Australia - Sunday May 15 - Welcome to Brisbane

Sunday morning we flew to Brisbane, the third and final stop on our vacation. We rented a car and drove to the Park Royal Hotel, checked in and then headed off to church. On the way we saw a little bit of Brisbane (not briz-bane but briz-bn), which is a lot like Phoenix--warm but more tropical than desert, large and bustling but not cosmopolitan.

We attended church with the Pascoe family. David baptized Brian and Margaret Pascoe while he was on his mission; their children Christine and Andrew were tiny back then, but the rest of us met them as preteens, the pleasant well-meaning kind. We only stayed for sacrament meeting because our kids were ravenous by then, so the Pascoes took us back to their house where we had bananas and cordial (a sweet noncarbonated beverage) to stave off starvation. Then dinner was served: meat, potatoes, sweet potatoes, a green vegetable, an orange vegetable, cabbage (all with gravy), and cheesecake for dessert. After dinner we had a nice visit. The kids played Atari, and we watched a tape of the Commonwealth Games.

As the evening wound down, Karren began to cough quite persistently, so Brother Pascoe got out his vibrating massage thingie which seemed to help, but she was still quite sick. So we bundled her back to the hotel and to bed.