Days of the Dragon, continued!

Now that I have my Internet up and running (or at least staggering gamely in the right direction), I can amaze and awe the world with the further exploits of Smerk & Co. in the Americas!

After her many adventures in foreign and fascinating places such as Baltimore, Smerk sadly started to feel a bit under the weather, which put something of a limit to her depredations across the countryside. All the same, we managed to keep her well occupied. Even if sometimes it took the efforts of everybody involved to get her up and out of bed.

Droopy dragon

You know how dragons can be in the morning, after all. . .

Since we'd missed being able to celebrate Easter together on the 23rd of March, we decided to go wild for Orthodox Easter on April 27th. I boiled up some eggs, and we tried to figure out how to use the weird egg dying kit that I'd picked up in some store. We got rather creative, though I do say so myself.

Eggs 1

Eggs 2

Eggs 3

Eggs 4

Eggs 5

Smerk was quite pleased with her dragon eggs, I believe.

Dragon egg

Though she did still have a tendency to flee in terror whenever a camera was pointed in her own general direction.

Run away!

But here you can see the fruits (errrrrr, the eggs) of our labours!

Fruity eggs

I even have a brief bit of video, if I can ever figure out how to get it onto here. . .then you, too, can hear the dulcet siren allure of Smerk's sultry Southern voice!

Keeping a wild young dragon occupied is a full-time job, I assure you. When roaming around the countryside terrorising the locals was out of the question, it was often time to pull out the cards or other games. Jenga turned out to be a valuable tool for keeping Smerk tamed. . .more or less.

Jenga 1

Jenga 2

Jenga 3

Jenga 4

Jenga 5

We also got a bit creative in designing our own carefully engineered structures.

Jenga 6

Jenga 7

Jenga 8

Jenga 9

Some designs were. . .even more unsuccessful than others.

Jenga 10

I also made sure that she got outside on occasion to experience that nice healthy Maryland carbon monoxide and to tan her freckles. On one sunny day, we decided to venture out to the City Park to test out that most devious of Aussie inventions: the boomerang.

Smerk had been thoughtful enough to provide a small pair of them.

Weapon of Mass Destruction

Since Smerk is a warmth-loving critter, the weather decided to be nice and calm and sunny and rather cool. All in all, though, it was a good day for being out.

Park 1

Park 2

Park 3

Park 4

There were even a number of moving target available for us to try out our boomerang skills upon.

Geese 1

Geese 2

Here is Smerk, demonstrating for us all the proper form and technique for miniature boomerang flinging:

Smerky form 1

Smerky form 2

Smerky form 3

As you can see, she has an excellent form indeed. . .

After about half an hour of practice, we managed to successfully work out the proper method to throw the boomerangs in such a way that they sort of flopped loosely to the ground after flying in perfectly straight paths and then loose themselves in the grass. We figured that that was skill enough for kangaroo hunting, as the roos would be so confused that they'd be easy to catch. Or else they'd die of laughter, and we could scavenge the bodies.

As all good things sadly seem to do, though, Smerk's travels in the Northern Hemisphere had to come to an end. For her last full day here, she decided that she wanted to venture to the beach again. And so once more we drove out to the wilds of Assateague Island, where we explored the "Life of the Dunes" nature trail.

There were plenty of dunes, but not much in the way of nature other than shrubs. And one killdeer that eyed us rather curiously for a while, perhaps wondering if adding Aussie hair to its nest would give it that cosmopolitan flair.

Killdeer

Smerk had fun exploring the ruins of the town that had been built on the island, clambering about on the old highway. It would probably not be the best road to try driving along today.

The high road

The town was built by some rather over-optimistic developers who forgot about little minor things such as storms, which tend to do rather drastic thing to small sandy islands.

After a few hours the day got cloudy and cooler, and it looked as though another storm might pay the island a visit soon.

A little atmosphere

And so it was decided to take Smerk home and thaw her out again.

The next day was the first of May. The day of the Smerk's departure. M'aider indeed. Once more I ventured forth into the perilous world of the Baltimore Metropolitan Area, to take her to the airport there. In spite of the obligatory confusion and snarl-ups involving the checking in of her baggage, we managed to get her to the security checkpoint well before her flight took off. For the rest of the news on her return to civilisation, you'll have to get the information direct from the dragon's mouth.

All in all, and in spite of nefarious germs making their presence known, I think that the occasion was most successful indeed. I got to admire Smerk's freckles in person. She got to be introduced to the world of Indiana Jones movies (even if she did fall asleep halfway through the first one). Maryland got to learn just what it's missing by not being part of Australia. When my fiendish plot to kidnap Smerk and lock her away in my basement finally comes to fulfillment, I think that all should go well.

Here's hoping that that reunion comes soon!

(And I hope you all had as much fun seeing Smerk in her nighties as I did. . .)