July 2024 – Mahalo, Kauai

 

The path to Hideaways

The flight from Oahu to Kauai on Hawaiian Airlines was short and sweet with a cup of juice and bright sunshine for the 35 minute duration.  The airport in Lihue is about the size of the one in Palm Springs and uses a similar “open air” style.  We took a shuttle to our rental car and had to laugh, the “off-site lot” is closer than the garages at Dullas.

Having spent a week trying to drive and park on Oahu, I was glad we rented a small car and I was looking forward to driving a Mazda 3.  Hertz generously greeted us with a complimentary upgrade - aloha - and my subtle compact turned out to be a bright red Dodge Charger.  Mahalo.

We started with coffee and a sandwich at Java Kai in Kapa’a based on local recommendations then went touring.  Wailua Falls was at the top of our list and it was super close to where we were staying.  Great intro to the island.  Us old folks didn’t climb down but considered going back to do so every single day we were on the island.  The mountain road dead-ending at the Falls was a twisty journey up through crowding trees and towering tropical grasses with farms, fields, pastureland, and sudden views up to the jagged mountain.  The falls themselves were spectacular - iconic even – but there wasn’t enough parking, crowded with people for the available space, and littered with litter.  Lesson number 4 about Hawaii – if you don’t have to pay to get in, it’s been soiled. 

We went south to Koloa and Puipu filling our afternoon with an amazing gluten free menu at Friendly Waves, Dole-Whip at a Mango-Something ice cream shop, and oohing and ahhing my cousin’s favorite Kauai beach.  We were also advised, during lunch via the government alert system, to leave immediately because of a fast moving wild-fire.  Good thing we had the Dodge.

We rented an oceanfront AirBnB “condo.”  The grounds were beautifully landscaped with palms, ferns, bananas, taro, kolo, hibiscus, and chickens.  It was just an old hotel room rebranded, but perfect for us with a sliding door that opened to the beach.

We drove the island, miraculously finding midday parking for everything except the Queen’s Bath.  I mean miraculously – we’d pull up and suddenly there was a spot, or someone who needed to pull out leaving us a spot, and the three cars behind us would mask their jealous envy with a friendly shaka.  We found Hideaways Beach, Tunnels, pull-offs, Hanalie (great food trucks), glass beach at Eleele, and even our first stop at Wailua (though we didn’t appreciate it at the time).

We saw sea turtles, came across a pair of monk seals sleeping on Poipu, watched a ray swim by from the loungers in front of our room.  We even saw chickens.

We hiked the Canyon Trail at Waimea Canyon (the Grand Canyon of the Pacific) State Park – wow.  It’s part of why helicopter tours are a must on Kauai, why all the Jurassic Park movies were filmed on Kauai, it’s the big emptiness that makes Kauai feel so much less crowded than Oahu.

We did not take a helicopter tour – one crashed with no survivors the day we arrived on the island.  The odds of two in the same week might be low, but it is written, “Do not put the Lord your God to the test…”

And we were busy.  It’s a small island but the average speed between 2 points is always 25 mph.  Lesson number 5 about Hawaii – If you are in a hurry, you’re missing the point.

With red dirt on our shoes and suitcases packed with souvenirs, we wrapped up our week with a dinner at Friendly Waves (the cool gluten free place) and another warning to “leave at once or be burned alive.”  We shopped the “Kauai Chicken” store, drank Kona coffee, and drove 25 mph to the airport.  The flight back to Oahu was short and sweet, the drive back to Andrew and Katie’s house familiar and uneventful.  Daisy (their dog) was ecstatic we came back and had a terrible case of the zoomies.

We hiked and beached Oahu style for our last few days, climbing to the pillboxes at Lanikai, jumping out of the water at Bellows because somebody thought they saw a shark, walking the path at Patriot’s Park on base, and crashing the public side of the lagoon by a pair of resorts including the one where they filmed “The Wrong Missy” and Disney Hawaii.  We may, or may not, have wandered around the Disney one that was more crowded than a cruise ship where a single can of coke costs nearly $5 at its marketplace.  Or not.

We flew back on a red-eye to Dallas, the flight attendant cheerfully announcing it was the captain’s “last flight before retirement” and seemingly oblivious to the importance of not sharing that kind of information.  I mean, how many movies have you seen where somebody says, “This was my last mission.  I was going home, man!”

We made it.  And the hop to Richmond.  And so did our checked luggage.  I think if I go back I will leave from the West Coast.  Yes, that will only be 5 hours or so, much better.  And that is Lesson number 6 about Hawaii – it makes you think about next time, even before you’re back home. 

I have a friend who lives on Guam.  He keeps telling me to come visit.  Says things like, “It’s only another 7 hours past Hawaii.”  Maybe, but then I think about Lesson number 1 about Guam – You think Hawaii’s a long plane ride…

Hideaways

Missing Man at sunset
Patriot's Park, JBPHH

July 2024 – Aloha

Honolulu from Diamond Head

This post is out of order.  Sorry about that.  But, as cool as Nashville was, we’ve been in Hawaii the past couple of weeks and I want to write about it.  This leg of our travels will be told in two parts with a third post of pictures.  And no, ha ha ha, we did not drive the motorhome here. :P

We flew American (no more United for us, no sir) from Richmond to Charlotte to Los Angeles to Honolulu.  Good flights, smooth layovers, a bit of bonus time sitting on the apron at LAX while they sorted a water problem and then another “minor mechanical”, but really nothing to complain about.  It’s just a long time to sit on airplanes – Lesson number 1 about Hawaii, there’s no easy way to get there.

But it takes a long time because Hawaii is really, really far away.  So far, in fact, that many people who live there spray paint, “Hawaii is not America” on any surface not covered by a chicken.  Lesson number 2 about Hawaii – there are free range chickens everywhere.  Why is it that nobody has ever told me this?  As I am writing, a hen and her chicks have come to surround my lanai and demand a handout.

Andrew and Katie picked us up at the airport and whooshed us off to their home on Hickam, a drive that took less time than walking to baggage claim.  The air was sweet with botanicals, the evening comfortably warm, and we slept in until 4 am HST (10 on the east coast of the mainland).

Andrew drove us around the next day and we got a taste of Oahu, touring from Honolulu up the East coast following the H1 to 72 past Diamond Head, Maunalua Bay, and Koko Head to a stop at the Halona Blowhole Lookout – it’s worth fighting for a parking spot and don’t let the tourists with their cameras and rented SUVs and tight schedules rush you.  There is nothing CONUS that even comes close and I don’t care how many times you’ve watched “50 First Dates” or “Gilligan’s Island”, you haven’t experienced Hawaii until you are actually standing there, on a jagged cliff’s edge of black igneous as the ocean leaps skyward against the island that’s in its way.

If you only have a couple of hours on Oahu, take a drive on 72.  It is one of the most breathtaking roads I’ve ever been on, even with the traffic.  It was a clear day and we could easily see Maunaloa on Molokai across the channel.

From there we drove on to the Makapu’u Point lighthouse park.  As with every other place we stopped, parking required waiting for someone to leave.  Lesson number 3 – in Hawaii, there are more cars than places for cars.  There were a lot of people but it was a beautiful day and there was a spacious paved trail.  So spacious, a man older than me was able to ride his road bicycle up and down it without a problem, even playing show tunes from his handlebar speaker.  

We continued along 72 past the site of the Robin Masters Estate to Bellows Field, an Air Force installation the Marine Corp uses for navigation training.  We used it to put our feet in the Pacific, get some ono grinds, and satisfy Andrew’s need to show us some pea fowl.

We left Bellows to continue north beneath Lanikai up through Kailua to the Naval Exchange on USMC Base Hawaii.  I bought a towel.  Don’t laugh, it’s a very cool towel.  It says, “Aloha” on it.

We headed home via the H3.  It rises dramatically from the ocean to the Tetsuo Harano Tunnel on a stretch of highway elevated above the rainforest often seen on the “hit” TV show “Hawaii Five-O.”  It descends, though not as dramatically, to the more industrial Pearl Harbor/Honolulu sprawl.  There’s a monorail but the development has been… political… so it doesn’t really serve anywhere people want to go and is generally empty.

JBPHH (Joint Base Pearl Harbor Hickam) is a relatively calm, low-rise, stretch out and breathe hub of activity with wide avenues shaded by mature trees, quiet streets, brightly colored birds and flowers, and the calming scent of a tropical flora menagerie carried on a constant breeze.  It’s a great place for dinners grilled in the backyard, sunset strolls along the ocean, and to host your parents.  It’s also a place where some of the buildings still bear battle scars from December 7, 1941.  There’s fresh paint, but no mistaking the history.

We play a lot of Sequence which, if you haven’t tried it, is a blast.  And we watched “Barb and Star Visit Vista Del Mar” which, if you haven’t seen it, is a hoot.  And we went to Costco where I found the best bag of chips and bought a cake because nobody makes a cake like Costco and Andrew said he’d help me eat it.  I left half of it when we left for Kauai but that part of the trip is in the next post.

We spent a day at the museums of the USS Arizona Memorial but didn’t go out to the ship.  We hiked Diamond Head and saw a blue stop sign.  We went swimming on the West shore where we saw a sea turtle from the beach and explored a creepy sea cave filling with tidal waters.

They have shrimp flavored potato chips and mushroom popcorn.  The sea is an unconscious part of everyone here, but so is the incredible fusion of Eastern and Western cultures with the Polynesians.  It’s a generally polite and unpretentious place that, much like the black bears in West Virginia, only gets mean when you poke it.

There’s something else too, something intangible.

We’ve spent a lot of time at the ocean.  Southern Maine (HA!), Cape Cod, South Carolina, the Golden Isles of Georgia, Florida’s Clearwater, Coco Beach and Destin.  The Virgin Islands, Nevis and St. Kitts, Puerto Rico and Haiti and Grand Cayman.   I don’t think I realized how many places or how much time until writing that list, how incredibly fortunate we have been.  Experience, right?  And yet, Hawaii is different.  Completely different.  Soul touching different.

We took off with the the Mobile Mojo Dojo Casa House to tour the country and decide where we wanted to live.  If it weren’t for all the chickens, this might have been it.

That's the tide coming in

 

June 2024 -- Through Jackson and on to Nashville

 

From Land Between the Lakes we had a short travel day south to Jackson, TN - home of the most famous railroad conductor in American history, a speed demon immortalized in song, tall tales, and a museum that we didn’t stop at.  Have you ever had someone talk to you about someone, or something, “famous” that you’ve never heard of and thought to yourself, “Is there something wrong with me that I don’t know what this person is talking about?  That I don’t know this famous thing?”  Sometimes I just sit up on my high horse and think something like, “This person talking right now obviously doesn’t know what the word ‘famous’ means because nobody has ever heard of what he’s talking about.”

I propose to avoid those problems by not naming the conductor.  If you know him, he’s famous.  If not, you’re not a Johnny Cash fan.  If you don’t know who Johnny Cash is, follow the link…

We are members of an organization (club?) called “Harvest Hosts' ' that is a network of small businesses with big parking lots that invite people traveling by RV to spend the night at their place.  There are golf courses, wineries, churches, museums, and even small towns that say, “Come on by and bring your border collie.”  Jackson was our first night at one and we enjoyed a quiet night under the stars parked in the middle of a vineyard.

I was nervous about driving off-road but I’d seen pictures of other rigs our size at the place and did my walkthrough and heavy farm equipment wasn’t leaving ruts so we went for it.  They didn’t care if we ran the generator which was great since it was incredibly hot before the sun went down but being in a field with hot exhaust scorching the grass, we shut it down as soon as the temps dropped to the mid-80s to avoid “Burning Down the House” (also mid-80s).

From Jackson we drove to Nashville and it got hilly.  We stopped at a Love’s for fuel and the interstate exit was like the roads back in Watoga.  The truckstop was also on the side of a hill and steep and rutted and harrowing.  Renee didn’t watch for much of the maneuvering, it was tight and always we have that extra challenge of not being able to back up more than a foot or 2.  Side note: this backing restriction drives me crazy.  I would rather be towing a 53’ trailer I can parallel park with.

Nashville proper was the first real traffic we hit after Fredericksburg, VA but it didn’t last long and soon we were off the interstate and driving through residential neighborhoods toward the US Army Corp of Engineers Seven Points campground.  I was convinced my GPS was messing with me again but it turns out the only way to get there is along this narrow route with low wires and even lower branches.  But you know what?  Piece of cake.

A piece of crumbling gluten free cake maybe, the kind that is still a bit stressful to eat maybe, but we did make it with no problem and we met a nice lady at the gate house who checked us in, told us about the campground and Nashville and spending 20 years living aboard a boat before transitioning to RVs.

She also answered our most pressing question as we came into Nashville.  Do we need to go to the Grand Ole Opry?  Spoiler alert: NO!!!

June 2024 -- The Land Between the Lakes, Kuttawa[ish], KY

 

Always good to learn more about yourself

Hillman Ferry Campground has 368 campsites.  It’s a busy place with kids on bikes and scooters dodging more golf carts than I’ve ever seen in one place.  Golf carts going to the beach.  Golf carts going to the store.  Golf carts dragging portable wastewater tanks to the dump station.  Golf carts on flatbed trailers hooked up to 5th wheel trailers hooked up to 350 Duramax dualies.  Golf carts stuck in golf cart traffic.  And a review of Hillman Ferry on my go-to campground review site saying, “This place is like a small city.  After staying here we went out and bought a golf cart because you really need one at a place like this.”

You don’t, actually.  And we did not buy a golf cart.

There were plenty of other things to do.  We hiked a 2.5 miler through nice woods that supposedly was also a bike trail but Renee was skeptical.  It was hot and there were so many spider webs I had to get another web clearing stick.  There were also many ticks, but we didn’t know that until we got back.  So many ticks - mostly of the Lonestar variety.

Another day we took another hike - this one leaving from the “North Welcome Center” along a path that also allegedly doubled as a bike trail.  It was part of a network of about 14 miles of single-track and looked like a lot of fun (to bike) but Renee was pretty sure “No.”  We climbed through mostly woods (no spiders) and a big field beneath power lines, found all sorts of cool places that would make great forts and hideouts.  We passed big rocks and small cliffs, huge fallen trees, and occasionally a clear view of a sheltered bay along the lake that, unbelievably, had not been developed, or even claimed for the day by boaters seeking the same solace we had found.  The birds and butterflies and dragonflies kept us company.  And the ticks.  But there were also blackberries.  And also so many ticks.

Later we tried to ride a small, relatively flat section of the same trail system on our “so last decade pedal only mountain bikes.”  It was a blast, or not, depending on who you talk to.  Renee accused me repeatedly of trying to trick her but had no difficulty keeping up or handling the technical root/rock/washout/log sections.  I kept alternating between, “wow this is so cool” and “Dude, slow down because you’re too old for this to end well.”  When we found a shortcut back to the car we decided to take the win (and shortcut) and call it a day.

Another day we hiked around lake Hematite at the Nature Center which included a boardwalk over stinky swamp (bonus content included ticks, people with dogs, and Axel slipping his leash).  We also saw a tree that lost one of its trunks revealing another tree growing inside of it including quite the root system, a couple of  “Kodak moment” views of the lake, and concrete stepping stones across the spillway that Axel did not find amusing at all.  The trail was hot, flat and busy, but we enjoyed the walk and many blooming Persian Silk trees.

There was a 2 mile paved trail connecting our campground to the northern welcome center that we decided to check out on the bikes.  Turning onto it was like turning into a different world.  The pavement was broken with grass and trees coming up through it.  The path was narrow and heavily crowded by wild foliage and gave the sense of being a last remnant of the old civilization in some verdant post-apocalyptic garden.  It was also steep, required weaving between hanging deadfalls, and an absolute blast.  It was so fun we decided to tackle a portion of the 11 mile cross-island trail another day.

That was a more adventurous trail that included some cool moguls, lots of narrow bridges, and signs saying things like, “Caution” and “Death Ahead.”  Renee said it wasn’t too bad, but we haven’t been on the bikes since.  We saw a few other cyclists and some hikers but mostly it was just us and the trees flying by as our tires hissed and crunched over the gravel and dust and pine needles.

For Renee’s birthday, we went into the bustling metropolis of Grand Rivers (pop 342 or so) just up the road.  We needed fuel so first we stopped at one of the sketchiest gas stations I’ve ever encountered.  There was a car there that smelled like a dead body with skittish, meth-skinny people leaning against it giving us the eye.  I was glad the Cruze fills up on 7 gallons and we were gone in less time than most bank robbers spend cleaning out teller drawers.

Back in town we found a place called the “Tiki Turtle” which sounded close enough to “Tortuga Jacks” we wanted to give it a try.  it was an enjoyable afternoon and a good birthday.  Also, if you were in on the joke that the people who worked there hated their lives and everyone else, it was entertaining to watch them with the other patrons.  But, at the end of the day, for us, Grand Rivers was the kind of place you go when you are already there.

One evening we drove down to the “Elk and Bison Prairie” for a look-see.  We paid the toll for the 3 mile loop and spent a couple of hours doing laps and watching the Elk.  At one point we rounded a corner and came across a field with the herd of bison – complete with calves and a couple of bulls.  We parked on the side of the road and watched them until out necks were stiff and we started saying silly things like, “Look, now that one is eating the grass.”

We took another lap excited to see them again but they were gone.  Vanished.  Like the great herds of Buffalo before them.  It was an unexpected object lesson in the importance of appreciating here and now, how things might seem like they’ll be there forever but aren’t.  A giant sign saying, “There’s no guarantees for the next lap.”

But if it was a lesson in all that, it was also a lesson in not dwelling on what’s been missed because if we’d been sadly staring at our pictures of the bison we won’t see again instead of looking out, we’d have missed the bull elks and let me tell you, they were a sight to see.

Notice they left "steep, narrow, washed out trail along high cliff" off the sign.

The end of "Fury Road"

At the Nicholl family cemetery

Our Friday shirts -- without them we don't when we are

What are you looking at?

The Hematite path

Trees within trees

Shane!  Come back!

Scott AFB (Bellville), IL to Hillman Ferry Campground, Land Between the Lakes (Grand Rivers), KY

 

Hematite Lake at Land Between the Lakes

We went back to bed after Sean left for work at 0430.  That’s just too early when you’re retired.  Later, after the sun had risen and the birds had eaten their worms, we enjoyed a leisurely decampment.  The only step out of routine involved me driving to the otherside of the base to secure Sean’s sleeping bag in “Bees’s” Jeep.  Somehow Sean had found room for his fishing gear (including “ugly stick” pole) on his motorcycle but apparently the sleeping bag was too much.  Regardless, it was a nice morning to drive through the corrugated tunnel somebody built under the runway.

We had to backtrack about 50 miles and it was odd driving East, but the view was familiar - slightly undulating fields broken up by thin strips of woods and the occasional building.  It was the first real encounter with crosswinds driving the RV and I was a little concerned I was being a baby about it until we passed a field with a huge combine almost completely hidden by a huger cloud of fast moving dust.  The wind was real.

The highway was rough so we took our time.  There was a pleasant rest area along the shore of Rend Lake and another that wasn’t near anywhere and the pavement was so broken up it could have swallowed the car.  It’s the inconsistency that keeps things interesting.  It’s also what’s fading from the homogenized American Road Trip – we’ve stopped comparing the experience between Alice’s Restaurant and Bob’s Burgers and now only comment on the subtle difference between whether a particular Walmart’s “greeter” is welcoming us in or making sure we aren’t stealing on the way out.

We drove through Metropolis, IL, home of the world’s largest Superman statue.  I kind of regret not stopping, definitely would have if it was the world’s largest Ironman statue.  I’ve just never been a DC fan, even more so since having to work there…

Part of driving an oversized rig is route planning when traveling unfamiliar roads.  (See my previous post about straying from the path.)  For the Kentucky bit of the trip, we had to go what looked like about 40 miles out of our way.  My RV route planner app had us do it, the Garmin had us do it.  I was suspicious.  Couldn’t find a reason on Google Street View to go around, but none of the tools is perfect and it would have been just as much driving to unhook the car and reconnoiter.  We went with the RV navigation aids.  It was a bit of plodding through crowded lake towns with all the usual lake town businesses and summer traffic.  Then we crossed over to the Land Between the Lakes and there was no traffic.  Just a very straight, still narrow stretch of highway that ran along a wide “lawn” cut through forest.  Think of Michigan’s U.P. but deciduous instead of evergreen.  It was oddly repetitive, like being on open ocean where when you look up close you’re clearly moving, but further out everything looks exactly the same.

We reached Hillman Ferry Campground with plenty of daylight, navigated the tight, bumpy Forestry Service roads, and tried to park BUT the site was on a significant slope and despite lots of patient maneuvering, 40 “Duplo” leveling bricks, and gallons of sweat, we couldn’t get level.  It was significant enough that the next morning I went to the gate shack to get a different site.  I could and, while it wasn’t quite level either, it was close enough I could make us level.  The relocation from site T-31 to T-44 officially became our shortest travel day.

Boat launch, dog park -- is there a difference?

Our neighbors at Hillman Ferry

The "more level" T-44 (not to be confused with the actual Level 42)

Coming up next - the Elk and Bison Prairie

Scott AFB and surrounds, June 2024 - Seeing the Sights

 

Bit of shade at Arch Park

Our son is stationed about 20 miles East of St. Louis.  I’ve been more concerned about that then the fact he’s in the armed forces.  A bit more concerned when he moved off-post with a few of his friends to a place even closer to St. Louis.  I’d been there professionally, a few times.

It was good to see they live in a house that doesn’t have bars on the windows and doesn’t need them.  There’s plenty of trouble nearby if you’re looking for it, but that’s not his way and his friendly, easy going confidence glides unimpeded through traditional demographic walls.  He’s always been like that, a man with some sort of social osmosis superpower.

This stop was more like being on vacation.  We ate out every night.  We played a lot of ping pong.  I’m still able to consistently loose, Renee is still quite good, and Sean crushes everyone who picks up a paddle against him.  We’re used to it, but his roomies still get miffed.

Thursday one of Sean’s friends – we’ll call him “Bees” – joined us for dinner at a place in O’Fallon called Peel Wood Fired Pizza.  It was the best GF pizza Renee has had, with bacon and pickles.  It was busy, slow even – if you’re hungry, but friendly and delicious.  The young Airmen regaled us old folks with stories that had everyone except Bees laughing most of the time.  And at one point Bees said, “Hey, Sean.  Why did you order tires?”  Given the context, I thought it was setup since the tires weren’t supposed to arrive until Saturday.  But it wasn’t.

Friday took a couple of trips to Walmart and a few hours, but we got the tire mounted, new winches for the dolly – that dolly takes more maintenance and spare parts than a British sports car – and a trip through Menards.  We also moved the furniture and miscellaneous items we’d brought for Sean from our house to his – and Mom helped organize his room – before heading to a local “street taco joint” for the best asada burrito I’ve had outside of Texas.

Saturday we went to the Cahokia mounds which Sean described as, “hills with grass on them.”  There were also long winding paths around the mounds through open fields in the hot sunshine.  Then we went to the zoo and got a great parking spot right near the entrance.

It was one of the best zoos we’ve ever been to, much better than the National Zoo in DC.  We saw animals we’d never seen before, wouldn’t believe were real if we hadn’t seen them.  Enclosures that were closed with armies of zoo workers inside cleaning.  Animals with room and shade and running water and clever toys and company.  The grounds were clean with hardly any litter and the other guests were being excellent to each other.

Sunday we went to church with Sean.  While he was at BMT, Renee and I went on a cruise and met a couple who had recently retired from 38 years pastoring a church a bit outside of St. Louis.  We struck up a friendship and have stayed in touch.  Sean’s plans got changed around a few times and when he ended up at Scott, my friend said, “Hey, that’s where my church was.”  The couple running things now grew up there, went to China and ran an orphanage for 20 years or so, and came back, ultimately taking the reins when my friend retired.  And this is where Sean goes and is known and involved and valued and where people couldn’t wait to meet us and tell us how thankful they are for him.

And, since it was Father’s Day, I got a root beer float too.

We drove into St. Louis to explore Arch Park then went to Pappy’s Smokehouse for the best BBQ in the world as a late lunch, early dinner.  Then back home to exercise the pup and then off to “Inside Out 2” which, if you liked the first one (we did), was a good sequel.  [Rant about lack of original story telling in movies deleted.]

Sean had an early day on Monday so he stayed at our house, wrapped up with a sleeping bag and the happiest border collie in the whole wide world.

Sean explaining how he finessed something

Mural in O'Fallon

"Bees" with us outside of Peel

A grassy mound

Proof that,

if you build something, anything...

People will come

Special Zoo parking for Chevy's

Guys?  Hey.  C'mon.

It was 50 degrees colder than the rest of the zoo

Takin

Arch Park

Not sure where this is

Still my favorite thing about St. Louis

Ambushed serving a warrant in East St. Louis, 2011

If you had fun, you won

Axel critiquing Sean's form at the Scott Dog Park