After resting most of yesterday, Kirk felt like he was ready to get out and take in some sights. So, we decided to take the loop around the West end of the island. I had done this loop once before - the year we got married, Kirk came out here 2 months after our wedding for a work trip. No WAY he was going to Hawaii without his new wife! So, while he slaved away, working 16 hour days at the top of Haleakala, I played - scuba diving, snorkeling, whale watching, and, of course, long drives with fantastic scenery. I knew what was coming.

The West side of the island includes a very hairy 40-some-odd-mile stretch of "road" containing hairpin turns (enough to put Julia Robert's hair, in Pretty Woman, up and KEEP it up through 5 straight hours of high-impact aerobics), one-lane roads with long unpaved stretches, lots of roadside stands selling pineapple, banana bread, coconut candy, cold drinks and even shaved ice. In addition to it being a really fun drive, especially in a mustang convertible, it has some truly spectacular scenery.

So, we gathered our things and headed down the mountain from Kula, where we have been staying. It's about a 3500 foot drop in altitude, complete with a change in temperature to go with it. It was significantly warmer at sea level. On the way down the mountain, I had a really good laugh. For those of you who don't know, I have been playing an opensource online multiplayer game called Bzflag for a while now. It occurred to me today, that despite the fact that I'm "all grown up" now, I still have a rather vivid imagination. I saw this sign at the side of the road.
Immediately, I had visions of cars being damaged by lasers (a weapon on bzflag) - tires slashed, cut in half, engines burned...whatever it took to slow the thing down to the permissible speed. Kirk couldn't stop laughing at my silliness - and of course, one of the first things he said was "you play wayyyy too much bzflag!"

After a brief stop in Kahilui for lunch (and Kirk took his pain pill), we were on our way. Getting through Kahilui to the start of the road is quite a job for the navigator - lots of turns only 1-2 blocks apart. But Kirk is an excellent navigator and we made it without a single U-turn (I can't say the same for when I did the same trip almost 5 years ago now).

Now, I told you we rented a mustang. On the whole, it's a nice little car. Certainly more convenient putting the top up and down than on Kirk's Spitfire at home (I'll let HIM explain how that works - I can't even follow the process). However, there is one little detail that really bugs me. For whatever reason, the accelerator in the mustang is not very responsive. You really have to mash it down to get any reaction out of the car, something I am not at all used to. Most sports cars have a much more sensitive accelerator. It would probably be more fun if it were a stick, but oh well.

The scenery going from the windward to the leeward side of the island is really spectacular. Additionally, it varies from lush and green to more dry, deserty conditions (similar to California). We spent a lot of time driving up and down some rather amazing cliffs, even having to squeeze incredibly close to the edge of one so a large cement truck could get by us. He missed hitting our rear bumper by only about 4 inches. We were so close to the edge of the cliff, that Kirk had me back up before turning back onto the road to continue on.

There are certainly houses and farms and such along this narrow road. In fact, one of Kirk's colleagues lives in an estate development up here (for the low low price of 1.5 hour drive to work each day). We did pass a small (very cute) village about 1/2 way around the 41-mile section of road. It was colorful and quaint. There was a simply beautiful little church in the village. It was the first thing, really, that caught our attention.

Now, one of the odd things I particularly remembered about driving this section of the road was the coconut candy. First off, I love coconut. One of my FAVORITE ice creams (probably one of the top two, though it's hard to say which is the very very best), is Freddo's Coconut Ice Cream. There's only one problem with this being one of my favorites. Freddo's is in Buenos Aires, Argentina. I don't get to have it very often. (My other favorite is zitron ice cream, from Germany - yet another I get almost never). Rather early on, we passed a large stand (almost a small outdoor bar) that sold all sorts of things - tshirts, hats, etc. Sadly, they were out of coconut candy. But that was ok. It wasn't the place I remembered. That place had been on the inside curve of a hairpin turn, a good bit further along if I remembered rightly.

Well, I was right. It was still on the inside of the hairpin curve, but it was quite a bit bigger than I remembered from before. AND painted. Last time I was there (4 1/2 years ago), there was room enough for the proprietor inside, but all customers just walked up to the counter on the outside. It is substantially bigger now. We tasted the coconut candy (yum!) and the banana bread. Then we left with a single small pouch of coconut candy. This is about 1/2 of what they used to sell for almost double the price. As we walked away, the proprietor said "If you want to make it last, keep it out of reach. Aloha!"

A bit further on, we saw a lot of cars pulled over and figured we'd check out to see what they were all looking at. It turned out to be a nice little hike downward and then we were at an overlook, where we could see tidepools in two directions. One was completely deserted, and the other had some people wading around in it. We debated walking all the way down, but Kirk's back was already feeling some twinges and we had a long way to go yet.

Maui is certainly a place with a lot of honeymooners though. I can't help myself from wondering whenever we pass a seemingly happy-looking couple, "Are they on their honeymoon?" This road is no exception. We had spotted a blow hole from the road and as we wended our way closer, we came upon yet another large group of vehicles, parked this way and that, squeezing into whatever off-road space was available. We slipped the 'stang into a spot near some mud puddles and hopped out to see if we could get a closer view of the blowhole. Along the path, we found an area covered with rocks, that had been arranged into any variety of messages and hearts that you could imagine - sure evidence that honeymooners, whoever they may be, had been there.

The blowhole reminded me of a quest Kirk and I once did in New Zealand. We must have hiked an hour or more to find a blowhole in the middle of some guy's field, seemingly far from the ocean. Unfortunately for us, at the time we were there, the tide was low and we saw almost nothing. This time, we had a very nice view of the blowhole, snapping first, a photo as the water was pushed up through the hole, and another as it descended and drenched the folks who were standing way too close (or were they..? It WAS pretty hot).

Now, about now, I've begun to realize something is wrong...dreadfully wrong. We seemed to have covered a rather large distance, but we hadn't yet reached the unpaved section of the road. I remembered that section being quite long, so to not have reached it...we must not be nearly as far around as I thought. I mentioned this to Kirk and he replied - oh, they paved the whole thing a couple of years ago - there is no unpaved section anymore. What?! No WONDER we had seen so many cars coming around it today. When it was unpaved, all the rental car agency agreements basically said you weren't allowed to go on that road without voiding your agreement with them. I guess that no longer holds true.

Kirk's back was starting to hurt him quite a bit by now. It had been only 2 hours since he last took his medicine - it would be four hours before he could take it again. Our original plan was to head into Lahaina and have dinner there, then go home. The only problem was, our trip along this newly paved road took a scant 2-2.5 hours to complete. We arrived in Lahaina HOURS before dinner time. And frankly, it was hot, we were both getting a bit tired, and I knew he really needed to get home and rest his back. We settled for a nice little walk around Lahaina, some Lappert's Ice Cream, some more walking and window shopping, and a cold beverage for the ride home. I drained about 3/4 of my bottle of water before we even made it back to the car.

We hopped in and started on the homeward stretch - most of which was on the ever-popular, ever-busy Lahaina Highway. The road takes you by some really nice (locals only) surf breaks, which were hopping. A hurricane bypassed the island a couple of days before, but the swell it generated was providing some really surfable waves. We took one view point stop along with way. What looks like a separate island in the background behind Kirk is actually the southern portion of Maui - you are looking at Haleakala, the volcano on which reside the telescope and instruments Kirk has been working with.

Despite some traffic getting out of Lahaina, we made it back to the B&B with little other delay. Kirk promptly went out to the jacuzzi for a while to try and relax his back, as he still had another hour before he could take his medicine. We decided to relax a bit around the room, order in food and just take it easy. La Provence, about 2-3 miles down the road, made us a pizza which I went and picked up. Just before I left, I snapped a photo from the deck at the B&B - looking to the North, where we had spent our day.

Labels: Bzflag, Food, Health, Transportation, Travel

Well, my flight landed and my fantastic husband was waiting for me at the airport. He had finished work on Tuesday morning and is now free for the entire week! Hooray! But he turned in his car, and waited for me to arrive so we could pick up the new one. I spotted him as I arrived near baggage claim. He was standing there with a lei of real flowers for me! Very cool! I felt special!

We quickly got our bags and headed to the rental agency. I had gotten a rather good deal. I flew on American and for the same price as the flight cost me, I also go a rental car - for free. All we had to do was show up and pick it up. Once inside, it turns out they had a 2006 Mustang Convertible for rent - we had to pay a few extra dollars for the whole week and it was ours! We're on vacation! Why not? She asked what color we wanted - black, silver or red? RED!! And red it is.

Heading back to our lodging (the Upcountry B&B in Kula, which is very nice), we, of course, rode the entire way with the top down...AND the heat on, especially as we gained altitude. Kirk had mentioned earlier that he was having some pain in his back and side, but he wasn't sure what was causing it. He took some more ibuprophen and we went to sleep.

I woke up this morning, first at 3:30 (6:30AM at home) and then finally at 6 (9AM at home). I simply couldn't sleep any longer. Kirk got up but was in a lot of pain. When he started to describe him symptoms, I was afraid he might have broken or separated a rib and we decided to make a trip to see a doctor. After a fabulous breakfast of fresh fruit (pineapple, strawberries, kiwi, mango, melon and blueberries) and fresh, homemade mango and raspberry scones, we called the insurance company to find out where we could go to a doctor locally. They gave us two numbers, one of which was in Kula!

Now, Kula is a very small town. VERY small. Some wouldn't even consider a town, really. So to discover they had their own hospital...well, I was expecting a little 3-4 room building and a long waiting line. But off we went. As we pulled up to the hospital, we were shocked to see one of the biggest buildings I've seen in the upcountry. It was about 5-6 stories high and quite old. It turns out, it was built in the 1930s, originally as a sanitorium for tuberculosis patients that needed a place to recover in a reasonable climate.

We went into the 'emergency' room, to discover no waiting room. We were in an actual treatment room. With a nurse and a doctor, and no one else to wait behind. We filled out some quick paperwork, Kirk was wheeled (in a wheelchair!) off for some x-rays and then we were back in the ER. The x-rays revealed no break or problems. So it's most likely muscular. He got lots of drugs (anaproxin, vicodin and a muscle relaxant) and we were on our way back. At this point, we won't be surfing, scuba diving, running any marathons, biking down Haleakala. But, we will be relaxing, spending time together and enjoying whatever Hawaii has to offer those in need of rest, relaxation and recuperation.

Labels: Food, Health, Transportation, Travel

Time truly does fly - when you're having fun or not! I just finished a rough cut of the first draft of the new project I took on - the Women's Ministry section of our church website. It was so sadly out of date before that I volunteered to work on it - I was tired of people complaining they couldn't find anything on it (or for that matter, that ~I~ couldn't find anything on it).

I am also starting Authentic Woman again tonight. It's the second time it will be offered. Chris is expanding the class from 7 weeks to 10, as one of the biggest bits of feedback he got after the first class was it was way too short (the men, after all, have three years worth of classes!). It's a wonderful class, but lots of administrative work.

We are rapidly approaching our trip to Mississippi (we leave in less than a week). As we wildly make our preparations and time slips away, I find myself in the midst of what I knew would happen - I'm in over my head. I expected it...yet... But this is how God works, isn't it? He gets us to a point where we truly are in over our heads and then we have no choice but to turn to Him. I'm there!

Pray for us as we enter the last days before we leave. Also, for our car, which decided to die on the way to the team potluck. It appears that the waterpump may have gone out. We are hoping that's the extent of the damage (there was some sort of electrical warning light on too), especially since we are slated to take the Jeep to Moab for a week to go four-wheeling just 6 days after we get back from Mississippi.

Labels: Church, Friends, Missions, Transportation

Monday morning, we tagged our luggage and had our breakfast. We didn't even have to carry the luggage downstairs. Once we notified them we were "checking out", they knew to gather our luggage and put it aboard the train. It was pretty frigid since we were at altitude (1382 feet) and Kirk was glad I made him bring some cold-weather gear.

We took some time to walk around the gift shop a little to scout out what we might spend our gift certificates on. I saw a really nice fleece jacket we could get if we pooled our resources. We grabbed a Starbucks coffee (yes there is a little Starbucks right there in the depot) and headed over to watch the shoot-out. I met a couple from Thailand along the way and chatted with them. It sometimes amazes me how much I miss the variety of accents and cultures from our RTW. The show was pretty corny, but cute.


We boarded our train and headed out. The conductor (who also turned out to be our server - he served us sodas and such during the trip) was quite funny. About 30 minutes after we departed, a cowboy with a fiddle came to our car and entertained us for the rest of the trip. He was quite a good fiddler and interacted well with the audience.

Once we arrived at the Grand Canyon, we were picked up by a bus and driven over to the Maswik Lodge, where we had lunch in their cafeteria. Most of the folks on the trip were only in the Grand Canyon for a day - they were taking the afternoon train back. I had booked us to spend the night. Of course, when I booked the trip, I didn't expect I would have broken my ankle a couple of months before - I expected we'd do some hiking.

It was really cold outside and it was nice to get indoors and have some hot food and drink. Afterwards, we piled back onto our bus and they drove us to some of the major viewing points on the Canyon. It was pretty cool to hear some of the history in addition to getting all the wonderful views.

After our tour, we checked into our hotel and found our bags had been delivered straight to our room! We relaxed for a bit and then headed over to the El Tovar Hotel for dinner. The El Tovar is an historic landmark and quite beautiful, capturing the spirit of the by-gone days of the European-style hunting lodge. Made of stone, it's perched on the edge of the canyon and has spectacular views from the South Rim. It was built in 1905 by the Santa Fe Railroad and has been called, "the architectural crown jewel of the Grand Canyon." It is also also renowned for its world-class dining room, The El Tovar Dining Room (where we ate). "A memorable dining experience in the Arizona wilderness while enjoying breathtaking views of the Canyon." They have an extensive and expensive menu. The food was quite good, indeed, however, a bit over-priced, we thought. We did splurge and have dessert - it was pretty cute!

We made it an early night; Kirk wanted to be up quite early on Tuesday to catch sunrise over the canyon. I tried to wake up when he did, but was a bit late. I was out the door only about 5 minutes after him, but JUST missed the shuttle. Since we didn't have our car with us, we had to rely on the shuttle to get around. I caught the next one, and arrived at the canyon as fast as I could. At the point where I had to change shuttles, I had to walk (hobble/run?) a pretty good distance to catch the next bus; I was afraid I'd miss it, but I just got there in time.

Kirk had been taking photos for a while when I arrived, although the sun still had not cleared the edge of the rim. When it did clear, the view was spectacular! The canyon is beautiful at all times, but it has different hues at different times of the day (sort of like Uluru, which we visited in December of 2002 on our RTW).

After Kirk's fingers were too frozen to take any more photos, we grabbed the shuttle back and ate breakfast at the Maswik Lodge and checked out of our room (again, we didn't have to worry about our bags). Then we caught another shuttle to the visitor's center. We toured around that a bit, and then headed to the trail that runs along the canyon rim. We walked a good bit of that trail, stopping at a variety of places to take photos. (Do you remember I broke my ankle less than 2 months ago?). Eventually, I was limping so badly I couldn't really walk anymore. We managed to get me to a shuttle stop and we got back on. We went over to Bright Angel Lodge and had some lunch and relaxed a bit. Then we stole one more quick look at the canyon before boarding the train back to Williams.

On the way back to Williams, the train was "robbed". I was actually on my cell phone (my mom had called from Kansas) and said, "Oh, I've got to go...we're being robbed!" Luckily, she didn't think I was serious!

Back in Williams, we spend another night at the Grand Canyon Railroad Hotel. We also had another dinner at Max & Thelma's. The food was MUCH better this time! It turns out, they dumb down the food during the Polar Express because of all the children who are there.

On Wednesday, we had breakfast, bought the great fleece jacket we had spotted earlier (using our gift certificates) and headed back toward civilization.

To be continued...

Labels: Events, Family, Food, Transportation, Travel

Okay, so when I first heard about Camp Jeep, I thought, "yeah, right". But seriously, a camp for jeeps? What's up with THAT? Here's the skinny: Camp Jeep is like a huge party put on by Chrysler Jeep for owners of Jeeps. You really have to be an owner to go (or you can go with an owner). We originally were thinking of volunteering with our Four-Wheel Drive Club (KJ West) to help out at Camp Jeep; however, we ended up attending as real live "guests". No commitments, no working - just fun.

But what IS Camp Jeep, you ask? Well, you actually can't camp there. Not at the site, anyway. We had to go and find a campsite (which was about 20 miles away). Camp Jeep is a large site that included a variety of off-road trails on which you drive YOUR jeep, plus some off-road courses that you get to try new jeeps on (everything from the brand spanking new 2005 Grand Cherokee to the new Jeep Unlimited).

We arrived at our campsite late on Wednesday night. Most of the KJ West club was already there - they had all come up a day early for orientation as trail guides (not to mention that they had come up for a whole weekend earlier in the summer to go over the trails). We set up camp and went and chatted with some of our friends.

We went to sleep fairly early, since we were on the first trail ride the next morning (and you had to be there by 6:30 for checkin). When we signed up for the trails, we took an easy trail (first) and an intermediate trail (you were only permitted to sign up for two). At the time, we knew we had a lift kit to put on, but not whether it would be on in time for Cam Jeep. Well, Kirk and Clint and a few others had put the lift kit on the car only a week or so before.

Kirk made me drive on the easy trail - to get a feel for what it was like and to teach me a little about how to drive offroad. The scariest part for me was while we were driving along a pasture and it felt like the car was DEFINITELY going to tip over!!

From there, we headed over to the Camp Jeep Village, to see what it was all about. It was really cool. They had all sorts of things there: you could test drive the new 2005 Jeep Grand Cherokee on an obstacle course, drive any of 5 different models on the Jeep 101 (an off-road obstacle course) or a Rubicon on the Rubicon challenge, climb a climbing wall, climb a tower and zipline down, learn to scuba dive, ride bmx bikes, talk with the engineers who designed your jeep at a round table discussion, shop shop shop at the Jeep Store, watch a cooking lesson/demonstration, make crafts, watch a short version of the new Warren Miller Movie, watch concerts concerts and more concerts, drive more jeeps and get lots and lots and lots of swag! Every where you looked, they were giving away swag. The cafe wasn't all that exciting, but it's the only place to eat lunch. For dinner, they gave away a free voucher for free food plus a Sobe (one of the sponsors was Sobe). Yummy!

Needless to say, we had a great time! On our trail run the second day, an XJ in front of us tipped over on its side. Everyone was fine, but it was quite the ordeal. Alex, who was driving one of the rescue vehicles, busted an axle trying to help. Afterwards, the trail guide decided that the trail had deteriorated too much so we turned around and went another way.

We had such a fabulous time! I am sure we will go back next year! To see photos, go to Kirk's blog about Camp Jeep!

Labels: Friends, Offroading, Transportation, Travel

From the time I first took a legal position (I was still in Law School) until very recently, I used an excellent word processing program called "WordPerfect". It was truly an excellent program. Initially, it ran on DOS and had a large number of wonderful quick keys to do some of your most used functions. With the popularity of Windows, it migrated, incorporated features that allowed its old-time users to continue to use their familiar quick keys, instead of having to learn new ones or resort to using the mouse (which is quite a bit slower).

Along came MS Works and then MS Word. Because it was a MS product, it touted itself as bigger, better and badder than anything else out there. They gave away the program for free with many computers and with Windows. They snapped up marketshare left and right. But they did one thing wrong - they didn't truly build a user-friendly program. Sure, they put in the basics, and eventually added a few bells and whistles, but essentially, the program doesn't hold a candle to the features offered by WordPerfect.

Today, after accidentally almost deleting my file for the third time while trying to change the formatting using quick keys (sometimes, my fingers type faster than I form thoughts - I've been using WP for a long time), I decided to do something about it! I was trying to both arrange my computer and its settings to something palatable, and fix a lot of the settings in MS Word (with which I am stuck at the moment), including using keyboard scripts and quick keys. In the process, I found an excellent website that compares the two programs and the features of each. To my dismay and severe disappointment, I discovered that not only can I not get the keyboard to do exactly what I want and am used to, I can't change it at all! Repeat after me, MS Word is useless!

I finished my first week of work today. The week went by terribly fast, but enjoyably. When I returned home from work, I found that someone had been here to repair the floor in our hallway - there had been a "soft spot". Well, the "repair" job now means that the floor is lower than it was in a much larger area than before (previously the soft spot had been right up against a wall, so we didn't notice it that much). Sigh.

Kirk is back to driving the Spit again for a while. He needs to replace the brake pads on his motorcycle before he rides it again. I drove him to work this morning (since the Spit was parked up there). I think he's glad that, since we got the Jeep, I am no longer using it as a daily driver. It should be a busy weekend!

FYI, I've decided to write a series of articles called "A Look Back", reviewing our trip and the lessons learned there. Coming soon!

Labels: RTW, Software, Transportation, Work