TALK ABOUT ENDURANCE!

July 15, 2010



We drove to Port Hedland today. We hadn’t seen any wallabies at all, but this afternoon we came within an inch of killing one. Orson was driving when suddenly a wallaby came out of the bush left of the car and jumped right in front of the car. He saw it coming and slowed down just in time so it made it across the road. We were so relieved. It was small enough that I doubt it would have hurt the car, but it was cute enough we’d have felt really bad if we’d hit it.
On the way, we pulled into a roadside stop to get some “rest.” There were 3 or 4 campers there. I was taking care of business when I heard someone start talking to Orson. When I came out and Orson went in, this guy kept on talking. He was older than us and very interesting to talk to. He mentioned he liked the internet because he could research stuff. Then he asked us how the Mormon church got started. There was our chance—we probably spent 20 minutes or so talking about the church. We were able to explain that it really started with Adam, and we ended up giving him a Book of Mormon. He thumbed through it and exclaimed over the fact that it had an index. We are pretty sure he will do some reading in it. Not bad for a “potty stop.”
We stopped next at the Sandfire Roadhouse. There was a bus and two other cars with stuff all over them about the first woman to run around Australia. She had started in Sydney and gone up the east coast, across the top, and was heading south to Perth. She runs about 60 kilometers a day, half in the morning and half in the evening. She used to run marathons in her 20’s but was looking for something to do since she’d quit the marathon thing. When she got the idea to run around Australia, she started checking and found there’d never been a woman who had done it. She has a little girl about 5 and an 18 month old boy along with her crew. Her charity that she encourages people to donate to is one that stresses eating healthy without all the additives. She commented that people are willing to “feed their kids half the periodic table everyday.” Her website it Onelapnoexcuses.com. She was really good to talk to. Orson was able to give her a passalong card, a picture of Christ, and the booklet we have about happier families. She was slim, but I never would have picked her out of a group of people as the runner that she is.
We are staying in Port Hedland instead of South Hedland like we did last time. This time we have a view of the ocean out our window, but dinner isn’t included like at the other hotel. We had chicken sandwiches at Chicken Treat—sort of like a KFC at the local shopping centre.