Alice Springs (Tuesday)

Another slow day today. I had another big sleep in this morning- I think I was smart to get down a day early, I would have been pretty wiped out leaving tomorrow otherwise. This morning I achieved very little, I dyed my hair. Leon and Sandra were both home for lunch, then I spent a while trying to organise my stuff for the weekend. We don't have much room, so I need to pack separately again.
I had a really weird conversation at lunch with Leon, about toileting while we travel over the desert. I don't mind talking about that stuff, but usually I set the boundaries on the conversation. It was a necessary conversation, but I don't have that sort of relationship with him, so I struggled a bit.
Sandra and I then met up after she finished work to go buy a camping toilet. If I thought the conversation with Leon was embarrassing... I can tell you, trying out toilet in front of a complete stranger, when you can almost hear the wheels turning in their head "How does she even go to the toilet" is much worse!
I wanted to get myself a couple of spare tubes (in case I get a flat tyre) before I left, so I went into the bike shop I passed yesterday, Ultimate Ride. The guy in there couldn't help me, but he was lovely. I went down to the Avanti shop, where they did have some. For $13 each! Either my guys (Rapid Plus Avanti. Great shop! Corner of Cimitere and St Johns Streets) are even better to me than I realized, or things are way more inflated here than I thought!
I went to the supermarket to stock up for the trip with Sandra, and to get a copy of New Idea (turns out Alice Springs is a day behind the rest of Australia, hence my trouble to find it yesterday). One of my friends, and team mates from Melbourne, Cobi, is one of the paralympians featured in this weeks addition. Go buy a copy. Now. Ok, when you finish reading this then.

The gorgeous Miss Cobi Crispin!

She looks absolutely amazing, and it reminded me just how proud I am of her, and all our girls (and guys) about to compete for Australia! But especially the Gliders! So your mission over the next two weeks- Watch our athletes as they take on the world! They have put in just as much effort as our Olympians- many of them much more! They deserve every bit as much praise, respect and admiration as their able bodied counter parts. Lets not let them feel forgotten!
You can send any of the athletes a hero message at
http://www.bigpondsport.com/Olympics/HeroMessage/tabid/725/Default.aspx#.UDyVH9XBH04
One of my readers commented on one of my posts last week (I only saw it today) and she put me onto a journalist and comedian, Stella Young. Stella was born with Osteogenesis Imperfecta (brittle bones for those of you how haven't been keeping up). I had a look at some of her stuff online, and actually spent a good part of this afternoon reading her blog. I found it very interesting. I didn't agree with everything she said, but there were lots of things she said I found to be very true to me. In particular
http://www.abc.net.au/rampup/articles/2012/03/27/3464847.htm
and
http://www.abc.net.au/rampup/articles/2012/07/02/3537035.htm
Like I said, there are things in both articles I disagree with, but on the whole, I found them very good! 
Well, I had better go pack, since all I did today was empty everything into a big mess!