Lift Up Your Hearts!

Don't ask me how I came upon Sporcle, but beware—it's addictive!  There are quick quizzes for a wide array of subjects, and I've found them useful for refreshing the ol' memory on things I should know, as well as learning new interesting facts and just plain trivia.  Not to mention spelling, as it doesn't matter if you do know the capital of Iceland if you can't spell Reykjavík, which I can't—yet.  But I'm learning.  Here are some of my favorites:

Countries of Europe  Also North America, South America, Africa (up-to-date with South Sudan!) Asia, Oceania, and—if you have more time than I do—the world) and other geography games.

Books of the Old Testament (oh, those minor prophets!)  Also New Testament, Apostles, Seven Deadly Sins, Roman and Greek gods.

U.S. Presidents:  easy version (in order), hard version (random, by term of office).

Elements of the Periodic Table (accepts either "aluminum" or "aluminium").

Here's one for parents:  can you name all the words in The Cat in the Hat?

Interesting trivia:  common U.S. street names.

There's lots more, some more interesting and useful than others.  I find the music category almost useless, although there are a few good ones if you dig, like Symphony Orchestra Instruments. Composers by Country was kind of fun.

Enjoy!  And please post a comment here if you find good quizzes I haven't mentioned.

There's nothing like a small-town Independence Day parade, and when we're not attending weddings or births or other such out-of-town occasions, the Geneva (Florida) parade is where we like to be.  That's because we're privileged to march with the Greater Geneva Grande Award Marching Band, the parade's star attraction.  (Well, we think so.  Some of the other participants may disagree.)

I've written about the band and the parade before; this year we actually had a whole article about us in a real newspaper, albeit one i'd never heard of until the photographer introduced himself to ask my name.  No, the paper did not choose to run the photo of me, no matter how crazed I must have looked crashing the cymbals.  Instead they very appropriately featured Geneva's own Richard Simonton:  good man, good friend, and the one who makes the band happen (and gets us our free hot dogs).

Sometimes they're completely serious, and other times they're just good-humored and silly.

They're the Greater Geneva Grande Award Marching Band, and they make hundreds of parade spectators smile.

...

Simonton said the band has roots that go back to The World's Worst Marching Band, which was part of Disney back in the 1980s and then was private in the 1990s.

The marching band conductor, Tony Peugh, gives the band much of its levity, Simonton said.

"He's kind of a showman who gets attention going down the street; he's a character," he said. "His nickname is Stinky so we call him Maestro Stinky Peugh, which I think suits the band very well."

Some marchers play with the crowd and interact with the crowd quite a bit, Simonton said.

"Whoever is behind us can get annoyed because we stop a lot and disrupt the parade a little bit," he said. "Stinky will pick someone out of the spectators and we will play 'Happy Birthday,' each in a different key, and then about halfway through the parade we stop for a union break, that always gets people laughing.

It's always a wonderful time, especially reuniting with friends from the WWMB days.  We even have a few (very few) serious moments, such as playing the Star-Spangled Banner, as mentioned in the article.  Our arrangement is by Greg Barker, who played trumpet in the WWMB and was Heather's former trumpet teacher.  No other arrangement of our national anthem moves me like Greg's.  You can get sort of an idea of it here, although this version is synthesized and I really think even our <ahem> decidedly unprofessional rendition is nicer.  You have to imagine the trumpet solo at the beginning; it just doesn't work all artificial flavors and colors.  But it's incredible live.

So here's to Richard, who makes it possible; to Tony, who makes it funny; to Gunga Dad, who keeps us, in Richard's words, "relentlessly hydrated"; to Chaz, the Fearless Leader, to Greg D., who taught me to work the crowd, to ... I'm going to stop naming names now, because I'm sure to leave off someone important ... to band friends old and new ... oh, and one more:  to thirteen-year-old Heather, who read about the World's Worst Marching Band in the newspaper, set her face determinedly to join, and dragged the whole family along with her.  Thanks, all!

The Gang (click to enlarge) (photo credits The Mighty Kara)

Gunga Dad and the Water Wagon: What I Want to Be When I Grow Up

And speaking of pretensions:  Who needs a music degree when you can have the shirt?

If you can't say something nice about someone, don't say anything at all.

At no time was that old advice more pertinent than in this age of instant communication.

Not once, but twice in the past couple of months I have inadvertently sent an e-mail to the wrong person.  I rely too much on the auto-complete function of my mail program, and certain keyboard shortcuts, and don't always double-check.

In both cases, the unintended recipient was our daughter's mother-in-law; as near as I can figure out, some common typo for one of my other correspondents must auto-complete to her address.  The first e-mail would simply have confused her, but the second could have been a disaster, as I had written quite a bit about her and her family in an e-mail that was supposed to go to my sister.

Fortunately, I only said good things -- she's the kind of person about whom it's hard to find something bad to say.  But I can think of contexts in which I could have gotten myself in very hot water indeed.

When our kids were little, we had a record of children's songs (yes, vinyl -- I'm that old), one of which had verses that began, "Be careful, little eyes, what you see," "Be careful, little ears, what you hear," and "Be careful, little hands, what you do." 

Be careful, little fingers, what you type.

The Longevity Project:  Surprising Discoveries for Health and Long Life from the Landmark Eight-Decade Study, by Howard S. Friedman and Leslie R. Martin (Hudson Street Press, New York, 2011)

In the early part of the last century, Dr. Lewis Terman began a long-term study of children identified by their teachers as particularly gifted academically.  Although Terman was interested in intelligence and intellectual leadership, his study left behind a great collection of sociological data, which Friedman, Martin, and their colleagues have mined for information on the factors that predispose human beings to long and productive lives.

The authors expound at length on why the data and their studies are valid, and the results applicable to most people, not just intellectual geniuses.  And the results—no surprise—are much more complicated than conventional wisdom would lead one to believe.  So interesting and complex are the relationships that it would be an insult to the researchers to attempt to distill their findings in a simple review.  But I will note a few items of interest.

• Conventional wisdom often confuses correlation with causation.  For example, although it is commonly believed that happiness promotes good health, and vice versa, the relationship is not in either direction cause-and-effect.  Rather, the same underlying factors promote both happiness and health.
• The best personality predictor of longevity—as children and as adults—was what the authors call conscientiousness:  people who were prudent, persistent, dependable, thrifty, detail-oriented, and responsible.

  It is not only that conscientious people have better health habits and healthier brains, but also that they find their way to happier marriages, better friendships, and healthier work situations.  That’s right, conscientious people create healthy long-life pathways for themselves.

• Another key factor is social network, but as usual, it’s more complicated than simple sociability.  Being an extrovert, having many friends, and abundant social activity do not presage a long life.  Sociability itself, the authors say, is “a wash.” An active social life is a two-edged sword; how it cuts depends on the quality of the friends and of the activities.

  Social ties, however, are critical:  having a large support network is directly correlated with longer life.  Interestingly, feeling loved and cared for did not improve longevity, but helping and caring for others did.

• The death of a parent during one’s childhood, while difficult, had no measurable effect on longevity.  Divorce, on the other hand, was devastating—although for severely dysfunctional and drastically unhappy families, divorce was sometimes the healthier path.

  Parental divorce during childhood was the single strongest social predictor of early death, many years into the future.

• It is decidedly unhealthy to be a “Chicken Little,” seeing impending doom everywhere and interpreting misfortunes as larger than life.  Good health is not simply a matter of thinking positive thoughts, but those who lived longer had the habit of  thinking of downturns as temporary and viewing problems as limited and specific rather than long-lasting and pervasive.
• I quote the following because I was so excited to find in print what I have been saying all along about life expectancy, inspired by my genealogical research.  The oft-expressed belief that our ancestors could only expect to live to age forty (for example) did not square with the many sixty- to ninety-year olds in my family tree.  (Emphasis mine)
  

  The average life expectancy of an American born around the time of the Terman participants (about 1910) was forty-seven years.  The average life expectancy of an American born in recent years is about seventy-nine.  Still, it is totally incorrect to conclude that today’s middle-aged adults will live many, many years longer in retirement than did their predecessors.

  The error arises from the fact that the average life expectancy is computed from birth.  For the Terman subjects’ generation, many children died at birth or shortly thereafter.  Many others died of childhood diseases.  The twentieth century saw tremendous advances [that led] to a dramatic plunge in deaths during infancy and childhood.  So-called modern medical cures have played a relatively minor role in increasing adult life span, something most people do not understand.

• An active lifestyle is conducive to a long, healthy life, but the benefit comes not from forcing yourself to visit the health club three times a week or going for a daily run if those activities are miserable and boring for you.  Get active, the authors say, but in ways that you enjoy and which will thus become not a chore but part of your overall pattern of living.

  There is a dirty little secret known to health professionals that they do not usually much talk about.   Let’s assume that you follow the recommendations of a health authority and get out there most days to go jogging, even though you would much rather be doing something else.  Say you get ready, warm up, jog, and cool down for about an hour a day, which is a modest regimen.

  Over a year, you will spend bout 360 hours doing this, and during 40 years (say, from age twenty-one to age sixty-one), you will spend about 14,400 hours.  Assuming that most of us are awake for about 16 hours a day, this means that you would be spending the equivalent of about 900 days jogging.  This is about two and a half years spent exercising.

  How much longer would such an active person live?  How many extra days of life would this diligent jogger gain in which to pursue other well-loved hobbies?  We do not know for sure, but anything that increased average longevity by more than two and a half years in a generally healthy adult population would be considered a very large effect—a striking phenomenon.  So, with two and a half years spent on the pavement, there is not likely to be much of a net gain in available time for our poor jogger.  Anyone who exercised even more would gain even less, winding up with a net loss of time.

  But it gets even worse.  Note that in this contrived example, the unhappy jogger is trading away thousands of hours of youth for perhaps a few extra years in old age. ...

  Of course, the real picture is somewhat more complicated. The jogger might really enjoy jogging and so might consider the time well spent.  Or the jogger might be warding off a diagnosed tendency toward a debilitating chronic disease such as diabetes.  Still, for many reasonably healthy and active individuals who are out running every morning because some advice list or some friend is pressuring them to try to improve their health, the results are not necessarily going to be what they expect.

Perhaps the best news from The Longevity Project is that most of the unhealthy tendencies the researchers identified from their analysis of the Terman data are within our power to change: they are attitude and lifestyle choices, and the time to get onto a healthy path is now.  Of course it's better to start young, but the benefits are measurable at any age.

Across the life span, many predictors emerged as to who would do better and who would do worse, who would live longer and who would die younger.  It was not good cheer or being popular and outgoing that made the difference.  It was also not those who took life easy, played it safe, or avoided stress who lived the longest.  Rather, it was those who—through an often-complex pattern of persistence, prudence, hard work, and close involvement with friends and communities—headed down meaningful, interesting life paths and, as we have illustrated, found their way back to these healthy paths each time they were pushed off the road.

The qualities and lifestyles cultivated by people on these long-life paths reflect an active pursuit of goals, a deep satisfaction with life, and a strong sense of accomplishment.  That’s not to say that these people possessed a giddy sense of happiness—we described how cheerfulness doesn’t necessarily lead to a long life.  But having a large social network, engaging in physical activities that naturally draw you in, giving back to your community, enjoying and thriving in your career, and nurturing a healthy marriage or close friendships can do more than add many years to your life.  Together, they represent the living with purpose that comes from working hard, reaching out to others, and bouncing back from difficult times.

If you live and work in the United States, you probably haven't thought about taxes since the middle of April.  But for us, Tax Week came later.  Because Porter worked overseas for part of the year, his company insisted on doing our taxes for us.  Or rather, outsourcing our taxes.  This happened once before, domestically, and Porter caught several mistakes before the taxes were finally filed.

This time, we're hoping they did it right.

My heart goes out to our Swiss-American family:  filing U.S. taxes with overseas income is unbelievably complex.  Porter actually likes the kind of work it takes to file our taxes, but this time he took a look at the 67-page stack of papers and decided to trust the hireling accountants for the foreign part.  To be clear, I'm talking about the U.S. paperwork required for reporting foreign income—nothing that had to be sent to foreign governments.

Anyway, the company was slow in getting the job done, so only recently were our taxes filed:  not only for the federal government, but also for two different states.  Neither one of the states was our own, by the way—blessed Florida has no income tax.  States which do, however, make sure they get their cut of anything you earn while working within their borders.  Which is one reason why professional basketball players need tax accountants.

Not that I expect my readers to care about our taxes much—I write because the story goes on, and gets better.

The same week in which we finally filed our taxes, we received in the mail the Dreaded Notice from the IRS:  We don’t think you were honest about your 2009 taxes, and require complete documentation of all the charitable contributions you claim to have made during that year.

Did I mention that Porter is really good about accounting and tax stuff?  We barely had time to be annoyed with the government before he had all the documentation laid out for me to scan and copy; it went out in the next day’s mail.

But the really fun part was that in the process of gathering the documentation, Porter discovered that he had, indeed, made a mistake in the 2009 taxes.  We were actually entitled to a significantly higher deduction than we took, and expect a substantial check from the IRS once we file an amended return.

Thanks, IRS!

This morning I was deep in prayer, as I often am, for our grandchildren.  (Read the rest of this post before you think that sounds oh-so-spiritual.)  Because our side of the family has contributed a tendency for nearsightedness to their gene pool, one of my requests was that their eyes continue to be clear and sharp and healthy.

So far, so good.

“But what about their ears?” I suddenly thought, remembering our nephew who has a hearing loss.^*  So I prayed for their ears.

“But what about their sense of smell?”  I once worked with a guy who had lost his as an infant.  So I prayed for all of their senses.

It’s never bad to pray, but can you see the death spiral I was falling into?  What pitiful faith, and what a horrible view of God, as if he were just waiting to pounce on my mistakes and omissions, like the triumphant victor in a chess match:

“Checkmate!  You prayed for his eyes, but neglected his ears, so I think I’ll make him deaf.  And while I’m at it, maybe lame as well.  And it’s all your fault!  When you see him struggling with his little crutch, like Tiny Tim, remember that if you‘d only prayed properly, he would be running joyfully over the hill!”

Pitiful.  Blasphemous, really.

That God wants us to pray—with specific requests, for occasions of enormous important and for the most trivial desires of our hearts—is undoubtedly true.  That our prayers really matter in the working out of the details of the universe is also true, if somewhat incomprehensible.

Our prayers really matter, but they don’t limit God, nor are they necessary for his work.  If we neglect a detail, he is not going to ignore what we meant in favor of what we actually said, or didn’t say.  We do not need to micromanage God.

You must not imagine that the result depends on you. The question, as far as you are concerned, is whether you are to be honoured in having a hand in the work that God is doing, and will do, whether you help him or not.  It shows no faith in God to make frantic efforts or frantic lamentations.  — George MacDonald, Robert Falconer

^*I suppose this is not the place for a joke about how this affliction especially qualifies him for his successful avocation of rock star.

(Continued from Day 6)

This was our final day in Hawaii, and we checked out of the lovely Hilton Waikoloa Village after enjoying its amenities a bit more.  I don’t think I mentioned that they have quite an impressive collection of artwork.

Our plane did not leave until nearly 9 o’clock at night, however, so we once again ventured south, to catch some sights we passed by on our return from Volcanoes National Park.

Click on the map for more detail.  You will be able to zoom in and out, and move around.

At Kailua Kona (where the Walmart is) we diverted from Route 11 to take in the sights along Ali’I Drive, which hugs the coast (between the pink pins on the map).  From there we found our way to Kealakekua Bay State Historical Park (green pin).  There we explored another heiau, not that we were seeking out places of human sacrifice, you understand.  Both heiaus had this puzzling warning sign:

I mean, I get the part about not damaging the structure, or stealing rocks for souvenirs.  But don’t wrap the rocks?  What’s with that?

We live in a new era:  Twenty years ago I would have puzzled over the problem for a few minutes and moved on, but today I’ve become accustomed to finding answers, even when they don’t really matter, because they're usually only a few clicks (not klicks) away.  Sure enough, I learned that tourists have been wrapping heiau rocks in ti leaves (not tea leaves) for good luck, a custom offensive to the Hawaiians and apparently with no historical basis older than a bad surfer movie from the 80s.

Across Kealakekua Bay is a monument to Captain James Cook, near the spot where he was killed by the Hawaiians in 1779.  In keeping with the tradition of making tourist access difficult, it is accessible only by a steep and difficult climb or an hour-long swim.  Or, you can contribute to the thriving local kayak-rental business and get there in 30 minutes.  We chose to take advantage of the camera’s zoom feature.

To reach our next stop, Pu’uhonua o Honaunau (aqua pin), we travelled down Highway 160.  Well, perhaps “highway” is a bit of an exaggeration, but it got us there, and was a huge improvement over yesterday’s dirt trail.  It looks desolate, but once or twice we had the opportunity to appreciate the recent widening that you can see in the photo, which made it a 1½-lane road and much more comfortable when meeting another vehicle head-on.

Pu’uhonua o Honaunau was a Place of Refuge.  The early Hawaiians lived under an oppressive set of regulations—the kapu system—that governed every detail of life.  Not that the laws could compete in sheer number with our legal system today, but the penalty for even the smallest infraction was often death.  Catch a woman eating a coconut, or a banana?  Men and women eating together?  A commoner who allowed the shadow of one of the elite to fall on him?  Death.  Shark bait.  Human sacrifice.  Torture-of-the-month.  Death by clubbing, strangling, drowning, or being burnt alive.

Or you could be fast.  Outrun your pursuers and get to a Place of Refuge, perform certain rituals under the auspices of the local priest—and you could go home:  forgiven, safe, and free.  A bit hard on the women and children, but it saved the strong and agile men for more days of work and fighting.

Statues of the gods.

Today Pu’uhonua o Honaunau is a refuge of a different sort.

Before heading back north, we took a brief detour to St. Benedict’s Catholic Church (yellow pin), known as the Painted Church, thanks to the efforts of its priest at the turn of the 20^th century.  It didn’t feel right to take pictures, so we bought a postcard instead.

It was a rather remarkable week in that the only rain we experienced fell on this day.  Hilo, after all, gets rained on some 275 days each year.  But the only consequence for us was spending rather more time than we had planned at Discovery Antiques (red pin) while waiting for a respite sufficient to let us dash for the car with some hope of not having to change clothes before boarding the plane.  We’d only gone in for another sampling of Tropical Dreams ice cream, and that’s all we bought, but the assortment of old and odd items kept us entertained during the wait.  Uncle Jay would have loved it.

Finding ourselves back at Kona much too early to go to the airport, we passed the time exploring the King’s Trail back at Waikoloa, looking for petroglyphs.

Finally, having stretched the glorious week as far as we thought reasonable, we returned to the tiny Kona airport, where we had a snack and waited.  And waited.  And finally read, in a local newspaper, about the discovery and killing of Osama bin Laden.  And bought honey made from the blossoms of the ohia tree, after being assured it wouldn’t be confiscated before we boarded the plane.

In addition to the regular security line, Kona also has an agricultural inspection.  This did not surprise me, as I’ve become accustomed to such concerns when re-entering the United States.  Not that we had ever left the U.S. on this trip, though at times I wondered.  I could not stop myself from mentally adding up the cost of our souvenirs for the Customs form….

The flight from Kona was pleasant and uneventful, and we landed in Los Angeles in plenty of time to negotiate the long walk through construction to our connecting flight.  That, too, was fine, and with plenty of time in Minneapolis before our final leg, we relaxed at Ike's, enjoying their fine shrimp.  It's fun to travel with someone who knows the airports and the best places to eat!

Did I say we had plenty of time?  We were to have more than we'd bargained for, though we didn't get any more shrimp out of it.  We had boarded our flight to Orlando and appeared to be on our way when the pilot announced that a leak had been spotted in the hydraulic system.  The good news was that it could be fixed right at the gate, and there was no need to cancel the flight.  But it would take time, and did we want to stay on the plane or return to the terminal?  That's the first time I've ever been on a flight where democracy ruled:  the passengers could all get off, or all stay on, but nothing in between, so we voted.  Back to the terminal it was.

We waited.  And waited.  And waited, not wanting to get too far from the gate area.  I struck up a conversation with a woman whose husband was chasing their young daughter around, talking with her, soothing her, reassuring her.  It was a good lesson in reserving judgement on other people’s parenting:  this little child, who appeared to be mildly spoiled, was in reality autistic, and had done exceedingly well up to the point where we got off the plane.  If flight disruptions upset ordinary, adult passengers, what must they do to a child for whom any change from the expected is traumatic?  I’ve seen adult passengers behave worse, actually.

I lost track of the little girl and missed how she reacted to what happened next.

Flashing lights.  Very loud European-style siren.  And the following announcement, also at full volume:

May I have your attention please.  May I have your attention please.  A fire alarm has been detected in this area of the airport.  The fire department is investigating this alarm.  Please be alert for signs of fire and evacuate the terminal if necessary.  The fire department will provide additional direction over this paging system as required.

Repeat.  And repeat.  (“Pete and Repeat were sitting in a boat.  Pete jumped out.  Who was left?”  “Repeat.”  “Pete and Repeat were in a boat….”)

Eventually we were shooed back into the plane.  I’m convinced the exasperated pilot finally spluttered, “Get those people back onto the plane before someone makes them evacuate the airport!”  Good decision.

Our friendly neighbors were waiting for us when at last we arrived in Orlando, and the final leg of our journey was pleasant and timely.  Our luggage (and its contents) made it in good shape, albeit with the “TSA was here” note inside that I’ve come to expect.  Back in the days when the people we would visit smoked, I’d wash even our clean clothes upon returning home.  Now I’m back to doing it again.  Sure, the TSA folks wear gloves, but they don’t change them between suitcases.  Call me paranoid, but it makes me feel better, like washing new clothes straight from the store.

As always, it was good to get home, and back to the business of life.  Someone asked me if our vacation was restful, and I replied, "Restful?  Of course not.  Vacations are never restful."  But this one was enjoyable, fulfilling, and delightful.

For one who never cared much for travel of any sort, much less overseas—Hawaii may not be out of the country, but it's clearly "overseas"—I'm coming to see that it can be worthwhile, fun, and more affordable than I thought.  I'm also getting better at it, as I get more practice.  I'm a long way from putting in 10,000 hours, but if that's what it takes to become an expert, maybe I can become reasonably competent on a lesser course of study.

Aloha, Hawaii, and mahalo for your hospitality!

(Continued from Day 5)

This morning we arose early, broke out our snorkeling gear, and headed for the resort’s lagoon.  The lagoon is manmade, but open to the sea, so if you get there before there’s a lot of splashing around you can see some interesting fish and sea turtles.

That done, we were on the road again, this time going to the Kohala area, the northwestern tip of the island.

Click on the map for more detail.  You will be able to zoom in and out, and move around.

Polulu Beach (green marker on the map) is reached by foot, via a steep trail that begins with these warning signs.

It was a nice trek, though we didn’t go much more than halfway.  The view was good enough.

Back in the car again, we made our way in a leisurely manner back towards Hawi (purple marker), stopping at various sites along the way.

The Kalahikiola Church was founded in 1855, one of the first on the island.  New England has a long reach:  it is a Congregational church.

In Kapaau we paused to see the statue of King Kamehameha the Great.  The famous version of this statue, in Honolulu, was a replacement for this one, which was lost in a shipwreck on its way from Europe.  It was later recovered, and now rests here.

We parked across the street, and walked over for a closer look, and to use the restrooms.  Porter found some nice old ladies on the porch to talk with, and one of those gentle, sweet souls gave him his Great and Terrifying Idea.  More on that later.

Feeling it would be rude to use their parking lot without stopping in, we visited the Ackerman Galleries gift shop.  It was like a magnet:  we kept returning as we thought of more and more things to buy there.  It was the first shop we tried, in this area famous for its resident artists, and it turned out to be the best by far.

(Further down the road is the original Ackerman Galleries, featuring the work of Gary Ackerman himself.  It was like a museum, but with price tags.  Entirely unaffordable price tags, so we enjoyed it as a museum.  You can see some of Ackerman’s very impressive work on his website.)

We never found the divine confections promised here, but I like the street sign.

Back in Hawi, we stopped for lunch and some Tropical Dreams ice cream at the Kohala Coffee Mill.  We had some interesting dining companions.

I’ve said before that Hawaii doesn’t make it easy for tourists.  Two important historical sites, the Mo’okini Heiau and the birthplace of Kamehameha the Great, are not far from Hawi, but you’d never guess it.  To get there one must know to turn at the sign for the tiny Upolu airport (aqua marker on the map).  At the airport, turn left onto a dirt road—and I use the term “road” loosely.  There are no signs at all.  I quote from the guidebook:

The county does a terrible job maintaining the unpaved portion.  If it’s dry, you may make it the 1½ miles to the heiau….  Otherwise, it’s 4WD on at least part of the unpaved section and the last part might even scare 4-wheelers.  Puddles last a long time here, and some of them are large enough to have nearly spawned their own ecosystem.  Even during bad weather we’ve seen rental cars back here, giving legitimacy to the question:  What’s the difference between a rental car and a 4WD?  A rental car can go anywhere…

Apparently Porter took that last line—though none of the rest of the paragraph—to heart. Either that or his success at South Point went to his head.  Or perhaps he thought, “How bad can a road recommended by a little old lady be?”

Bravely he made the left turn and plunged down the dirt road.  Weaving, swerving, dodging to avoid deep holes and large, jagged rocks, we bounced and jerked and tilted our way to … where?  We were driving by faith—in the guidebook?  the little old lady?—and not by sight; remember, there were no signs to indicate we were on the right road.  Only—there was no other road, so we pressed on.  Did I say we tilted?  Several times I thought we were at risk of flipping the car, though Porter denies this.  He’s probably right, but I recognized the feeling from several exciting sailing trips, and kept throwing my weight as far as I could to the side of safety.

Porter later wondered why I didn’t use my camera during the drive.  When I replied that I don’t take good photographs with my eyes closed, he was astounded.  I guess that when he gleefully crowed, “Isn’t this fun?” he must have taken my stunned silence for assent.  I thought I did pretty well to bite my lip and let him have his wild ride.

At last, the longed-for reassurance that we were on the right road—at the wide spot that passes for a parking lot, with room for a car or two (red marker).  Clearlly, they knew better than to expect a crowd.  We made the rest of the journey on foot.

Mo’okini Heiau was a place of human sacrifice; tens of thousands of Hawaiians lost their lives at this holehole stone.  It is a desolate place, full of history and nearly untouched by the tourist industry.

Porter asked me, “Are you glad we came?” to which I replied, “Not yet.  After we’re safely out of here I will be glad that we made the trip.”  He was quite confident in his ability to get us safely back to the main road; I, however, was eyeing the approaching storm and thinking how impossible it would be to navigate the rocks and ruts with the road covered by water.

But Porter was right; we beat the storm and I did then say I was glad we had come.

Our next, much more accessible, stop was the old Hawaiian village ruins at Lapakahi State Historical Park (yellow marker).  We had just enough time for a quick tour before it closed.

I love the contrast between the black and white stones.

We capped our penultimate day in Hawaii with a swim in the fancy pool complex back at the resort.

(Continued from Day 4, Part 2)

At 8:00 this morning we had the mandatory timeshare presentation that made the whole trip possible.  Despite having many, many opportunities in Florida to earn stuff by wasting time in this way, we had never taken advantage of them, and this was our first.

Based on the experiences of others, we expected a boring group presentation and a high-pressure sales pitch.  I even brought a book to read, as I was told that is the best way of getting through the presentation.

Not here.  First, the presentation was personal, just the agent and us.  Surprisingly, that was not boring at all.  I survived very well the insistent personal questions—designed to help her tailor her presentation to our personalities—by reminding myself that there was a person behind that sales front, and countering every question with one back at her.  “How many children do you have?” she’d ask; “Two; how about you?” I’d respond.  We actually had an interesting conversation, instead of me just resenting being asked questions I didn’t want to answer.

The presentation was followed by a tour of the Hilton timeshare properties at Waikoloa Village.  (We were staying in their hotel, not a timeshare.)  Again, it was just the two of us and our guide.

At the end, we were given the opportunity to buy into the program, and—as we had expected—some incentives to “do it now.”  But really, there was little pressure; they expect the program to sell itself.

And if we had been different people, it would have.  Timeshares aren’t the burdens they were many years ago, at least not these.  If our travelling tastes ran to staying in major cities and tourist destinations, this would be an excellent resource.  Hilton has a vast array of properties, from small apartments to major hotels, available for their community members to use on “points” generated by their timeshare properties.  Some are more luxurious than others, but all are backed by Hilton quality.  The system could save someone who vacations like that a lot of money over time.

But that’s not us.  True, we’ve learned to enjoy a nice hotel on the company’s dime dollar.  We also stopped patronizing cheap motels when the clientele went from frugal to sleazy, at least along I-95.  I’m talking bedbug / appalling personal hygiene / meth residue on the walls kind of sleazy.  We like good quality accommodations.  But our travel largely revolves around family and friends—the sales rep reluctantly informed us that they have as yet no properties in the Gambia—and we’d rather not have HD TV in the room and a golf course and tennis courts nearby.

So, they didn’t make a sale, but succeeded in proving to us that timeshare programs are like I-95 hotels:  you can find a good one if you’re careful.

All in all, considering the value we received, I call it two and a half hours well spent.

It was our fifth day in Hawaii, and we hadn’t yet been swimming.  So we headed just a bit north, to Hapuna Beach State Park, which has won numerous accolades for its white-sand beach.

The sand was nice, the water was nice—albeit a bit too calm for my taste—and we spent a pleasant couple of hours there—but it is hard not to be a Florida snob when it comes to sand, surf, and sun.

Back at the resort, we prepared for the evening’s big event, the Legends of the Pacific luau.  Big, all-you-can-eat spread of Hawaiian food.  Entertainment featuring Polynesian music and dance.  Not something that would have drawn us with its $100/person price tag, but for what we paid (it was part of our package), it was fun, and good eating.

This short YouTube video by Westjet gives you a view of the Hilton Waikoloa resort, and you’ll see part of the luau production in the middle.  I know some grandkids who would have enjoyed the fire dancer.

Historical note:  One of our table-neighbors was playing with his iPad while waiting for dinner to be ready, while his wife nagged him to get rid of it.  I sympathized with him, but he put it away and did not share with us what he had been reading—that halfway across the world, Osama bin Laden had been killed.

(Continued from Day 4, Part 1)

After climbing up out of the Kilauea Iki crater, our next adventure was at the Thurston Lava Tube.

Walking inside a cave made by flowing lava was impressive enough, but the real fun began after this sign:

Hawaii, even in the National Park, lets you be as foolish as you like.  They put up the warning signs, and you make the decision.  Actually, this was quite safe, but I was a lot happier knowing we had not one, but two flashlights.  My favorite part came after we had walked far enough that there was not the faintest hint of a glow of light from the entrance, no matter how long we kept our lights off to let our eyes adjust.  It was dark.  D-A-R-K.  Thrillingly and palpably dark.  The second best thing was that most tourists were scared off by the sign—or unprepared with lights.  We had turned around and were nearly back at the surface before seeing another person.  Having that experience all to ourselves was awesome indeed.

Our next walk was above ground once again.  Devastation Trail is a pretty accurate name, but it has a great view of the path across Kilauea Iki.

Cinder fields from the 1959 eruption.

After that we took the Pu'u Huluhulu / Mauna Ulu trail, but on the advice of a ranger did not walk its entire length.  The sights were interesting, but with time passing rapidly, we couldn’t afford another two- to three-hour hike (or maybe four at our pace), and really, after a while all that lava starts to look alike.

Or not.  This is a wall of a'a', a handy Boggle word, since the game doesn’t insist on the apostrophes.

And this is pahoehoe, which is described as “smooth”—but those soft-looking striations feel like parallel razor blades.

We continued down Chain of Craters Road for a while.  Our intent had been to take it to the end, but that was still a long way away, and it became clear that many of the stops were more interesting to those who had not bothered to take the Kilauea Iki hike.  So we headed back to the Visitor Center for one more, short trail:  Sulphur Banks.  The name pretty much says it all.

Soon we were back on Route 11, leaving Volcanoes National Park behind, taking with us lots of pictures and a memorable experience.

Click on the map for more detail.  You will be able to zoom in and out, and move around.

Our next stop was South Point, the southernmost spot in the United States.  A quarter of a century earlier, we had stood at the southernmost point in the continental U.S.

Here’s the southernmost point without qualification.

Tourism, as might be expected, is a big industry for Hawaii, but that doesn’t mean they make it easy for strangers.  In stark contrast with Florida’s Key West, South Point makes no effort to attract tourists:  it is poorly marked, and the road, though recently made much more automobile-friendly, is single-lane and rather desolate.  Getting down to the parking area was, shall we say, interesting—and we couldn’t help noticing that anyone who knew anything about the area had come in a four-wheel drive vehicle.  I’ll save the suspense and let you know that Porter rose to the occasion, making it up the steep, rutted, and rocky grade on the first try.

That was not sufficient challenge for him, however.  He deeply regretted not having brought his bathing suit, as some enthusiastic local teens (the term “Hawaiian” is properly given only to those with native Hawaiian blood) were jumping off the cliff at the end of the road and climbing back up a blow hole.  Porter would love to have had me take a video of him doing likewise.  Me?  I’m very glad he had no suit.  He made me nervous enough by standing near the very edge, with a stiff and unpredictably gusty wind threatening to blow him in, bathing suit or no.

Oh, and the guidebook, which doesn’t hesitate to suggest risky adventures, recommends not swimming unless you know what you are doing, because the currents there take you directly to Antarctica with no stopovers.

Did I mention it was windy?

After that adventure we made a beeline for home, saving the remaining sights for another day.  We would like to have visited the green sand beach, but it is only accessible by 4WD from South Point, unless you're up for a five mile hike, which we weren't.

It was well after dark when we elected to make one more stop:  at Walmart, for water shoes to replace the ones we had neglected to bring from home.  Why I bothered to get some for myself when my Vibrams would have worked just as well, I’ll never know—but at least they were inexpensive, even in mainland terms.

It had been an exhausting and exhilarating two-day tour of the island’s perimeter, and I don’t think I’d change a thing—including the part about Porter not having his bathing suit.

We crawled into bed, anticipating a lighter day the morrow.

Just after midnight today, Steven Perezluha reached Annapolis, Maryland as the ninth bicyclist in his division to complete the Race Across AMerica.  With the 41-minute credit he received for a tornado-caused delay in Kansas, his official finish was at 11:34 last night.  Steven raced from the Pacific to the Atlantic in an even ten days and eight hours.

Congratulations to Steven!

And because no one, least of all a major athlete, succeeds without a great deal of help:

Congratulations to his sponsors, his incredible support crew, and his parents!

No, not our granddaughter.  :(  But something her siblings would probably like.  It brightened my day, and might do so for you while you're waiting for the next Hawaii post.

John Rutter's  Look at the World.  (H/T SouthForte Farms)

The Race Across AMerica may be the craziest bike race ever.  From the Pacific to the Atlantic, from Oceanside, California to Annapolis, Maryland (this year's route).  The record for the solo men's division is a little over eight days.

Steven Perezluha, the friend of whom I've written before (biking to Alaska, and racing up Pittsburgh's Cathedral of Learning), is making his RAAM debut, his substantial crew led by his uncle, Danny Chew, himself a two-time RAAM winner.  From today's VeloNews article:

The youngest rider in the field is 20-year-old Steven Perezluha, nephew of 2-time RAAM winner Danny Chew. “My goal is to finish, hopefully in ten days as the top American finisher,” the youngster declared in Oceanside, “I’m going to try to be conservative at the beginning and not blow up,” he added. Yet it was Perezluha who was first to Time Station 1, 50 miles into the race at Lake Henshaw. In the next 20 miles he was passed by Strasser before reaching the “Glass Elevator,” a fast and winding descent down to the desert floor where temperatures approaching 100 degrees awaited the riders. While it is unknown whether Perezluha did indeed “blow up,” what is certain is that he’s slowed considerably, dropping from being the early leader down to 19th overnight.

Taking it easy, if somewhat oxymoronic to say about such a race, will be the smart thing for Steven to do:  there's no percentage in abusing his still-developing body when he has so many more years to hit his peak.  But he's such a competitor ... who knows what he might accomplish?

Here are some links if you want to follow his progress:

Steven's profile

Steven's progress

(added 6/17) Very cool page with animated map and stats, great for following the athletes' progress

Leaderboard

Live stream (I include this because it has the potential to be interesting, at least for us, although at the time of writing the stops and starts of video and audio make it too painful to listen to for long.)

Steven's website (hosted by Lime Daley!)

Go, Steven!  Finish the race!  Do well, but don't overdo it!

(Continued from Day 3 - Part 2)

There was nothing about its beginning to presage a day spent amidst reminders of nature’s primordial (and very present) violence.

We awakened early.  I grabbed my Bible and a cup of tea, and slipped out to breathe in the morning from our porch.  Rarely have I experience such uplifting peace.  I bathed in the natural beauty before me—okay, technically it was a golf course, but there were birds, and wind stirring the trees, and no sign of golfers.  Best of all was the delight for my ears:  I could hear the trilling of unknown Hawaiian birds, the crow of a rooster, and the lowing of a cow.  I could hear the breeze, and the soft sounds of Porter puttering in the cottage behind me.  More remarkable was what I could not hear:  no lawn mowers, no chain saws, no air conditioning compressors, no pool pumps, no airplanes, no construction work, and no road noise—not even a single car.  I was awed at how much more conducive to meditation is such a setting.

Somewhat reluctantly, we packed up and headed for breakfast (included with the room) at the Kilauea Lodge restaurant.  The feature was French toast:  three pieces of Portuguese sweet bread (note:  not sweetbreads), each different—plain, taro, and guava—all delicious.  It was served with two syrups, maple and coconut.  This being Hawaii, not Vermont, the “maple” syrup was not the genuine article, but Porter liked the coconut, and I found the French toast sweet, flavorful, and delicious just as it was.

If forced to name the high point of our trip, I would have to say the helicopter ride on Day 2.  No pun intended.  Really.  But Volcanoes National Park was a close second.  Florida has resorts.  Florida has botanical gardens.  Florida has beaches.  Very nice beaches, with surfing, and snorkeling.  Florida even has cattle ranches.  But Florida has no volcanoes.  Not one.  Walking across a crater is one amazing experience.  Not at all like walking across a Florida parking lot in August.  Well, only a little like that.

You can take a look at the park with this cool, interactive map from the National Park Service.  Our first stop at the park was—surprise!—the Visitor Center.  There, some friendly rangers helped us tailor our visit to our time limitations and personal preferences.  We began by taking the Crater Rim Drive to the Jaggar Museum.  Those who know how much we like museums may wonder at this, but we spent very little time in the museum itself.  It’s full of interesting information, and if we’d had a week we would have enjoyed it.  Information can be found elsewhere; not so the view!

This is the Kilauea caldera.

This is my Florida guy in Hawaii, wearing his hat from Thailand and his shirt from Tanzania.  With the Kilauea caldera.  Not at all the same as the grandsons' request for a picture of "Dad-o standing dangerously close to the lava," but the best we could do.

Porter’s favorite Hawaiian flora, the ohia tree.  If you have five minutes to spare, enjoy this story of the ohia from HGTV.

The 11-mile Crater Rim Drive circles Kilauea, but for us this was the end of the line.  Much of the park is closed due to dangerous emissions from recent volcanic activity.

No worries.  There was more than enough still open to make us wish we had more than three quarters of a day to spend at the park.

This steamy trail reminded me of New Zealand, where we watched Maoris cooking food over similar steam vents.

After that warm-up we were ready for the main hike, the highlight of the day:  the Kilauea Iki Trail.  Kilauea Iki is a smaller crater on the east side of the main Kilauea caldera.  The hike took us through rain forest along the crater rim, a pleasant enough walk as it was, but—this is where I reveal my bad tourism skills, having not read the brochure beforehand—I really became excited when I realized we were gradually descending to the frozen lava lake itself!  The trail, now marked with piles of stacked rocks, known as ahu, ran more or less straight across the still-steaming lakebed before returning steeply to the top of the crater.  If you want to follow where we trod, so to speak, you can read the brochure that was our guide.

View from the rim:  You can see steam from the Kilauea caldera in the background, and part of the tourist-foot-worn path along the Kilauea Iki floor.  That's the faint, white, straight, diagonal line that crosses from sun to shadow in the middle of the picture.  We walked across from upper right to lower left.

Good thing I don’t mind looking like a tourist:  Thai hat (gift from Porter); Carnegie Mellon shirt (gift from Heather); Swiss backpack (gift from Janet).  The belt pack kept my camera handy, and the jeans protected my legs, which were still sore and oozing from the day before, when I foolishly climbed around on razor-sharp lava rock in shorts.  Not that climbing was the problem; falling was.

But the pièce de résistance was the shoes.  My Vibram Five Fingers.  Walking barefoot across the lava was out of the question (see above comment about asphalt, Florida, and August), but I knew I had to let my Happy Feet make the journey.  They make hiking more personal, more connected and responsive to the land.  It was a sublime experience.

Eventually, and reluctantly, I switched back to my sneakers.  Walking in my Vibrams may be more fun, but over such rough terrain it was also slower.  Because we like to look around a lot while we hike, it was already clear that we would be exceeding the park’s hiking time estimate of two to three hours.  More than that—did I mention that the lava rock is sharp?  I decided I’d rather ruin a $35 pair of shoes than ones that cost twice that.  (As it turned out, the Five Fingers probably would have been fine, as they showed no damage at all from the trek.  I’m quite impressed.)

Beauty from ashes:  the ohia tree is one of the first signs of life returning to the barren land.

It’s good to know part of all that money went to something more satisfying than repaving highways.

To be continued in Part 2.

No, this is not the next installment in the tale of our Hawaiian vacation, although it will help explain why that wasn't published yesterday.

Our refrigerator was well over 10 years old.  It was bought used in 2001, and I have no idea of its history.  It wasn’t in very great shape then, though somehow it worked quite well for us.  For years Porter would periodically grumble that it was an energy hog, reminding me that it couldn’t last forever, and wouldn’t it be better not to have to replace it on an emergency basis? 

During the Memorial Day Weekend sales, we finally took the plunge.

Actually, we had tried to do so once before, several years ago, picking out an exciting model with French doors, a bottom freezer, water filter, ice maker, and other attractive features.  The feature we didn’t expect was its inability to fit through the largest door in our house.  Since when did they start making appliances that don’t fit through standard-sized doors?  Crushed, we put off the purchase for another few years, although we did indulge in occasional peeks at what was available when we happened to be in a store that sold appliances.

Porter, as usual, was the one who made it happen.  He researched the models, and narrowed the possibilities down to a handful.  Then together we made the final decision:  a rather ordinary, Energy Star-compliant, General Electric refrigerator with a capacity of 21 cubic feet.  I’m happy with ordinary!  It’s about the same size as the one it replaced, and not as large as the refrigerator we had when the kids were living at home, but it certainly ought to do well for the two of us.  Complaints about size won’t go over well here, anyway, as Janet is sure to point out that it’s 5 to 7 times larger than the refrigerators she’s had in her last three homes.

Click this link to see what it looks like.  No, we didn’t pay the MSRP, but got a much better deal at Lowe’s.

On Monday, Lowe’s called to say that the refrigerator was in, and we arranged for delivery Tuesday between noon and 5 p.m.  Our neighbor came over and helped Porter move the existing fridge into the garage, where we had planned to keep it until July, when our church would take it for their rummage sale.  After all, it still worked, and really was a fine fridge, even if you did have to kick the door to make it close properly.  That quick kick was so much a habit that I often had to explain at other people’s homes why I was abusing their appliances.

All went well, until Porter went out the next morning to get his breakfast drink.  There was a small puddle of water underneath the fridge.  At some point during the night, the compressor had stopped working, and melting ice was dripping from the freezer.  (Glad I was that I had transferred most of the contents of the freezer to our chest freezer, to lighten the fridge for the move.)  The refrigerator compartment was still cool enough that I felt comfortable that the food was safe, so I filled it with jugs of ice, as if it were a giant picnic cooler.  You don’t have half a dozen frozen jugs of water available at a moment’s notice?  Then either you don’t have a handy chest freezer, or you don’t care that June 1 marks the beginning of hurricane season.

At about 8 a.m. the next day, the delivery men called:  Could they deliver the refrigerator in about half an hour?  The thought of grumbling, “What part of ‘between noon and five’ didn’t you understand?” was immediately quashed by the pleasant thought of having  a working refrigerator sooner rather than later.

It was sad to see the old refrigerator taken unceremoniously off for recycling, but if it was going to break, I’m glad it did so before sending it to the rummage sale, and not after.  Perhaps its time had just come, and Porter was better than he knew to insist on getting a new one now.  Perhaps the move, short and gentle as it was, merely jarred something loose.  Whatever the cause, we decided it wasn’t worth attempting a repair, given its age and condition.

Many mammal mothers lick their newborns clean after birth.  I’ve never done that myself, but the instinct must be there:  I can’t use a new appliance until I’ve cleaned it inside and out.  With one thing and another, it took me the rest of the day to get the refrigerator “on board.”  Porter would have cleaned the outside and the ice cube bin and had the food back in in under half an hour.

We’re still working on the best way to use the space.  I love all the extra room in the door shelves—they can hold gallon milk jugs!—and don’t mind that the main shelves are consequently shorter, since it’s hard to get at things in the back of the fridge, anyway.  But some reconsideration of our old habits of arrangement is in order.  But that will be a joyful chore, rather than an urgent one.

And guess what?  We’re heading into summer with an ice maker!