Summer Morning at the National Elk Refuge

This is my view from the second floor of the visitor center at the National Elk Refuge as I sit and compose this. The boys are back in the hotel room sleeping and I'm checking out the scene here, just inside the town of Jackson. We'll head down that road in the distance today and head back to the Grand Teton park. Our final day will be spent driving around to highlights we missed earlier in the week, as well as a few we want to revisit. I highly recommend a trip this way. More pics and stories to follow once we're home!

Greetings from Jackson Hole

Here's the plane that brought us to Wyoming, the last leg of our big trip. The airport is technically in the middle of Grand Teton National Park. Feels a bit like Tahoe to me, at least the air and altitude combination. I'm loving the late summer nights we've had since Oregon. Stays light out until 9:00PM!

Can we go back to the Lake House?

While in the Seattle area, we stayed at the lakeside home of my uncle's girlfriend. Everyone should be so lucky! Temps soared this weekend and I stayed out of the sun and off the water during the peak hours (surprise, surprise) but took the kayaks out during the evenings for a short run with one of the boys along for the ride. On our last night I had Cub in my lap and my Mom alongside us with Robbie in another kayak as the sun set over the tall trees of the northwestern skyline. Beautiful!

Oregon Coast run

While visiting friends in Salem, Oregon, we drove west to Lincoln City (on the Oregon Coast) to escape the inland heat. Escape we did! It was overcast and in the 60s and 70s. But no worries. With good friends it's fun no matter where the destination.

You know you're in Berkeley when...

We were in Berkeley last weekend for a wedding and spotted this in the church parking lot.

Maui's Sugar Cane Train

Here's one of my other favorite shots from the quick weekend in Maui. On Sunday before we flew home, we rode the short, overpriced Sugar Cane Train. A lot of fun for kids though, and even fun for adults. Great views along the way, but a lot of it is dry, like this bend you see here. Got Cub looking out the window by holding the camera as far out of the train car as I could.

Earlier that week I had taken the boys to a shady playground after running some mid-day errands. The shade came at a price - Cub was playing with the pods that had dropped on the ground, and at some point rubbed his eyes. By the end of the day, his left eye had swollen up and he looked like he'd gone a few rounds in a prize fight. Took him to the doctor the next morning to make sure it wasn't a more serious reaction to something or an allergy, and the doctor said it was a "normal" reaction for kids. The reddish marks lasted for over a week. Sadly, that playground may be off-limits for us until the seasons change and the pods don't drop.

Pano at the Park

So, since I got the new iPhone in June, it seems that every picture I post is from my phone. Sorry...hopefully will have some really good stuff from a real camera by the end of summer. But for now another iPhone shot! This I want to share because it uses the Pano iPhone app. Basically for $1.99 you get the functionality (albeit very limited) of the Photoshop panoramic tool. And I love it! Here I was practicing late one afternoon at the local Kapolei park while Robbie rode his bike. This is the result of three or four images stitched together.

Lazy evening waiting for fireworks

After the carsickness experience late Friday night, we needed to do some laundry before getting back home. So after a fun afternoon at the pool, I got Cub down for a nap and found the hotel's guest washing machines and cleaned up before the nightime fireworks. Sitting down and waiting for the cycles made me sleepy, so I wandered around the hotel to stay awake. Stood outside the hotel's luau and heard the crowd learning the Hukilau! The lyrics are plucked from the Internet and look a little odd, but I don't have time to fact check.

Ah, what a beautiful day to go fishin'
The old Hawaiian way
And the hukilau nets were swishin'
Down in old La`ie Bay

Oh we're goin' to a hukilau
Huki-huki-huki-huki-huki-hukilau
Everybody loves the hukilau
Where the laulau is the kaukau at the lu`au

Oh we throw our nets out into the sea
And all the `ama`ama come a-swimmin' to me
Oh, we're goin' to the hukilau
Huki-huki-huki-huki-hukilau

Oh we're goin' to the hukilau
Huki-huki-huki-huki-huki-hukilau
Everybody loves the hukilau
Where the laulau is the kaukau at the great l`au

Oh we throw our net out into the sea
And all the `ama`ama come a-swimmin' to me
Oh, we're goin' to the hukilau
Huki-huki-huki-huki-hukilau
Huki-huki-huki-huki-hukilau
Huki-huki, hu-uki-huki, hukilau-au...

Hyatt Ka'anapali

After what turned out to be a rough and long leg to the hotel Friday night, this beautiful scene greeted us on Saturday morning. (That's the island of Lana'i in the background.) We ditched plans to ride the Lahaina Sugar Cane Train (bumped to Sunday) and spent all day at the pool instead. What you see here is the "adult" side. Pass through under the rocks on the right and you find more connected pools and a great kids play area, complete with two slides.

Driving down the crater road

We left the parking lot near the Haleakala crater overlook after sunset but before it was too dark. Driving slow, I pulled over and let a few cars pass me, and also stuck my iPhone out the window and took a few shots at the fading skyline. An amazing range of reds, oranges, and yellows sandwiched between the blue sky and the clouds. All was going smoothly until about 30-45 minutes into the drive when Cub woke up from a nap. He started crying and then got sick. We pulled over and cleaned him, the car seat, the car, and everything else we could, but it still smelled really bad. Up until that point we had wished we would have been able to take the Superferry over. Not anymore. We were happy that the rental took the direct hit! We drove directly to the hotel that night and went straight to the room (with a brief Safeway stop for more milk).

Moonrise over Haleakala

When we were discussing the quick weekend getaway to Maui, Noel mentioned going to Haleakala on Friday afternoon, heading straight out from the airport. I jumped at the chance. Although we've been to Maui a few times since the last time we were at Haleakala (December, 2006) we've never managed to make it back to the crater. Later Noel would mention something about "moonrise" and I spied a calendar entry/entered time on it on his iPhone, but I didn't know what he was talking about. It would finally make sense when we were there - the time when the moon comes up and you can see it, even though it is still daylight. I shot this picture with my iPhone. (Noel did drag one of his nicer cameras up with us, but didn't shoot much as we were all kind of tired and a bit sick.)
We took turns going up the short hike with Robbie to the view the crater from the highest point. He scared me more than once getting to close to the non-fenced edge (read: fall over and fall into the crater!). He was pretty fearless. Instead I steered him toward the rocks away from the edge, where he seemed to have fun anyway.

We're baaaack

Hope everyone had a nice Fourth of July. Sometime last month we got word that good friends from high school were coming out to Maui. So we joined them there for a quick getaway this weekend. Flew in on Friday afternoon and drove directly to Haleakala National Park. (Crater shot above, taken in the late afternoon on my iPhone.) One of my favorite places. When the boys get older, I'm looking forward to hiking within the park...maybe even camping one day. For now, we'll stay at comfy resorts at sea level like the Hyatt Ka'anapali, where they have a fantastic kiddie pool. We spent the two nights there before coming back to Oahu Sunday. Overpriced food, but a good pool. Robbie said this morning, "Can we go on an airplane and go back to Maui?" Sadly, no, we can't right now. We want to, as well. Trust us!