Mini Me

Mini Me
Rob and Mini Me
Friday 15th August

Yes, we haven’t posted for almost a week, but it’s been a very emotional week with Rob meeting his puppet Mini Me. But here he is, Wally. It’s an incredible likeness and Wally is real glad folks to be coming to live in OZtralia. We’re also bringing another member of the puppet family home with us - Bongo. Bongo the Gorilla. Here he is, pictured with Rob and Wally. Kidabra, the magic conference for kids’ performers is awesome. We’re having a FABULOUS time! We’re the only ones here from Australia but there’s people from all over the world. On Wednesday night there was a magic auction - it started at 7pm and went until 2am in the morning!!! It was a comedy auction and just hilarious and I stayed up all night so I could bring Bongo home with us! We’ve developed some awesome ideas for our show next year and met lots of wonderful people and learnt about some other conferences we hope to attend next year. Highlights of the week have included Rob not being able to understand Southern and Mexican accents and so ordering things he didn’t want by just answering “yes” to everything they ask him. There’s some incredibly funny performers here and some absolutely awesome gear for our shows. We’ve bought LOTS. Rob now has purchased 4 pair of shoes for himself (he might go shopping for Mini Me tomorrow), a few shirts, etc. etc. Infact, we’ve had to buy two extra bags to bring our stuff back. We’ve also adopted a waitress from Ruby Tuesday’s who is a twin of my niece, Amelia. The conference days have been VERY long and VERY funny. It’s our last day at the conference tomorrow and then we go back to Nashville for a night before flying back to San Francisco. There have been amazing performers here who have been really inspiring - Duane Lafilo, Barry Mitchell have been a real inspiration.  It's also been a great week booking wise because we have gained a 3 week gig again for the September holidays and another lot of performances at Woodford Folk Festival for next year  which were both a little unexpected but very cool. 

Redneck Girl Lyrics

I just couldn't resist sharing with you the lyrics of the first song I heard in Nashville. Here it is. Enjoy. 

Redneck Girl - Bellamy Brothers

Redneck girl likes to cruise in Daddy's pickup truck

And a redneck girl plays her hand when she's down on her luck

Living for a friday afternoon

She's gonna show one ole boy that we can move

And I pray that someday I will find me a redneck girl

Redneck girl likes to stay out all night long

She makes sweet rock 'n roll while she listens to the country songs

She's waitin' for that moment of surrender

Her hands are calloused but her heart is tender

And I pray that someday I will find me a redneck girl

Oh give me a, give me a, give me a redneck girl

Give me a give me a give me a redneck girl

Oh give me a, give me a, give me a redneck girl

Oh give me a, give me a, give me a redneck girl

A redneck girl got a name on the back of her belt

She's got a kiss on her lips for her man and no one else

A coyote's howling out on the prairie

First comes love then comes marriage

And I pray that someday I will find me a redneck girl

Yeah give me a, give me a, give me a redneck girl...

Nashville Red Neck City

Nashville

Redneck City - That’s what they say themselves

Monday 11th August 10th 

Yesterday, we flew from San Francisco to Memphis to Nashville. The music scene here is awesome but I’m not exactly sure about Nashville itself. The first thing we saw at the airport was a shopping catalogue for guns and the first song I heard was “I want a redneck woman.” Last night we went down to Broadway and saw some live Honky Tonk bands at Tootsies Orchid Lounge and Layla’s Bluegrass and Hillbilly Inn.  I couldn’t stop laughing (within) at all the cowboy hats, boots and cowboy clothes. The music though was wild - I know now exactly why people rave about the Nashville music scene.  We went to the Country Hall of Fame and Museum but I was totally disappointed. My only interest in country music has stemmed from the Dixie Chicks, they introduced me to the amazing Patty Griffin and Alison Krauss, but there was nothing in the museum about the Dixie Chicks.  No write up, no nothing. If you’ve ever seen their documentary “Shut Up and Sing” - you’ll know why. They made a statement a few years ago about being embarrased about the USA taking part in the war and embarrassed that George Bush is from Texas and this whole south region black banned their music. So they’ve also removed any information about them from the Country Hall of Fame Museum. Rob said I was being a stirrer, but I went to the information desk and asked if they had any information about the Dixie Chicks. The supervisor said in his Southern drawl “I don’t think we have anything on them just right now.” And that was the end of it! In the afternoon we visited tacky souvenir shops that had such delights as Hillybilly cookbooks, Redneck joke books and signs saying things like “Roadkill cafe - You shoot it, we’ll grill it.” We leave tomorrow sadly. Yes, and those are my legs, we went into a cowboy/girl boot shop and tried on some of dem der genuine cowgirl and boy boots fer fun. See ya'all later now. 

Day 8 - Hanging out with friends

Laguna Beach CA

Hanging out with friends

Friday August 8th 

Our last day at Laguna Beach. It has been such a magical experience to stay at the Sea Castle. Helen and Phillip, our wonderful friends from church who are now living in the States came over and we hung out. It was so great! We lunched at the Coffee Pub downtown, then went for an very yummy gelato, walked along the beach, went for a swim and talked talked talked talked talked talked talked shared shared shared shared shared shared.  We’ve decided we want to buy a combined property where we can build little cabins and have 100 adopted kids and have an open door policy where people can just come and go. Sounds like great fun to me.  We also went to the Pageant of the Masters - an amazing outdoor ampitheatre show. It’s pretty hard to describe it. You see a series of huge paintings, one at a time, when the curtain opens and you think “oh, cool, a painting, but on closer inspection, you realise it’s actually people, not a painting at all. Check it out on the net if you’re interested because I feel like any description here is never going to do it justice. It’s an amazing art form.  Right now, as I write this, it’s Saturday morning and we’re cruising the Coast highway from LA, making our way to San Francisco.

Laguna Beach to San Francisco

California Highway One

The Road Trip

Saturday August 8th 

If you’re idea of a road trip is to see the whole of America in one week, we recommend booking a tour with the Jodie and Rob USA travel company.  We’ve done 3800 kms in 4 days. Yes, that’s right - three thousand, eight hundred kilometres in four days.   This is how we’ve done it:

Day 1: Pick up your hire car, drive about 5 hours until the sun sets and then sleep in a tent because there’s nowhere else to sleep. Have Mexican at the fabulous Cocina Michoacana restaurant. 

Day 2: Get up at 5am and drive for 15 hours through the Arizona desert. You’ll see Yosemite National Park and end up at Williams, an entry town to the Grand Canyon. Go to the Route 66 cafe for dinner. Go to bed about 11pm. 

Day 3: Get up at 4:45am. Drive to the Grand Canyon for sunrise. Then drive to LA via Sedona and Jerome and over some of the biggest mountain passes you’ve seen in your life. Arrive in LA, after getting lost - your total driving time for that day would be 20 hours in the same day. 

Day 4: Get up at 5am and head North from LA to San Francisco.  Your friends will tell you it takes 8 hours, but you find out it takes about 13 hours. See Elephant Seals, Big Sur, Carmel and eat a packet of blue corn tortilla chips for lunch. 

You must at all times have a large packet of tortilla chips handy, in addition to an unlimited supply of humour and an unprecedented reserve of patience and lastly an overflowing abundance of adventure. It also helps not to criticise each other’s driving styles - we learnt this. The last photo is of elephant seals, they are HUGE! The Lonely Planet guide forgot to mention the SMELL of the seaweed on Highway 1 and also that the seals make very funny noises!!

Day 7 - Trouble with the Police

Laguna Beach CA

 Trouble (with the police) in Paradise

Thursday August 7th 

 Today, we got in trouble with the Californian police. Well, not exactly “in trouble” - we got a parking ticket and you have to pay your fine at the police department! So now we have a Laguna Beach Police Department record and a copy of the fine to prove it. We just didn’t see the parking meter. I was too busy jumping out of the convertible (literally jumping out of it onto the sidewalk) because the gutters are so high over here the car door won’t open when you park your car. And Rob was too busy trying to park properly.  I didn’t even bother trying to give my pathetic explanation to the police department, I just paid the $36. We also saw a very moving  John Lennon art collection for sale in one of the galleries. If we had a spare $3700, we would have bought home a 1/50 print of the Imagine lyrics. There were sketches, lyrics and prints. All amazing and released by Ono.  We went for an ocean swim again today, leaving our towels and gear on the private beach our hosts own! According to the taxi driver who saved us the other night, the ocean water comes straight from the North Pole!  That could explain why it’s a little cooler (verging on crispy freezing) than Mooloolaba beach.

Day 6 - Love affair with Levis 501's

Laguna Beach CA

 - A love affair with Levis - 501’s 

Wednesday August 7 – Shopping, Beach, Church

I have to tell you Rob does not often outwardly show his excitement. Sure, he gets excited, but he’s not the kind to show it. That is, until today. Let me introduce you to his love affair with Levi 501’s.  We drove to Fashion Island, a huge shopping centre in Newport Beach. On the way, we raced a Lamborgini, (see photo above) but unfortunately, we lost. Then, we headed for Macy’s where Rob’s heart started to flutter.  I could see it in his face, his lips started to quiver, his eyes were rolling backwards and there they were - Levi 501’s for $35. He couldn’t believe it - it’s one of the few times I’ve seen him so outwardly excited. It was great!  He also got a fantastic Ben Sherman t-shirt for a steal plus an extra 11% discount for overseas travellers.Tonight, we went to a testimony meeting at church at Laguna Beach, where people share stories of healings they’ve had through prayer - it was awesome! Very inspiring. Then after church, we went to a VERY cool Mexican restaurant called Wahoos. It was great. Thus endeth another perfect day in California, USA.