Oh, The Lights!

*Melissa*

While Chad experienced something spiritual with his Darwinian brother, I cooed at the sight of all the other furry, prickly, and downright adorable creatures – that was until we entered the “typically Australian” roo pen. All sorts of roos were to be fed in this enormous fenced in area that you could wander through at your leisure. Some fat, lethargic lazy yellowtail roo welcomed us just inside the gate, finding the strength to hoist himself up from the ground and waddle over to fetch the crackers from our hands. Great start! We thought. The other roos, however, seemed to be resisting our crackers – even the fancy albinos, much to our disappointment. That was, however, until we found the fluffy roos congregating towards the other end of the enclosure. With faces resembling my beloved great Danes, I had to coax them into letting me pet them. Within minutes, the little guys had caught on that we had something tasty, and one of the big ones was trying to win my heart with a hug. Ok – so this hug may have resembled “mauling” or “trampling” or even “groping” – as his paws dove down my V-neck shirt, and scraped along my hips. His giant bunny feet stayed on the ground, so I was safe. I counted myself lucky to walk away with only a scratched up chest.

As we strolled out of the park, we found that we were the only car left in the entire parking lot, and I was pleased as a peach, feeling like our admission was some of the best-spent dollars in our whole 6 months!

Our next stop was Lobethal – a site I was equally excited about. Lobethal is renowned in South Australia for their Christmas Lights. Even my travel book mentioned the “Lights of Lobethal” in December, where the whole down gets decked out with Christmas Spirit (and lights, of course!). Chad seemed to be less enthused, not quite grasping the whole idea of it all. I, having been feeling a bit homesick with the holiday festivities, was determined to change his attitude about it… that was, until we rolled into town at 6… and the whole shindig wasn’t to start till 8:30. To make a long story short, we ended up acquainting ourselves with Lobethal better than any other South Australian town (i.e. the one main road about 3 blocks long). We visited the Christmas market where we bought some local berries, we ate some hotdogs, and some hot sugary donuts. I gobbled down some delicious local berries with homemade ice cream and whipped cream, and we waited until 8:30. And then the magic happened. We were impressed that Jesus was making a personal appearance in such a small out-of-the-way town, as advertised on the billboard: “Baby Jesus here LIVE! TONIGHT ONLY!” We watched the streets light up. We drove around with the Christmas Playlist on, gawking at the festive decorations. It was a bit chilly, but we had the windows rolled down, and there wasn’t a snowflake in sight. The sight of the lights made me feel all warm and fuzzy, and for the rest the ride home, all I could think of was home, and the traditional drive-thru of the neighborhoods Dad had always insisted on to see the lights when I was tiny; and the smell of wood smoke drifting up into the freezing night air as families nestled down for the night.