Questions and Comments from Readers

1. This is a hybrid eclipse, meaning that in some places it will be annular and other places total. An annular eclipse is one where the moon is farther from the earth, so it doesn’t block the whole sun – instead, a ring of sun stays visible around the outside of the moon. This is a cool thing to see (we drove all the way to Redding, California once to see one) but not worth flying to Australia for. We will be taking a ship to be off the coast of Australia near Exmouth WA for 62 seconds of totality.

2. The bus tour part sounds awful. Yes, it does, and in many ways it is. The upside of having a large group is that you get a larger selection and a bigger chance of meeting excellent people (Judi and Mike, for example), the downside is the herding of cats that has to be done and that some of the people are less wonderful. I haven’t written about Sandy, the incredibly self-centered woman with mobility (and mental?) issues who is travelling with her husband Joe and her son Brandon and his husband Mario. She would sit on the bus and scream for Joe or Brandon until they came to her (Brandon finally made her stop), expects everyone to wait on her and cater to her every need, and she has a horrible hacking cough that makes it sound like she’s vomiting which was so bad during the videos at Parkes that Elise had to ask her to leave the theater, at which point it magically stopped. It stopped just as magically on the plane when the flight attendant told her she had to wear a mask. Mostly she gets ignored. The upside is that everything is taken care of, we just show up, and it’s a pretty big upside. We won’t be doing this type of touring again if we can avoid it, but going to Parkes was worth it.

3. Nobody asked about this, but since I now know my niece Avery is following along and will appreciate it, I’d like to speak for a moment about the variety of bathrooms we’ve encountered and some features thereof.

-  Our hotel in Hawaii, a Hilton Garden Inn, had the highest flow rate of any showerhead I’ve ever used in my life, and since the amount of water tied directly to the temperature, there was no more ecologically friendly option. Also, all the showers we’ve been in so far have the showerheads that slide up and down, which we like. The Hawaii shower also had a footbar for shaving, which no other showe has had.

 -   All the toilets, even the ones at the fuel stations and the town playground we stopped at, have the full and half flush options.

-  At the Matthew Flinders Inn, the beautiful 1970s tiling in the bathroom

-   At the two most expensive hotels, the Four Seasons and the Intercontinental, there is not enough shelving to put your toiletries, nor drawer/closet space to unpack. It’s slightly better at the Intercontinental.

Don't worry, he's fully clothed

-   At the Intercontinental, the bathroom has a frosted glass wall separating the shower and the bedroom, so the showering person’s outline is completely visible from the bedroom, and also the bathroom light shines through it if you turn it on at night. It’s not as awkward as the see-through round shower Ben and I had in Switzerland by a long shot, but it’s a little weird. The toilet is also in its own little frosted-glass walled compartment off the bathroom. And finally, the shower has both the usual wall mounted sprayer and one directly overhead, which will come on and pour cold water on your head when you first turn on the shower in a most shocking manor. Ask Dave about that one. It also has the drain in front of, and the width of, the door, which seems odd at first but actually makes a lot of sense.