Hello from Beautiful Airlie Beach!  Glen and I arrived here by ferry this afternoon, and it's where we plan to spend the next 6 days or so before we move on to our new career - driving 'Return RVs' from one destination to another!  More on that later, allow me to back up from where we left off:  Last week in Sydney I got my New South Wales driver's license!  Silly as it sounds, I was very excited over what a simple process it was - they just tied it into my American license!  It also makes me feel a little more local, and it's nice not to have to carry my passport around.  I plan on learning to drive in Australia very soon.  😉

On Sunday we hopped on a plane to Hamilton Island.  We were there for my sister-in-law Sharon's birthday.  What a beautiful island!  Palm trees, exotic flowers, my own personal kangaroo (not really) (well kind of) who hung out on the lawn outside of our room....it was a blast.

There he is!  

Some of the Australian Morgan's (L-R) Bob my father-in-law, Zach, Me, Glen, Sharon, Pat (Bob's partner) and Bev my mother-in-law.

More Morgan's:  Zach, Gary & Megan (brother & sister-in-law), Sharon, Tony, Me and Glen.

I got to spend time with my in laws.  Although Glen and I have been together a long time, I haven't spent a whole lot of time with them because of how far apart we've lived.  We had a great time in a fun and beautiful atmosphere and it just felt very comfortable.  

For a couple of months Glen has been in touch with RV rental companies regarding driving campers back to certain destinations.  For example:  A lot of RV's are driven one way from Sydney to Cairns, and then there aren't enough RV's in Sydney.  So for a very, very cheap price, we can drive the RV's back in the other direction....perfect, considering we're slowly making our way back to Sydney!  So here's the plan for now:  next week we are driving an RV about 1,000 kilometers north to Port Douglas.  We'll spend three days there, in the RV while getting beach time in.  Three days later,we've arranged to drive another RV down to Brisbane, not far from where Sharon lives!  At this point, the RV people are arranging a relocate back from Brisbane to Sydney, where we should be by the end of September.

Which brings us here, to Airlie Beach, where right now Glen and I are sitting on the balcony of our little 'holiday apartment.'  We bought some groceries so we don't have to keep eating out. We just had a beer and it's raining, but very warm out.  We're going to put on our raincoats in a bit and explore the town.  

After months of counting down to this adventure, I can honestly say that so far, everything has been as wonderful as I'd thought it would be.