Music is a great Time Machine. Actually, so is smell, but that would bugger up the title of this post and I'm not going back and changing it now, so lets move back to music, which is where I started...

I was just cruising through my MP3 collection trying to decide what mood I was in so that I could play some matching music. I happened across Robert Plant, In the Mood (isn't that nice how the song fits the previous sentence, bloody hell I can write huh?), so a double click had it playing on WINAMP.

I was instantly beamed back to Boxing Day 2004, about 20 minutes out of Herbster (that's a Google Earth link, if you don't have Google Earth yet, go get it).

I can smell the Mighty Taurus again. I can see the road with fuzzy edges because of the snow. And the brown trees standing in the snow looking bloody cold. The kids are in the backseat starting to get a little fidgety after the drive up from Eau Claire. Gabba is navigating with the GPS plugged into the laptop trying to figure out how far we had to go and keeping an eye on my speed with the laptop (damn GPS accuracy). I'm wondering if we are about to fall off the edge of the planet we are so far away for civilization, but somewhat cheered by the fact the US military satellites wouldn't let me do that. And on the radio, fading in and out we are so far from the transmitter, is Robert Plant's In the Mood.

I can clearly remember enjoying the hell out of the moment, happy to be with my family, going on an adventure, being thankful that I worked (hard) for a company that got us to the US. There was dozens of like moments while we were there (Door County, Chicago X 2, Minnesota, Sledding, Dubuque Iowa even). But that song now sticks in my memory. I recall listening hard tot he radio because I couldn't remember who sang the song and knowing that I'd need that bit of info to emule it when we got back home. And I guess for ever more that song will take me to 20 minutes east of Herbster.

The Doors song Touch Me beams me back a very long time (15 or 16 years back and before your time Gabba) into a rental car (oddly I can't remember what it was) driving around The Bays. The perfume Dune transports me to exactly the same spot and time, but that is diverting us off the subject again!

Tonight's photo is of Ali swimming at Browns Bay on Saturday arvo. she was up all night last night being sick, so hopefully a photot here will make her feel better.