On the eve of the missing day.

Welcome all! This is the effective FIRST POST on my blog before leaving for Australia. So for those of you from holland, uzbekistan or oklahoma, or if you happen to be a piece of robo blog-trolling software; a bit of backstory.

I have lived all of my life in what is essentially a forested area, and i have not so secretly always wanted to go live in the desert for a while. (i know what's up obi-wan.) Well now i have my chance. I am going to work on a cattle ranch in the middle of the Australian outback for the next few months. I can't speak too much as to what i will find there besides poisonous animals and cattle, but therein lies the adventure. Hopefully i won't meet any poisonous cattle. Or the dreaded Eagle-roo.

                                                         *Eagle-roo courtesy of Andrea B and Belle C.


Not only will there be cattle, there will be art. Delmore Downs Station, about 270 km north of Alice Springs, NT is very near the aboriginal area known as Utopia. Don Holt the owner of the ranch has amassed an extensive collection of art from the locals. (http://www.delmoregallery.com.au/) This is of particular interest to me as I am an artist by trade myself (brittirick.com) and an appreciator of anything creative.  Again, more on this as i learn it.

Here is where the craziness begins.
Today (its 12:06 AM) is officially and literally the longest day of my life. Once i board the plane at dulles, i will fly for several hours one hour back in time. then after a layover of a few more hours i will continue my journey 6 more hours back in time. At this point i will hit the international dateline (with Keith Morrison. BAM i will skip an entire day and go from (dawn? midnight?) on the 5th of march to early morning on the 7th. From here i will continue going back in time 2 more hours. somewhere in the neighborhood of 21 flight hours with possibly 6 hours of layover time. And if you're not in a cold sweat by now, hold down your toupee. . .

I won't even be there yet.

Yep, i've planned my trip so that i will have a few days in Brisbane of figure-out-what-the-heck-day-it-is-and-sleep-off-my-jet-lag time. After this i will board another plane for one more trip back in time. A half hour. as in 0.5 That's right i will be in the fuzzy time-netherworld know as the Australian Central Standard Time Zone. Dotted around the planet here and there are a chosen few time-zones that protect the rest of the world from the unspeakable horror of not having the sun be at it's highest point in the sky at noon. This is the true nature of my work.

So armed with only a banjo and what fits into my backpack* (which turns out to be a lot), i will set off for the opposite hemisphere of the planet. I will be using this blog as one of my primary forms of communication with the rest of the world so stay tuned for more!

Also I would like to take this opportunity to thank my awesome cousin Marina for helping set all this up. (she worked at delmore downs for a few months at the end of last year)

                                                 * 6 months worth of stuff

                                     
several pairs of clothes
sleeping bag
tent
tent footprint
sleeping pad
sandals
socks
tilley hat
knit hat
1 Eagle-roo action-figure (not to scale)
head lamp
contact lenses and a butt-load of contact solution
my laptop and charger
1 copy of franny and zooey
1 copy of the stand
1 copy of robinson crusoe
1 copy of the inheritors
a carry on backpack
banjo (name to be determined)
some printed out music to learn
sketchbook
travel watercolor set with brush
pencil pouch with pens and stuff
a camping towel thing
various knick-knacks including but not limited to:
cellphone charger, camera picture downloader,
banjo strings, an ipod, toothbrush . . . etc

that's right. it ALL fits in the backpack with the exception of the banjo itself. and im reasonably sure that it's less than 50lbs. (i hope)