and then rehab and the whole move into an assisted living place. I am glad she lived, but it is a much more restricted life for her. What is the RGV? RE the bibs--I take them if on offer since I normally spill things on myself )-: For non-US people, bibs are the norm when served a whole Maine lobster because of the butter and the fact that you tear it apart with your hands (I get my brother-in-law to do it for me LOL) Now how to connect this to Australian travel--hmmmm, don't they serve bibs with Moreton bugs? Or maybe Aussies are neater with their crustaceans?
Sally in Seattle