Thanksgiving and the Great Ocean Road

I celebrated my last day in Adelaide by making Thanksgiving dinner for Max, Myst, and her family. This turned out to be a more challenging farewell than anticipated. It was decided that Pat would be in charge of the turkey since neither Myst nor I had any idea how to cook one. That left us in charge of pumpkin pie, cornbread dressing, and sweet potato casserole. The sweet potato casserole got canceled pretty quickly when it was discovered that half of the dinner party refused to eat sweet potatoes. The cornbread dressing idea got nixed when I remembered how much work it involved and realized that there was no Jimmy Dean sausages in Australia. The pumpkin pie was deemed essential but would require cutting up and boiling an actual pumpkin since there was no canned pumpkin to be found anywhere. Pat picked me up Friday morning and drove me down the street to the grocery store and vegetable shop since it was a boiling hot day and we didn't want any spoiled ingredients. She explained that she had called all over and was unable to find a whole turkey. She had found a turkey roll and a whole chikcen but decided that having a whole bird on the table was more important than having an actual turkey. Once Myst and I finished cooking and decorating the table with "fall leaves" (in actuality some dead, brown one) we pulled out the bottles of pink mink champagne to finish. Two bottles later the guests arrived and we ate our feast. Since there are no conversion recipes for making a real pumkin into a canned one I had guessed and my pie suffered. It still tasted good but we had ouor dessert in bowls since my pie had failed to solidify in the oven. The rest of the night involved Myst and I having a dance party to the Joan Armatrading song "Rosie" on repeat, singing along to the unappreciated Grease 2, and having a deep conversation until 3:30 in the morning when we decided it was time to go to bed since I had a bus to catch at 6:45 the next morning. Myst and I dutifully set 3 alarm clocks before parting ways. Of course none of them went off. Maximus woke me up at 6:30 which meant the next 15 minutes were spent frantically finsing my stuff from all over their house and backyard, packing my bag, and finding the tour company's number to let them know I was running late. It all ended up wroking out ok and I was able to board the bus that would take me to Melbourne. It was not easy leaving Myst and Max but they'll be in Melbourne with me in a few weeks so I wasn't too bad. This is the bad part of having great friends so far away from your home.
The next three days were spent on a trip to the Grampians National Park and the Great Ocean Road. The first day involved me trying to stay awake while hiking up and down waterfalls and mountains. I fell asleep pretty early that night and woke up to go on another mountain hike in the Grampians before we drove on the magnificent Great Ocean Road. My descriptive writing skills are lacking so I am going to copy from my guidebook here. "The Great Ocean Road is one of the world's greatest driving experiences and one of Australia's proudest tourism showpieces. The 175km road snakes around celebrated surf beaches, through forests clinging to the edge of cliff-tops, across windswept coastal plains, all the while passing through idyllic hamlets, vibrant beach communities, and national parks teeming with plants and animals." Tons of ships have wrecked off the coast and we must have stopped a gazillion times to admire some stone formations just off the coast, the most famous being the 12 apostles, of which there are only 8 left. Being constantly hit by waves from the Southern Ocean means that the stones sometimes get knocked over back into the sea. A few years 2 people got stranded on a new island after the "London Bridge" formation collapsed. Turns out the two were having an affair and did not appreciate the media attention they received after being rescued by helicopter. In addition to lots of beaches and big rocks we saw some koalas in the wild and a parrot colony that liked to sit on people's heads. I think I will have to write about the little penguins and Melbourne tomorrow. I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!