EASY

Feels like time for an update from our easy life in Western Australia. It will be a bunch of random updates. Don’t expect too many deep thoughts ;) The ‘harder’ places to travel evoke more reflection. Maybe I need a little duress to ponder life? I don’t know. Or maybe my mind and body are still gear shifting from traveling to living? Or maybe they are just exhausted? Not surprisingly I aggressively jumped back into my gym program :) which has been mostly fantastic if not tiring!! I had been (not quite) maintaining strength with bands and body weight and the occasional random heavy thing but the truth is, for me, it never matches getting after it in a gym. Cardio, of course, is mostly easy everywhere.

The drive to the gym is a bit over ten minutes, straight inland from our coastal digs. I love it. Totally zen. Podcasts, music, chill time. Loads of towering ecalyptus trees and vineyards and rolling roads. This is also mighty fine trail running country.

Hazel’s physical comedy, and comedy in general, knows no limits. It really has been one of the relevations of the trip, to me at least. Truth is maybe I just hadn’t noticed it as much in the busier version of life. This one’s got wit!!

We have ended up in many dark sky places. Seeking a path less traveled will do that perhaps. This blog could have been called Chasing Dark Skies.

The coffee is very good here but I’m sticking to Wales being the surprise winner of “best coffee” so far. Would have never guessed in a million years. Justin’s coffee geekery has reached new heights. We’re traveling with a grinder and two (yes, TWO) different style drip things and their respectively different filters. Notice Hazel’s fingers are making a mini heart in the photo. This is rec center coffee. OMG the rec center.

One day we ordered a meringue at the Margaret River Bakery. What I thought was a stack of seven or eight meringues was in fact ONE meringue. It was bigger than Hazel’s head. It was a good day.

The home beach never disappoints. So many walks, runs, swims by these waters. This is also shark country. I follow shark reports like I used to read about avalanche conditions. I think locals deal with it using the “driving is riskier” logic. I’m sure some math would allow you to draw that conclusion. I just live in denial. After all, we’re only here for a few months. Not to scare any readers, but Justin and I were surfing at Gracetown when we heard a loud-speaker-sort-of-thing saying what sounded like “shark, shark”. I had no idea such a thing existed!! It was indeed a shark alert!! Anyway, we paddled in and I continue to just be in denial. The ocean feels so vast and I feel so small.

Smiles at the rec center. This photo reminds me of on-the-road wardrobe turnover :) Nothing we’re wearing started with us in Park City. Those four items in the photo come from three different countries - India, Japan and Australia!!