The Big Day!

July 3, 2010

'Ow ya going'? We're doing great here. Today was a really long day we got up at around 4 to get ready to head to the Cargill plant which was an hour long bus ride. They must not have heaters on their buses, because that was the coldest most miserable ride of my life! To make matters worse the air vent above me was broken, and cold air conditioning air blew on me the whole way. We tried to look at the positive side of the frigid bus ride... The cooler could feel warm. We were dead wrong, DEAD WRONG! Not only were the coolers colder they had huge chiller fans running. It was like being in Wyoming at ten below, with 20 mph winds and 90% humidity. It went straight to our bones! The fans had enough force that people were losing papers off their clipboards all day. They also have a lot more strict regulations down here. We had to wear masks, in order to keep from getting Q-Fever, safety glasses, and weren't allowed to wear gloves.

All in all, it was a pretty good 21st birthday! We went to banquet, Brogan and Wade got their name called a few times for individual awards. Murdoch University, the team we traveled with won, with our team in a very close second. It was a good day, and we are really enjoying ourselves. Hope you are all doing well.

Cheers,
Jaymes

Got up nice and early and headed to Tamworth for the Beef Judging part of the contest. The bus ride was the coldest bus ride I've ever experienced... Everyone down here thinks we must not be cold here because it doesn't get even close to as cold as back home, which is very true. However, as I pointed out on the bus, we believe very strongly in things like bus heat, blankets on your bed and COATS! I'm pretty sure the bus actually had the A.C. on! Anyways, we made it to the plant and had a bit of time to warm up before we headed to the chillers (Aussie talk for coolers). Two Australian girls passed out, it was so cold. Despite the cold it was one of the most enjoyable contests for me. After finishing up the contest in late afternoon, we headed back to the college, where we had our banquet dinner. We had a great meal of rib steak, mushrooms and potatoes! We were randomly seated with other students and Becky and I sat a table with some students who wanted to know what we thought about Obama! So, we got to have a good politic discussion. After dinner we had the presentation of awards. As a team we won lamb judging, reasons/questions, and retail and primal identification. Winning lamb judging was especially exciting as we have always struggled with it. Overall a pretty successful day!

Jessi