We started the day with brunch with my parents at Kalapaki Joe's. Their brunch is better than the dinner we had there.
SCUBA!

I took my first two SCUBA dives today, at Koloa Landing, which was once one of the busiest whaling ports in Hawaii. Now it's an occasional boat launch, but mainly it's a place for divers to walk into the ocean.
I ( Read more... )

* Note: These are notes I wrote during the trip, cleaned up only slightly soon after we got home. Normally I revise my outlines before making them public, but because I linked them in an article update on May 19, I figured I'd make it visible even this unfinished state.

================== November 18 Sunday ------------------ Nouméa
This ( Read more... )

Date: Wed, 7 Nov 2012 09:56:33 +1100
Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2012 14:56:34 -0800 (PST)
Subject: Hello From Australia!
To: [a few relatives]
Hi Guys,
We are the Four Seasons Hotel in Sydney right now, about to embark the Oosterdam in an hour. I popped down to the bakery café two blocks away and landed to large fresh fruit salads to fill up on, with a ( Read more... )

Today we had an errand that took us across the 520 bridge. On a lamp post on the bridge, I saw a bald eagle and pointed it out to "J". She asked what it was doing there, and I joked that it was waiting to meet a date. Soon after, we saw another bald eagle on another lamp post. If they were both there for a date, they should have agreed on which ( Read more... )

At Hidden Springs Camp Ground, in Humboldt Redwoods State Park, "J" and I slept peacefully. Yesterday morning, we awakened to the sounds of many different kinds of birds, along with a couple of families packing for departure. Surprisingly, the birds were a lot louder than the kids.
One peculiar morning noise we heard turned out to be the sound of a ( Read more... )

When "J" and I arrived at China Camp State Park yesterday, it was too early in the morning to get a camp site. We did, however, walk through the campground to see what the sites were like. "J" and I did, however, walk through the campground to see what the sites were like. The camp looked nice, but the interesting features there were the flora and ( Read more... )

We were on the Olympic Peninsula again today, and headed home, arrive home just before midnight.
I'm too sleepy to write much, but I have a lot of notes.
Continuing later:
The next morning, we slept late. We went to the Forks Coffee Shop again; prices were again very inexpensive, and the portions were more generous than yesterday's meal. Behind ( Read more... )

Tonight, on the way to the gym, "J" spotted an unusual-looking canine. It looked too wild to be an ordinary dog, too large to be a fox, and too small to be a wolf (and besides, wolves won't go anywhere near human habitations. It had to be a coyote.
I switched my phone to camera mode and handed it to J, in hopes that we might catch a picture of it ( Read more... )

Soup

Last night, "J" started a pot of chicken soup for her friend "L", who has been feeling sick lately. It was ready this noon or so, and we had a taste of it; it was delicious. L came to visit and try out the soup, and she liked it a lot too. We gave L the rest of the batch to take home with her, with wishes to get well.
Flowers

Besides ( Read more... )

This morning I saw something interesting: two or three crows harassing a hawk or related bird of prey. "J" saw them first, and pointed them out to me. I would think that the crows individually would be no match for the hawk, but working as a team they drove the hawk away from what I assume must have been their territory. I saw something similar in ( Read more... )