Apart from the Acid on the Road I Had a Good Trip

That smoke on the horizon didn't seem to be a good sign
for the start of my trip to the BBWF

I'm starting to think that I'm in one of those 'Final Destination' films where the "Death Angel" is after me -
Road Trip #2
On Friday for the third time in just over a year I get caught in the third highway closure involving a major road accident.

WTF?! the truck's numberplate is 047WFT
 ... close but no cigar, I guess:-) 

Truck explodes on the M1 at Loganholme, near Brisbane, shaking nearby homes

"Police said the tanker, which was carrying hydrochloric acid, was on the M1 near the southbound exit of the motorway on Bryants Road, opposite the Logan Hyperdome.

Southbound lanes of the M1 reopened late on Friday afternoon after being closed for hours.
Police declared an emergency situation for a one-kilometre radius of the crash site, but lifted the restrictions late Friday afternoon.
Acting Fire Inspector Jed Crosby said it was a miracle the driver got out and no-one was hurt."

I set off on Friday morning for the Byron Bay Writers Festival, as I had a three-day pass and was spending two nights at a motel down in Byron Bay on the first real holiday I had taken since my last trip to Sydney for last year's NRL grand final.

I had planned to get down to Byron Bay in time for the first talk that I wanted to see on the day called 'The Extreme Boundaries of the Sayable', although I wasn't too concerned about not being there for that talk, as long as I was there to hear/see the Jimmy Barnes talk which started at 11:15 am.

But on the subject of 'The Extreme Boundaries of the Sayable', I think that I crossed all of those boundaries of the sayable when I was stuck in this snail pace (literally snail pace) traffic until about 11:15 am.
Then I had to get into the shopping centre, which had been on my left-hand side for the last two hours, before my bladder exploded, because silly old me figured Byron Bay was only a one and a half hour drive in steady traffic conditions, and if I needed to go to the toilet then there were plenty of service stations along the way to stop at, so why bother wasting more time going before I hit the road?
Probably because a tanker would explode on the freeway, and I would get stuck in slow moving traffic for two hours where I couldn't leave my car to empty an ever expanding and painful bladder.
And boy was I pissed that I couldn't leave my car to take one.
Although, on the thankful side of things I should be glad that I checked the back door of my unit to just make sure it was locked when a nagging voice inside my head was telling me to check it even though I was pretty darn sure it was locked.
If I hadn't of wasted time checking that back door then I might have ended up right near that trucked when it exploded.
So maybe I should have counted myself lucky under the circumstances.
But then again, maybe if I hadn't of checked my back door I might have been past the truck and down in Byron to see most of the talks.
I guess I'll never know what might have been, just what was, which makes me feel pissed off again thinking about that.
Some people just can't be grateful, can they?-)

Watching these guys hosing down that truck didn't
help with my bladder problem at all

Tex Perkins in conversation with
Bec Mac on Friday at the BBWF

By the time I got to Byron Bay it was about ten past one in the afternoon and I got to see Tex Perkins answer one final question of his talk before finally getting to see/hear my first full talk of the day titled, 'Grief: Does it Ever End?'
That seemed like a very good question on the day I thought.
I wrote about seeing Tex and 'The Ape' play the Byron Bay Bluesfest last year in this post -
Good Friday at Bluesfest 2016

And 'The Ape''s guitarist in the red shirt kept reminding me of Mike Nesmith from The Monkees.

Well, 2016 was the Year of the Monkey, I guess.

A sculpture that greeted me
on Friday at the BBWF 

That skull sculpture did remind me of a 'Final Destination' movie poster, as well.

Final Destination 5?! 

The 'Grief: Does it Ever End?' talk on Friday at the BBWF

Lisa Wilkinson and Tracey Spicer on Friday at Byron Bay

After the talk about grief, I went to check out the talk between Lisa Wilkinson and Tracey Spicer, two well-known Australian TV news and current affairs presenters.
Lisa had tripped in Italy while on a trip to Italy the week before and broken her arm, and she nearly didn't get down to Byron on time for the talk, because apparently there had been a truck explosion on the highway just outside of Brisbane we were told, and the freeway had been closed.
I could just imagine how frustrating that could be somehow;-)

The weird thing is that Lisa broke the arm that is so prominent in the 2017 winning Archibald painting prize painted of her by Peter Smeeth.

"Peter Smeeth’s portrait of television presenter and journalist Lisa Wilkinson is a companion piece to his painting of her husband Peter FitzSimons, which was selected for the 2010 Archibald Prize.

‘Appearing on television every weekday morning makes Lisa one of the most recognisable people in Australia and an obvious choice for the Archibald Prize. Being such a high achiever and a great role model for women adds to her appeal as a subject,’ says Smeeth.
‘Television brings its subjects into your living room – and here, I have done that literally as if Lisa is in the viewer’s space. Three important things in Lisa’s life are her family, television presenting and print journalism so I have placed her between a television and a magazine, while her family members are reflected on the screen. I wanted to convey the idea that when Lisa is not on television, her family is her focus.’"

Lisa Wilkinson: How A Slip In The Shower Ruined My Italian Holiday
This talk turned out to be my favourite talk of the day and I ended up buying Tracey's book to read, as I never knew she had grown up at Redcliffe like the Bee Gees had, so Tracey's book was bound to be an interesting read I thought.

Plus, Tracey and Lisa have a lot of guts I soon found out in this talk, and I don't mean that they were "porking up", either.

I notice that Tracey shares her 50th year
with a great club, too;-)

A Walk of Art and Synch in Redcliffe

The 'Intertwined Lives in Ficton' talk ... although
I find life way stranger than fiction 

Those authors above need
 to read this, I think

I finished Friday at the BBWF with a talk called, 'Intertwined Lives in Ficton' in the Yellow Brick Road pavilion and then it was time to hit the road again, but this time only down the road into town to check into my motel, then leave the car at the motel and walk into town for a feed and a look at some street artists do their thing.

'Yellow Glyph' by Suvira McDonald