Going to the Beach

I think we've discovered our perfect beach. Simply by default, never being allowed into Mauna Kea, we were reduced to 69 beach but have learned that it is the best. The torrential trade winds are ravaging Waimea where we live. It sometimes is dangerous to get out of the car because the car doors become lethal weapons in the wind's grasp. The ocean is also behaving wildly - white caps everywhere and at Hapuna - very large boogie waves. But for some reason little 69 bay is almost perfectly calm. Once in awhile a large swell, but mostly just gentle and there are wonderful coral areas that don't get too stirred up with flailing sand so visibility is actually quite good. I think we spent 6 hours yesterday just snorkeling then resting in the shade of the big trees. We met our little turtle friend taking a breather on the sand. When her eyes are closed you swear she is dead. I got a kick out of her beach path - the flipper marks on each side of the deep tail trench.

I had to replace Kyr's snorkel mask, I think it was irreparably damaged in the ferry tsunami we endured that time we all were at Pender 4 years ago. Kyr has heroically endured a leaky mask ever since - even in Greece. It was to the point that he was emptying it every minute. We collectively decided that it was somewhat of a safety feature as it forced him to see where he was at all times. With a good mask it is almost too easy to find yourself way out, with huge distances ahead trying to get back. Harris bought himself some flippers and is enjoying the speed they enable him while snorkeling and diving. Apparently diving is way easier with flippers, something I'll probably never know.

I became engrossed yesterday in a crab collective. At least 10 crabs were whipping in and out of their holes all within 2 feet of where I stood. By standing very still I witnessed their comings and goings and interactions with eachother. Mostly they liked to stand poised at their hole openings and train their eyes on me. I felt like a conductor. The brief movement of even my hair would send them scuttling down only to reappear moments later when they would arrange themselves facing me. I wonder what they eat?

I've quit suggesting other outings ie) volcano because I'm going to wait and see if the others ever tire of beaching it. I don't tire but I feel the normal anxiety that plagues me that we should be doing other things.

We're eating very gourmet. Last night while making supper a gecko sprinted across the kitchen floor and unnerved me - that flash of fluorescent green!

I've even quit harassing everyone for an early start - now that we've found 69 beach there is no big hurry. As you can see from the last three photos how we start our day - me making breakfast sandwiches and delivering them to the computer people and then the slow realization as I make lunch that perhaps we will have someother demand on us during the day, we might actually have to go somewhere, even though the winds rage around dear little Morning Fire.

Calm Beaches

A very busy few days. Trying to be diligent and perhaps with any luck penetrate the beach fortress that is Mauna Kea, we set out earlier and earlier each day. But there are some things that I will not forsake in the quest to get to that particular beach - and that is a good lunch (dutifully made by yours truly) and Starbucks vente black ice tea. If I had to forsake that, it is not worth going. Every morning we are dutifully turned away at Mauna Kea. To the point when we ask how early we must be there the entry time keeps getting earlier by a 1/2 hour.

But as luck will have it each morning we have ended up at 69 beach. Winds are raging around us and for some reason 69 is perfectly calm and with shade. It doesn't get any better. For 2 years we have dutifully gone to 69 always with huge waves. I read about the snorkeling but could never get there because of the currents associated with the waves. The last two mornings have been calm and perfect snorkeling weather. We all enjoyed squid, turtles and Kyr even saw an octupus! It had been such a delightful beach. We have been so lucky!

After several hours spent in snorkeling spendor we try to do an afternoon outing . Yesterday we did the saddle road between 2 volcanos and in the span of less than an hour dropped from 87 to 50 degrees. The landscape on the saddle road ( crosses the island) is like a moonscape. It is surreal in its elevation and bleakness. The American military have a base near the top and it is beyond desolate. Apparently it was incredibly strategic during WWII, but god knows what important nefarious activity occurs now. The thing that was so incredibly disturbing was the complete death of all vegetation surrounding the military base. Admittedly it is just very dwarf scrub trees, but they are numerous and definitively dead. The only hopeful thing I could come up with is perhaps a brush fire?

We arrived in Hilo to find it even more decrepit than before. Will the economic crush never end? The market was even very paltry. Joop bought two beautiful island bouquets that are elevating our surroundings here at Morning Fire and we bought lots of papaya and tomatoes. But really it was almost depressing. We made the big faux pas of trying to get a snack at a restaurant. It was an exercise in futility.

Today after our beach sojourn we hiked Pololu valley. So beautiful as you can see in the windswept beach photos.

Tonight the boys made a tropical meal with local papayas, pineapples and chicken. It was delish.

The opening photos are of the horses here at morning fire. They love their morning apples and gallop up.

Boogie Boarding

I'm having to blog at night now because my blogging slowed down our progress to such a significant degree that we missed getting into Mauna Kea by one car. I thought we were doing exceptionally well being at the gates by 10:11, but apparently that is too late. I was initially distraught because being at Hapuna again means that I have to make my way past all of the boogie boarders in order to get to snorkeling territory. Not being a boogie boarder myself, they seem a wild, unwieldy lot that would as soon mow you down as abandon their wave. Needless to say I am traveling with boogie boarders. In the pictures you can see them strutting out to the waves clutching their boards and in some pictures even see Kyr and Harris catching some. It is quite the art.

I managed to snorkel a bit, not much because it is so choppy and even once you get to the corral there is not many fish. Is that significant? I don't know what to think on that point because I'm here so seldom and can't really say much about the amount of fish. I'm sure it is variable even in good years.

Once again we are struggling against the ravages of the sun. Today though, the ravages were in the attempts to foil it. Harris accidently burnt his left arm yesterday. After much nagging by me because I promised his mother he would not be burnt, he was vigilant in reapplying his sunscreen, but somehow it got in his eyes. He was in such agony for hours that I was contemplating attending emergency, but then through a miraculous self medication of sucking up Starbucks icewater through a straw and then dribbling it on his eye, he was cured, thank god. And then Kyr somehow spasmed his shin muscle into an S shaped that was unrelenting for 2 days despite my prescription muscle relaxants. So with the boys and their ailments, I am exhausted. I am thankful that neither condition precluded them enjoying the boogie boarding.

Tomorrow we will attempt to get to Mauna Kea by 9 am and then take the newly paved saddle road to Hilo where we will partake of the market. The boys are supposed to make supper every 3rd night. Somehow the plethora of Costco ingredients was uninspiring. They aim to make the market their destination - fruits and veggies galore. I'm pleased as long as Harris doesn't sneak Spam into the mix.

We'll probably take the coastal route back because it is so beautiful. For some reason the only people we run into are from BC. We are assured the volcano is open for observation by the native BCers. I'm pleased because that would be quite spectacular even to see the video footage of the latest explosion. The good thing about the Hawaii volcanos is that they erupt so slowly - 10mph, that they are easily outrunable.

Joop cooked supper tonight - a very delectable blue marlin - the very fish of trophy and fantasy.

There is so much to see and see again that I already feel panicky that we might miss something. I was wrong in my last post - the temp actually goes down to 64 F. Sandra and John would feel right at home at Morning Fire.

Hawaii 2011

Another gruelling journey to paradise. I spent much more money to ensure we spent only 8 hours traveling with plans to arrive at noon and spend the day at the beach. An unscheduled extended layover in San Francisco thwarted my plans and all the extra money, which also included a night stay at the Hilton in Waikaloa because we couldn't get into our beloved morning fire on time. Not only that but my wallet mysteriously went missing on the plane with the $300 I had just gotten out in SF. The picture above is of the boys heroically enduring the layover, having been up since 3:30am.

Despite being almost too exhausted to enjoy it, the Hilton was quite amazing. I'm glad to have experienced a resort like that at least once. It is so massive that a train is necessary to take you from building to building. There was also a series of canals so that we could have taken boats from place to place as well. On 64 acres there is a series of outdoor pools. The boys managed to take them all in that night. Our room was perched overlooking the ocean - one of the pictures in the middle of the palm trees. I think we all enjoyed the spectacle, though whenever I experience something like that I look around amazed that people are able to afford extended stays. How do they do it? The food is very expensive, everything is expensive, yet you still see families that are digging right in to the $25 breakfast. As Joop says, as more people become poorer, some are becoming richer. I guess we glimpsed the ones getting richer. One of the things I especially enjoyed about the resort was their collection of art. Partly because it is so not necessary, I think it is so very wonderful. I'm sure the resort would have been almost as awe inspiring without the art but the art just pushed it over. There is a long corridor that you can walk that connects all of the resort; it is outdoors but covered with a roof and pillars and within this corridor are massive paintings, many statues and even puppets from Burma.

The art plus the landscaping makes me think of ancient Egypt. Reading Cleopatra, I am completely incredulous about all of the pomp and luxury that went into living. The necessity for those in power to demonstrate through excess their position, their hold on mortality, I guess we haven't lost that.

We left the poshness and settled at Hapuna beach, having heard that one of our favorite beaches for meeting turtles was destroyed in the tsunami. The boys bobbed up and down in the waves body surfing - they are the two furthest dots in the ocean photo. I struggled to snorkel in the waves with my stalwart companion Joop dutifully swimming beside me, not snorkelling mind you just swimming along to ensure my safety. I must talk him into wearing his snorkel stuff on our next outing.

The temp dropped from 87 to 67 as we crested the mountain heading from morning fire. It is wonderful to be back. Smells and looks the same, though a new hideabed for Harris. We attempted to go to the Mexican Restaurant - massive crowds, standing room only, despite that my Metro got some acclaim from the crushing crowds. We ended up at Paniki Grill where none of us could figure the cultural origins of the food - everything with beef patties and eggs and no veggies. Harris had some concoction that they were proud to say contained Spam!

Off to Mauna Kea this am, once I've made the sandwiches.

O'Keefe Country

Joop and I went to New Mexico and Joop bought a fender for his car and I bought a Navajo headdress. It sounds weird but that is what it amounts to.

The New Mexican landscape it exceptionally beautiful. In the northeast section where we were, the land is a series of open plateaus interspersed with occasional mountains and land formations that look more like badlands. There is the sense of open vistas like the prairie where the sky is all but at the same time in every view there is sometype of geographic relief that adds incredible interest. So it is always about the play of light on the land and the many subtle colours. The vegetation is quite consistent at the various altitudes mostly scrub junipers and pinyon bushes, not much grass which could explain how even though it seems as though you are driving through miles and miles of ranchlands, and it is all fenced with barb wire as though intending to keep something in or out , there is not a cow or horse visible. People dress the part though and stopping in a tavern in an old ghost town called Madrid (has subsequently been taken over by squatters who set up galleries) the clientele are weathered old ranchers with hats and boots and neckscarves as though they just dismounted.

Driving through the landscape there is vast emptiness with the occasional fenced pueblo, which I took to be sometimes like a town on a reservation because they are quite vigilant about their privacy and often don’t encourage visitors. The dwellings in these pueblos are definitely adobe or pseudo- adobe, all meant to look the same and as part of the earth. There are also many, many casinos. I have decided that the native population that is not making pottery, jewelry, weavings or drums is running the casinos.

The only other visible industry is galleries. There is such a plethora of galleries in Santa Fe that it is enough to paralyse you.

Of the three towns that we visited I would say that Santa Fe is the place to make your base. Aside from too many galleries, too many shops, it is a nice little town to walk around. Our bed and breakfast was within two blocks of the downtown core and plaza. We walked everywhere. It was very pleasant. The food we ate was very good. We ate at 2 especially nice restaurants – an Italian and a bistro. With the food so good and accessible it was almost easy to overlook the paralysis that overcomes you when faced with too many goods to buy. I was so inundated with jewelry, pottery, weavings that I was completely unable to purchase. That has never happened to me before. The handful of goods that I did admire were all over $1000.00. I tried and tried to find something to purchase from the natives that sell their wares directly by sitting in front of the governors place which is like a long porch that is along one side of the plaza, but even then things were too overwhelming. A belt buckle I liked was $500.

So in the end the only items I ended up purchasing were at the hotel shop in Albuquerque. I even had to exclaim to the shop attendant that I had looked everywhere and only liked the things in his shop.

We went to the Georgia O’Keefe gallery in Santa Fe and really enjoyed the movies and collection. To visit her house in the town of Abiquiu you must book one month in advance. I would have liked to have seen it, just to see what aspect of the landscape consumed her so.

Last night we had guacamole made at our table. It was very entertaining, cheap and tastey, someone should take it up at home.

The one thing I will miss is my New Mexican hair - sleek and flat with no humidity.

Bandelier and Frijoles Canyon

Here I am back in our cozy B &B in Santa Fe after a day spent at Bandelier Monument which is just northwest of Santa Fe, near the infamous Los Alamos. In Frijoles Canyon at Bandelier is the cliff dwellings of the Ancestoral Pueblo peoples. They lived in these cave-like dwellings carved out of the volcanic tuff for hundreds of years until about 600 years ago when they abandoned the dwellings for reasons not completely known, speculated that perhaps a number of environmental pressures pushed them out - drought, over hunting etc. As you can see from the above photos the dwellings sometimes pushed out from the cliffs and were multistoried, having the depressions within the cliffs as part of a dwelling projecting out. You can see from the one photo the many holes in lines that indicated the different stories of the dwellings. The projecting out parts were just stones mortared together. Occasionally there would be just ladders into caves. The roofs of the caves were blackend with soot to help prevent the fragile tuff from falling down ( tuff is a soft type of volcanic rock from and erruption 1 million years ago). The whole Frijole canyon is beautiful and peaceful. Near the end of the exploratory loop was a chance to ascend to a cave dwelling that house many people at one time. These photos are near the end. In them you can see the brave Joop ascending the multiple ladders that rise 140 feet to the cave where many families lived and cavorted, bringing all firewood and harvested and gathered food stuffs to the cave. You can see the overhang shadow of the cave in one of the bottom pictures, the other 2 are the tiny dot of Joop braving it out on the ladders. Needless to say I didn't do it as it specifically warned against people afraid of heights. I did try the earlier ladders - just one story and even then had severe vertigo. Imagine those people ( they only lived to 35) whipping up and down the ladders probably even to go to the bathroom. The ancestoral peoples were farmers and happily grew corn and were prolific potters. They even had domestic turkeys and pet dogs.

While we were in the beautiful valley we could always hear this gentle cooing. We were convinced that it was the ancestors of the domestic turkeys. But no, it was vast numbers of sandhill cranes to migrating to their wintering grounds just south of Albuquerque. It was so wonderful to see them overhead in their undulating flying V's.

After such an exceptional afternoon we headed to Taos, the infamous town of historic artists and literary figures. I was led by the guidebooks to believe that this town of 6000 was the mecca of New Mexico. Admittedly it was Sunday night, and perhaps the attractions are in the recreation - white water rafting in the gorge of the Rio Grande, skiing etc... I was hopeful that it was the New Mexican equivalent of Nelson. But all I can say is that we drove through the town completely unable to imagine why Julia Roberts makes her home there. My only highlight was being able to view the paintings of DH Lawrence at an old hotel ( we had to pay$3 each and wait until a viewing at 6pm , when finally the curtains were parted on the 9 paintings.) They were painted the year before he died and after he left his ranch in New Mexico. They were deemed too purient by Scotland Yard and ordered destroyed after their first exhibit in the UK. Somehow they found their way back to the illustrious Taos. They were interesting in their lack of purience. Given enough time, perhaps he would have become quite a painter.

Tomorrow I try and see the Native Art Museum to hopefully be able to consolidate all of my ideas on the influence of the different sectors on life in New Mexico today.

Albuquerque

Right now we're in Santa Fe, having spent the last 2 days in Albuquerque. As you can see from the 2 photos just above, Albuquerque is flat and not very lush. It spreads out very far, probably farther than you'd expect 800,000 people to spread but they almost all live in one story buildings. I think you can count the high buildings ( greater than 3 stories) on one hand. In the photo just above, I noticed these people painting in the lot below our hotel room. I couldn't imagine what it was they were painting and so the photo just above it to demonstrate the view that the painters had. It is a puzzling place simply because there doesn't seem to be much landscape wise to attract people. I didn't get a good look at the Rio Grande but perhaps the river valley is quite lovely. I watched a film in the art museum about the development of the city and for awhile (50's -60's)it was the fastest growing city in the states. They interviewed people that had moved here at that time and a number of the people remembered looking out their windows of their new bungalows in the new subdivisions, and just crying because there was nothing to see, just Mesa for miles and miles. I have to admit that somehow it seems even more stark than the prairie, there seems to be less plants. Its glory however is in the light. The most intense bright sun imaginable. Joop thinks that it is brighter than I remember Saskatchewan to be because of the nearness to the equator. It is almost blinding.

The history of the area is most interesting. In one of the photos you can see Joop helping to push the cart of the first colonizers in 1598. These were a number of Spanish families that moved up from the south. It appears to have been exceedingly difficult for them. The trade routes ran only south - north and the mother country (Spain) wasn't to gracious at getting them supplies that they could not source locally. This meant no iron for tools, which in turn meant no furniture (they were apparently lacking carpentry skills anyway). So it seems that they modeled some of their lifestyle on the local pueblo indians, who lived in caves and mud huts etc.. I am trying to understand how the plethora of artistic materials which seem to represent this area are so tied to the natives. Despite the Spanish colonists horrid treatment of them (enslavement, lack of any kind of trading fairness) all of the things for sale are somehow related to the initial natives - pottery, weaving, turquoise jewelry, etc...It is almost overwhelming shopping in these areas because there is so much of everything: pots, blankets, jewelry. I can't begin to imagine picking out a piece of jewelry to bring home, there is just too much.

Touring old town in Albuquerque, the initial settlement from the 1600's (see the photos above - Joop in old town plaza, Joop in a restaurant with the tree in it ( restaurant from 1700's) one was awash in Native art and nostalgia for the good old highway Route 66. Things only improved for these initial colonizers in a material sense only after the Santa Fe trail opened up in the 1800's which was a trading route that originated in Missouri.

The current residents of Albuquerque apparently pride themselves on being unpretentious. There seems to be a strong sense of us vs. them about the university students. When we asked our hotel bartender which of two areas were worth seeing - downtown or Nob Hill, he quickly replied Nob Hill because downtown on a Thursday night would be too full of university types. Interestingly both areas are located on the old Route 66 - just a long line of commercial establishments snaking through the city.

We took the scenic route to Santa Fe. Just undulating hills covered in scrub trees that seem to be Junipers. Still a sense of vegetation having a real struggle to establish itself. Most probably due to the dryness.

Santa Fe seems like a delightful place. It has a population close to 80,000, sort of like Kamloops and so far the shops around the plaza amaze even me. I have seen merchandise in the windows (it was evening when we arrived) that I couldn't even imagine- a liqueur set in this amazing beveled glass display case that folds open, beautiful embroidered skirts, too much to even take in.

We are staying in a lovely bed and breakfast just 2 blocks from the plaza. So far we have to work hard to avoid the mexican food. It is good - and just like Yanni warned us - we have to ask which of the chili sauces always on offer,either red or green, is the hot one that day. We are only working to avoid it so that we don't have to eat it 3 times a day.

Today I turn 46. I hope that Santa Fe will provide me with birthday entertainment.