This morning we got up and met Chuck and Danna at Smorgy’s for breakfast around 8 AM. All of this getting up early nonsense is going to kill be back home. Whew. I can’t not wait. Despite the constant threat of birds stealing your tater tots, Smorgy’s once again delivered tasty food and great coffee.

Chuck and Danna had rented a car, so they drove us down to the Aloha Stadium Swap Meet — the place to get knock-off goods and screen-printed t-shirts in bulk. Circling the stadium (which itself is kind of hideous), it was not terribly crowded, and the goods were plentiful, and the admission price of $.50 a piece was just right. You could even get a coconut postcard, if you wife would only let you indulge yourself in a silly game of postcard one-upsmanship. Ah well. We found gifts for most of the folks on our trip. A must do if you visit the place. All of the ridiculous curios you might expect to find everywhere else but for half the cost (or less).

Aloha Stadium is right close to Pearl Harbor and the USS Arizona Memorial, but we were hungry, so we went in search of food. Good lord. It took us an HOUR. An HOUR, all of which could have been avoided by us looking on the north side of the stadium first. Ah well. We eventually found our way to the Arizona Memorial.

The Arizona Memorial was quite nice, and well respected by all who we saw there. There is a nice movie that is shown before you board the boats to get to the Memorial (voiced by Stockard Channing, I do believe). The Memorial is quite nice and is a very somber affair, especially considering there are more than a thousand men entombed within her sunken shell. Their final resting place no more than 10 feet below the calm surface of Pearl Harbor. I think the photos do that justice.

After the Memorial, we briefly checked out the WWII Navy submarine memorial (with the USS Bowfin on display) for all of the submarines and submariners who lost their lives. Kelly and Danna didn’t really want to go into a submarine, so YAWN, we headed back into Honolulu.

Heading back into Honolulu, Danna suggested we go and check out Diamond Head crater. We arrive shortly after 4 PM, not really knowing what to expect. Turns out, you pay $5 to park, and then there is a 0.8 mile hike to the top of the crater. 0.8 miles! HAH! “WARNING: PLEASE BE ADEQUATELY PREPARED BEFORE HIKING”. Oh what-ever! Young, strapping dudes and dudettes like ourselves, we could handle it. We started up.

The first bit is a windy section up the inside of the crater, and with some mildly steep paths. A couple of stops up the way offered nice look-outs and minor rests. Then you get to the staircases (and a mining tunnel). The first staircase is 79 steep steps, the second staircase 99 steps (yet steeper), and the third a spiral staircase! Wow! Halfway up the 99 step staircase (attempting to keep up with and maintain appearances with Kelly), my brain had shut down to the point of basic survival instincts — one foot in front of the other. The only sentient thought I could think of was “lean forward, lest you faint and fall backwards, surely killing a number of also tired Japanese and German tourists, causing a minor international flap”. Finally, I reached the top and the medium-grade abandoned tunnel (dimly lit). Holy-moley. Lots and LOTS of altitude in that last run. Finally, the TOP! A quick glance at the watch marked the 0.8 miles and 700 feet were hiked/scaled in 20 minutes! Woo-hoo. 20 minutes that surely took twice that off my life. But – BUT – I kept face with Kelly. She told me I didn’t have to do that, but I know good and well, my failure to keep pace would have registered a black mark in some book of hers.

The hike, though tough was COMPLETELY worth it. Wow! Amazing view, with a rainbow to boot! Many photos taken. Much rejoicing had upon the return back down to the base.

We returned back to Chuck and Danna’s hotel to attempt contact with Gary, and it seemed that he had left a voice message. A couple of calls later, and apparently Gary and Mayumi where out and about as well. We headed back to our hotel and had a quick dip in the pool and then headed to dinner a Keoni’s — a Thai/American joint across the street. The service was abyssmal, but my “Evil Jungle Prince” curry was FAN-tastic, as was Chuck’s mahi-mahi with ginger-soy sauce. Nummy!

Tommorrow, we eat breakfast as Duke’s on Waikiki Beach, and then plan on spending most of the day on the beach until we go to San Sei for the big pre-game meal!

Kelly and I sprang awake at some ungodly hour (6 or 7 AM), and with a hankerin’ for breakfast, we headed down to “Perry’s Smorgy Restaurant”. A breakfast buffet for $5.95! Oh yeah. Fresh papaya and pineapple and kona coffee. Very nice.

Afterwards, we farted around for a little bit and then decided to go to the Waikiki Aquarium. It’s only about a 15 minute walk from our hotel down towards Diamond Head. It’s kind of a small affair — but well worth the $7 fee. Quite a few large tanks, and some really neat tanks with cuttlefish (ne’ squids), octopi, chambered Nautiluses, frog fish, etc. Shortly after arriving, I realized that the batteries in the cam were exhausted, so alas! no photos. Check out the website… Anyway… we wanted to go outside and see the monk seals and other exhibits outside, but it was raining hard enough for even the most accustomed of Hawaiian to consider staying inside. (It is worth noting that rain comes and goes as it pleases, and does not stay around long. Much like Kentucky’s weather patterns, far quicker in cycle.) Kelly and I took seats in the auditorium-style seats in front of the main tank.

After a couple of minutes of idle watching, Kelly begins to assign not only names to the fish we have been watching, but also personality traits and backstories. The two blacktip reef sharks were Arliss and Mason, well-tempered but somewhat silent cousins of the Zebra shark — B. B. B. B. is slightly retarded, and is both tolerated and protected by Arliss and Mason. B. B. appeared to Kelly to be retarded on account of his lazy, yet tight circles he (she?) would swim, and the silly expression on his face. Me, personally, I think he just appeared lazy because of his elongated body structure, but WHO KNOWS. I’ll operate under the assumption that there can be retarded sharks. There were also Ed and Ted (short for Edward and Tedward) — I think they might have been Tuna, but who knows. Oh, yes, they are twins. Kelly says they are known to often finish each others sentences, and dinners (they already dress alike). B. B. required protection because of Stuart, a species of long and angry-looking fish. Little is known about this one. Other players included Snaggles the buck-toothed red snapper, and Carl the Bluefin Jack with a hard past (Kelly says he spoke like Tony, the mob boss on the Simpsons).

We finally decided to brave the rain, so we headed outside to check out the Monk Seals, coral, etc. The Monk seals were awesome! They looked like giant, underwater cat people. One of them (they were also by named by Kelly), Conrad, often would stand upside-down in the tank, and stay there for minutes at a time. He would then float in front of us, standing upright like a human, and spin himself around with one fin. It was cute as all hell! I would trade him for Mr. Cheese any day. Well, maybe some sort of timeshare. Mandy was the other seal, and Kelly likened her to some sort of young, seal trophy wife. If a seal could fit in our tub, we’d have one by now.

After the aquarium, we hit the beach for a while to wait for Chuck and Danna who arrived about an hour and a half late due to massive headwinds. We met up with them at our hotel, and we walked down Kuhio Avenue and just fooled about, really. It started raining a little bit — and Danna managed to get lei’d by a young 14 year old girl. This girl came up and slapped these leis around us all, and then demanded money. Ah well, thank you no, save for one. Danna utilized it to make their room/closet smell a little better. Hopefully Chuck and Danna can post photos of their “closet”. It’s roomy, for a closet.

After a walk on the beach, we headed through the lobby of the Sheraton, dripping wet, through a gaggle of black-tie affair attendees. Oooh boy, too funny. But that is the dichotomy of Hawaii, I think. Any place where it rains all the time in short bursts and there is a good possibility of sweating, everyone has an understanding.

Anywho, we split up as Kelly and I needed a bite to eat, and Chuck and Danna were no doubt jet-lagged. In the morning — Aloha Stadium and Pearl Harbor and the Arizona Memorial.

Hey hey! I’m uploading some photos as we speak. When they go up, they will be in the Hawaii Gallery! Keep an eye out. Off to some big-assed mall. Kelly is chomping at the bit!

Update: it should please the gentry that photos from our “Day Two” here in Honolulu are now uploaded into the Hawaii Day Two gallery. Nothing exciting yet, as the rest of the crew has not yet arrived.

The big-assed mall — the Ala Moana Center was indeed big, and filled to the brim with stylish and not-so-stylish Japanese girls. The Von Dutch trucker hat is lame in America, girls, so get with it! Gonna catch some sushi at this joint down by the beach.

Update, night edition: Kelly and I ate at Furusato (not Futosako, or whatever I told Gary earlier and he translated into “Old Sugar”) tonight. Wow. Man — such excellent fish at decent prices. Tuna sashimi, yellow tail sashimi, barbecued eel, poke (a tuna/seaweed/tomato/onion/sesame salad), Philadelphia and cucumber rolls were all had and delivered graciously and with an attention to detail that made me question the sanity of the waitstaff. I also had a double-deuce of Asahi which was fantastic. Really, all this is just a run-up — a test of my sushi mettle until we get to SanSei on Monday for the “pre-game dinner” (as Gary is calling it). Tomorrow, we intend on meeting up with the Pearsalls, and quite possibly hitting a luau.

… and the bottom of a glass of bourbon. As I write this, I am enjoying the mid 70 degree weather of a cool and somewhat overcast Honolulu night from the balcony of our hotel room. I am coming to you live thanks to the unknown soul who has left an open wireless (wi-fi) access point in the general vicinity of my lofty nest. The glass of bourbon sweats a bit in this humid weather, the ice cubes occassionally shifting on their own.

The flight was OK — but only survivable thanks to a number of books. I managed to finish Neal Stevenson’s “Cryptonomicon” (what dozen pages I had left to finish), and even managed to complete in a single sitting Stephen King’s “The Gunslinger” (The Dark Tower Volume 1). I consider it one of my most focused reading attempts to date, especially in light of the fact that it took me nigh on 3 months to complete Cryptonomicon.

My mind is teetering on the edge of madness right now — according to my watch, which has been set to HST (-6 EST), I should be kissing Kelly asleep at home, but my body knows better. It thinks I need to get up in approximately 2 and one-half hours. My brain (and Colonel Bourbon) say otherwise. When we stepped into the Pacific for the first time, Kelly should have been at home in bed, but there is no time for such dalliances into logic — we are on vacation!

Neither Kelly nor I had ever seen the Pacific with our own eyes, and I must say it is beautiful — but in the way that Hawaii is beautiful. Kentucky has it’s own simple, weathered beauty, as do the Appalachians and the Atlantic Ocean. Here, the island is still very much being created and the ocean seems to reflect that youth and vigor. The Pacific is the temperature of tepid bathwater and nearly as clear.

PS – I don’t think that there is anything more alluring to me right now (aside from you, dear bourbon) than the image of a girl on a surfboard silhoutted by the sun setting on a flat horizon framed by the ocean.

Surfing tomorrow, maybe. Pictures for certain, as I have confirmed that the bandwidth is here to be had.

Kelly and I are off to beeeea-utiful Hawaii tomorrow morning at 10AM! Hopefully I’ll be able to score some wireless Internet access and upload some photos and a rolling travelogue. Watch this space…

Well, we’re back from vacation (as of late Saturday night), and all is well! I must give propers where propers are due, so big thanks to Aunt Cindy, Uncle John and Uncle Joe for being great hosts in Roanoke, Chuck and Danielle for putting us up in Baltimore, and Patience for putting us up on extremely short notice in Cape Cod! Also, I can’t recommend the house-sitting services of Hunter enough! Dude mowed our lawn! Awesome.

I’ll be posting our travelogues here soon — so keep an eye out. Sorry we didn’t have a day-by-day travelogue, but the Internet connections were suspect or non-existant in many places, and more often than not, I was really tired!

Finally, I’ve uploaded the remaining 4 or 5 days worth of photos into the Noreastah Gallery. Check ‘em out. If you’d like to jump to a gallery quickly, here are the links:

Friday, September 19th 2003
(Louisville, KY to Roanoke, VA)

Saturday, September 20th 2003
(Roanoke, VA)

Monday, September 22nd 2003
(Baltimore, MD to Cooperstown, NY)

Tuesday, September 23rd 2003 (Cooperstown, NY to Cape Cod, MA)

Wednesday, September 24th (Cape Cod, MA to Burlington, VT, with stops in Plymouth and Boston)

Thursday, September 25th 2003 (Burlington, VT to Utica, NY)

Friday, September 26th 2003 (Utica, NY to Cleveland, OH, with a stop at Niagara Falls)
Saturday, September 27th 2003
(Cleveland, OH to Louisville, KY, with a stop in Dayton)

hey all! just wanted to give you a heads up on where we’ve been for the last couple of days. well, we stayed with patience in cape cod on tuesday, then went to plymouth and then boston, through concord, new hampshire, and then eventually up to burlington vermont on wednesday, then kelly’s car decided it need to have it’s engine checked, so we sat around for about 5 hours in burlington, then went and got some ice cream at Ben & Jerry’s in Stowe, Vermont, and then we headed over the beautiful Vermont mountains and into New York state on Thursday! So, here it is Friday, and we’re headed to Niagara Falls and onto Cleveland! We’ll probably be home late Saturday or early Sunday.

I must give a big shout out to all the folks who put us up on the first legs of our trips — especially Patience, on account of her inviting us on really short notice!

The internet connections ’round these parts haven’t been so great, so you’ll have to wait for more pictures and such… but they have been taken, and full accounts of our travels will be forthcoming.

BTW, i’ve just posted day four’s gallery, which in layman’s terms is monday from roanoke, VA to baltimore, MD. We didn’t take any photos on Sunday. While you’re at it, check out all the Noreastah galleries.

…but you can check out the Noreastah’ Gallery! Currently only Friday and Saturday — more coming. I’d do it now, but I’m currently stealing bandwidth from some unfortunate soul with an open wireless access point. Thanks anonymous rube! Off to Cooperstown this AM! Then up to Patience’s pad in Yarmouth Port, MA. Wooo! All is well.

2003.09.21 – Sunday

At 8:30AM, we got up and out of Botetourt County after a great breakfast with Cindy and John. It was incredibly foggy for the trip through the James Valley, but this eventually subsided. By about 2PM, we had made our way to Glen Burnie, Maryland (southeast of Baltimore, a little). Danielle and Chuck were a bit surprised to hear that we would be arriving this early, so apparently a hurried atte
mpt at cleaning was had in advance of our arrival. Danielle and Chuck greeted us well — Chuck still wearing his pajama pants (“Sunday Best”, methinks).

There new house is cozy, and certainly better off than the photos I had seen shortly after the moved in. Originally, in some rooms, it looked like the 1970s had moved in, got drunk, and threw up on the walls. Odd textured wallpaper, shaggy carpets and strange, strange paint colors. They’ve gone a long way to remove these 70s remnants, but that stuff is tough!

Anywho, we shortly thereafter headed to Arundel Mills (whom some of you may remember as Kelly’s “Mecca” from our February 2001 trip to Baltimore), and Kelly and Danielle cut Chuck and I loose to “shop”. This involved trips to most of the video game stores (and a “Wizards of the Coast” shop). We also played some air-hockey at Jillians, and I kicked a little ass on the Sega Airliner Simulator. My landings were a little rough, but hey, no one died!

We ate a nice little joint called “Fuzio’s” in the mall there, and the food was tasty and prompt, despite the lack of calamari (“on account of the hurricane”). Hurricane damage in Baltimore and the surrounding areas was quite minimal, but according to Danielle and Chuck, it was no worse than a “Kentucky Thunderstorm”, which caused Marylanders to run about like scared chickens, or to make things relative to home — like when we have a snowstorm in Louisville.

We returned home, but Kelly and Danielle wanted to go to Target. Chuck and I hung back, where he tried out the new Tron 2.0 game. It was pretty nice looking, and the light cycle portion of the game was nicely done (but, it’s still just light cycles. which are very fun, but these kids these days need giant guns to have fun). I read through a book they had there called “Kiss, Bow or Shake Hands – A Guide to Doing Business in [Many] Countries”. Now I know that you should never give a white flower with a kimino wrapped around it right over left to a Japanese recipient. Also, the Russians bottle vodka with the intent that when it is open, its entire contents should be drank then and there.

I should note that I called Patience in Cape Cod, and everything is set up for us to stay with her on the Lower Cape (Yarmouth Port, to be exact). What an awesome turn of events! I hear-tell that Cape Cod is quite beautiful, and this time of year it is nice and calm.

2003.09.20 – eagle rock, virginia (Saturday)

Woke up this morning to a house deserted, so so far we hadn’t actually *seen* my relatives who live in this house. Around 9 am, we awake to find a note from my Aunt Cindy (written in crazy calligraphy) saying that we should call up my great-Uncle Joe (brother of my grandfather), as he’d like to take us out to breakfast. A quick call to Joe, who was ready to go, and he came “up the hill” to get us. Joe took us into Clifton Forge — a town with a paper mill that wafts over the entire James River valley, making it smell like… well, it really has to be experienced. A funk. “Sulphur mixed with cooking pork” says Kelly. I think that’s just about right. Anyway, we ate at a little joint called the “Bullpen”.

Aptly named as back in it’s heyday, much like Clifton Forge itself, it used to service all the railroad crews that made frequent stops in this town. There was once a large railyard here, complete with an old-timey (by our standards) railway platform, but that has all gone by the wayside. Clifton Forge still retains a bit of its pride, though, as evidenced by it’s newly installed brick-like cross
walks (“not real brick,” Joe informs us). The food at the Bullpen was served by a “woman and a half” as I like to refer to her, and it was certainly home-cooked. Kelly didn’t want any meat on her “Bullpen Special”, and Jodene (named for the sake of this two-sentence anecdote) inquired “Why not? It /comes/ with your breakfast!”. Damned hippies. Well, the food was unspectacular, but it was certainly filling and the coffee was hot (and tasty).

After Clifton Forge, we headed back towards Cindy’s (Clifton Forge is north of Eagle Rock), and Joe wanted to take us by Bethel Cemetary, a cemetary which houses the Buhrman family plot, and which Joe has spent a good deal of money and time
upkeeping. After “minding the goose” that had been recently killed on the road in front of the cemetary, we pulled in and did a once-over. Joe detailed all o
f the work he’d had done (a good deal of which he did with his own late-70s hands). It was nice to see that this little rural plot was being cared for. I don’t know what will happen to it after Joe is gone.

We then headed further south, taking a short detour around the “Gala Loop” — which at one time surrounded the small town of Gala. After taking in another cemetary that Joe keeps up (the Galatia Presbyterian Church cemetery), we headed through a gate, into a field (with cow) that eventually connected to the rear of Joe’s property. Oh, by the way, we were in a Cadillac. Not a Cadillac truck, a “Cadillac car”. Joe takes that thing everywhere, and I must say, it performed beautifully.After winding our way down from the field where, many years ago, my brother and I had shot cow-flops with rifles, we arrived at Joe’s farmhouse. Joe detailed a list of things that he’d been busy doing this year to his property an d surrounding area — and let me tell you, I only hope to be half as active as he is at his age. He’s talking about moving entire sheds, attaching pulleys to trees to lift water tanks, dredging ditches and fixing roofs. Crazy. Joe showed us his antique restored tractors — large John Deere vehicles from the 40s and
50s, well kept and almost brand-new looking. He also had a set of three small John Deere lawn tractors. I guess that’s for the John Deere collector without enough space! He also had three Lincoln Continentals. I tell you — if he loves
something, he’ll have it in threes. Unfortunately, we didn’t really have time to stop in this museum of Buhrmanology that is Joe’s house as he was headed to Richmond that afternoon, so we chatted a bit, and he then took us down to Iron Gate, another small town in Virginia.

Iron Gate, so named not so much for a real Iron Gate, but for it’s large iron-ore smelting furnaces built into the hillsides. You can stop off on the side of the road to check out tall, tall furnaces, if you’d like. We didn’t. Iron Gate is one of those towns where if you blink, you’ll probably miss it. I wouldn’t say it’s thriving by any means, but it’s getting along just fine, nestled into th
is little canyon.

The real pride and joy of Joe’s area is Eagle Rock. It’s no Clifton Forge, mind you, but it certainly has it’s own charm. Eagle Rock is located in Botetourt County — so named for “Lord Botetourt”, apparently a very well-to-do man in the 1700s. So well-to-do that Botetourt County originally enveloped most of Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio, West Virginia, and Virginia. Now, it’s much smaller. Joe showed us around all four blocks of Eagle Rock, and pointed out the house where he bought one of his prized Lincolns. Joe used to be the caretaker for the Boutetourt County Museum, which I believe was in either Eagle Rock or Clifton Forge (can’t remember), and he also is a member of the Eagle Rock gardening club, as well as being a trustee for those couple of cemeteries. Its safe to say this place has a special piece of his heart.

I should mention what beautiful country this is. Large, rolling mountains frame either side of most roads here, and in some cases, large rainbows of rock strata come jutting out of the sides of these mountains. Eagle Rock is so named for one of thsese large outcroppings, and it keeps watch over the town from the west. The James River winds its way through these valleys, every once in a while flooding and returning tons of silt to the many farm fields that follow its banks.

After Eagle Rock, Joe returned us back to Buhrman Road, and Mount Buhrman, where upon John and Cindy’s house sits. Joe had been a most gracious and entertaining tour guide (to me, anyway. and by all accounts Kelly was even entertained), an
d we said adieu for now.

A note about towns:

There are, in my estimation, one half-billion small, fading towns in Virginia — and they all had their own churches and mills and what-nots. It’s odd to me to see a part of the country where now less people live than they did before. That in itself is an oddity. The grass grows high, and the roads wash away, and here is Joe trying to hold it all together.

We headed back to the mount, and then disembarked for the Roanoke market. The Roanoke Market is a fiercly local farmers market — fresh produce, flowers, wines
, cheese, arts, crafts, etc. There is but one “chain” restaurant there, and from what I understand, it was vehemently opposed. It’s a cool, but ultimately small area of town. We stopped and shopped in a couple of places, but in an hour we were done. I stopped into the Roanoke Weenie Stand for a quick hot dog (if you go to the Roanoke Market, you have to get a hot dog from Johnny Liakos. he’s been slingin’ dogs for 40 years. the hot dogs aren’t really anything terribly special, but they are good…) I didn’t get a chance to stop into the Texas Tavern this trip to Roanoke, sadly. After the breakfast we had at the Bullpen, and then the hot dog I had at the weenie stand, I was in danger of “being a pig” (to quote Kelly). We drove past and gave our respects.

There is a big star on a mountain in Roanoke. It’s called the Mill Mountain Star. It’s something like 50 feet tall, and lights up at night. We decided to fumble our way around to get up there, and in doing so, we found ourselves on the Blue Ridge Parkway, a nicely maintained scenic parkway that runs along the southern outskirts of Roanoke city proper (on the ridge of the Blue Ridge Mountains, no less). There were a couple of nice scenic loops, one of which goes up to the top of Roanoke Mountain. On one side of the mountain, you can see the city, and on the other, it looks like the sort of Germany/Austria that you’d see in “The Sound Of Music”. Little tiny houses with little tiny cows in a nicely rolling valley. We never did find the Mill Mountain star — but we certainly saw it from the valley below. The Blue Ridge Parkway is a wonderful drive with some great scenery (and a LOT of hard-core bikers doing those mountain roads).

We found our way back to Cindy’s afterwards, and Cindy had prepared us a wonderful dinner. It was enjoyed by all. I hadn’t had a steak in a long, long time, but Cindy was offering — so who am I to turn that down? It was good stuff.