Newport Birthday

We went down to Newport the weekend before my birthday to celebrate. The weather was to be stormy with lots of rain and gusts of wind between 45 and 60 mph. Our drive down there was pleasant, sunny even, but when we got to the coast, sure enough it was raining cats and dogs. And it was freezing. We ducked into the charming literary-themed Sylvia Beach Hotel where each room is decorated after a famous author. Ours was the tiny (cheaper), "non-ocean view" Gertrude Stein room, decorated with rose this and rose that. The curtains, the pillows, the rug, the chair upholstery, the shower curtain.... everything had roses on it. Even a rose-shaped lamp! On the shelf was a selection of Stein's books and journals in which past guests have written, as far back as early 90's. Some entries were brief, some overly poetic, some moving and profound. It was fascinating to read... A collection of writings from people who slept in the same hotel room. Each room had one. If you ever visit the SBH, you can look for my entry on December 16th.
After checking in we ran around to peek into the other rooms that were still vacant. Shakespeare, Collette, Oscar Wilde, Alice Walker, Dr. Seuss, Mark Twain..... Each one with completely different props. My favorites were Virginia Woolf (the do not disturb sign said, "disturb someone else"), E.B. White (with a spider web hanging from the ceiling and a painting of Wilbur on the wall), Edgar Allen Poe (with black walls, ravens everywhere, a false closet door opening to a brick wall, and the pendulum above the bed!), AND TOLKIEN! The branchy bedposts were entwined with live vines, riddles were written on the back of the door, and the entire map of Middle Earth was painted on the wall! Next time we're staying in THAT room!
Upstairs on the 3rd floor is the library which is a huge common space littered with books and jigsaw puzzles, armchairs and couches, fireplace and coffee/tea station, and windows windows windows overlooking the mesmerizing winter surf. After a game of scrabble (I won) we ate dinner at Local Oceans across the docks. I had grilled albacore kabobs on a bed of veggies and crispy rice noodles. mmmm fresh fish!
In the morning all the guests go down to the basement Tables of Content restaurant for a yummy complimentary breakfast buffet. I indulged and had all kinds of wheat-filled products and still haven't had much of a reaction. Yeay! Then we took a stroll around historic Nye Beach and said hi to the seagulls.
Spent the afternoon at the Oregon Coast Aquarium. Can't seem to get enough of those underwater creatures. Their current exhibit "Claws" featured lobsters, crabs, and shrimp. We lucked out and got to see a very friendly sea otter, and a very active octopus. They also have a shark tunnel, which seemed to be more mesmerizing than the one at Maui Aquarium because of the shimmering school of anchovies that the sharks swam through.
While Liane was in China she had a personalized chop (Chinese signature stamp stone) made for me. She kept it a secret until my birthday. It is a beautiful heavy stone with a dragon carved on the top of it. She thought I could use it for "signing" photos and such, and that inspired me to name my photography business "Fire Dragon Photography".

Bye bye Maui

Well, my "flu" turned out be strep throat AND pneumonia, which I learned from my emergency room visit after returning to Portland. I spent the rest of my week on Maui mostly feverishly sleeping, although somehow I managed to go see a Cecelio & Kapono concert and visit the Maui Aquarium. I almost didn't make my flight home, I was violently shivering all morning until 2 hours before departure time! (then I sweated buckets walking from security to my gate) I upgraded to First Class just to be as comfortable as possible - the flight attendants confused that I didn't want their free booze or fancy food - I just gave them my best swollen-gland smile and tried to sleep.

So now that I'm feeling human again, 12 days after my first symptoms, I wanted to make this last post and say thanks for reading, and big big love and thanks to my mom Charlene for being a great adventure buddy, and for being the best mom in the world, taking such good care of me - how lucky am I!

Here are a few shots from Maui Aquarium, this a must-see if you ever visit.

This Uhu (parrotfish) would poke its face out of the water and spit on people!

Spotted Boxfish

Humuhumu nukunuku apua'a

one of many gorgeous coral displays

moray eels

unicornfish! (see Pinnochhio?)

sharkey

jellyfish

Down with the flu!

I've been down with the flu these past couple of days. It was pretty apparent after we came back from Halloween. Super achey, chills, sweats, fever, sore throat. Ugh. Big bummer. Mom has been nursing me back to health, and I'm doing just a small percentage better, but my body stills feels like I got beat up bad, and there are razors in my throat. Had to cancel a lot of events, but that's okay, I'm glad we got a lot done already. Now I'm just taking it day by day.

Check out this insane rainbow. it was right outside our condo and stayed there for almost an hour.
Okay, must.... lie... back.... down.....

Happy Halloween!!

My sister hooked us up with a condo in the resort-choked Ka'anapali for two nights which was a blessing to have during all the hubbub of Halloween in Lahaina. In the morning we went back up to Honolua Bay where you have to hike through a small forest before you get to its rocky shore, and I snorkeled despite a sore throat and major headache. The bay is partially brackish water so you have to swim pretty far out to get clearer visibility. There was also a lot of leaf debris. The wana (sea urchins) like to disguise themselves with pieces of shell or coral, but all the wana here wrapped themselves in fallen leaves! Snorkeling is da bomb! I love floating over coral and swimming with the brightly colored fish. Saw some I've never seen before. Neat. I saw a huge moral eel poking his head from out under a rock, his jaw opening and closing, all those sharp little teeth making him look so menacing. There were the hugest papi'o I've ever seen, maybe 3 feet long. They're usually a deep sea fish and it was surprising to see them here. My favorite part of this session was encountering a school of some kind of silver fish. They were in a long line so I just swam alongside this shimmering wall, at times about 10 feet tall. Way cool!
Then back to the condo to get dressed. I forgot that mom was a professional wig fitter back in the 70's, and I was impressed with her hair hiding technique: braiding my hair 4 ways, pinning it just so, "it's all about the criss cross" she said, and making hair "latches" in the front and back so the wig doesn't slip around.
Mom was a devil-ette. Jimi was hit! I felt like a total celebrity with everyone calling out, "Jimi!" "Hey Hendrix!" "Dude Purple Haze!" "Play me a song" or "I remember those days!" I had to pose for a million pictures too, probably going to be all over the internet. We just walked up and down Front Street in Lahaina and ran into Garth, Elvis, and Jesus! among other great costumes. No other Jimis though, and at least 10 Jack Sparrows. If we had all night I would have entered the $1000 costume contest, but we left after a few hours when it started to rain and I was feeling really lousy.

West Maui

Made our way up to the dry and calm-watered West Maui, and then to the rougher north part of West Maui to Nakalele Blowhole. What a crazy thing of nature - the waves crash under the rocks and shoots out of this one hole, sending a tower of water straight up into the air, making a rainbow with its spray. The area around it looks alien with strangely eroded rocks.
We attempted to go snorkeling at the famous Honolua Bay, which is also infamous for car break-ins, but as we pulled up, there was a guy who had just gotten robbed! He was stupid enough to leave all his valuables on shore while he went snorkeling way out there with no one to watch his stuff. Two other people got hit at the same time, so we decided to come back in the morning, but mom helped them out with the use of her cell phone and a $40 loan.

Decided to end the day at Dragon's Teeth - another wind and water eroded alien landscape.

Red Sand Beach

(I was able to re-upload pictures from past blog entries, so you can scroll down and check em out. Gonna try to continue where I left off here....)

Before leaving Hana I wanted to do one more thing to do: Find (and swim in) the elusive Red Sand Beach. To get there we had to bushwhack past an old Japanese cemetery and hike along the backside of Ka'uiki Head on a narrow sliding cinder rock trail. A local guy was heading there as well so we asked him to lead the way. Once we turned the corner there was a stunning view of the inside of the cinder cone, collapsed and eroded by waves to create a private red sand cove. There were only 2 other guys there plus our trail guide and it was apparent that if you wanted to fit in, it wasn't about what kind of clothes you were wearing... At 10:00am we were already sweatin', so I took a (skinny) dip to cool off. Ahhhhhh! Nothing beats refreshing Hawaiian ocean covering every inch of your skin in the morning.
Visited an orchid and exotic plant farm (major tourist trap; they only let you run around for 4 minutes to smell the orchids, then they take you down to their gift shop! poor tourists...)
and then Kahanu Garden and Pi'ilanihale Heiau (sacred Hawaiian temple) - the largest in the state. Built with hand-placed lava rock, no concrete, this heiau is the size of two football fields. I could only fit half of it in the frame. The Garden had various native Hawaiian food and medicinal plants like taro, banana, sweet potato, awa, noni, as we all very large spiders! (sorry 'bout all the gross close-up bug stuff - but it's my blog and I can post what I want to! :)

Drove down the lush Nahiku Road to the coast and observed some clueless tourists taking photos of each other on very treacherous wave-splashed rocks. As we were driving away, I noticed one of the girls was juggling something which I thought was an avocado at first, but after my eyes zeroed in on it, I felt this furious Hawaiian pride well up inside me and in my best gandalf-you-shall-not-pass! voice I boomed out of my car window to her, "You can't take that rock with you. I'm serious. You can't remove rocks from Hawaii. Go put it back." I didn't explain why but was satisfied when I saw her take the fist-sized smooth rock back to the ocean. It is a fact that tourists who have taken pieces of Pele home with them fall deathly ill with her curse until they mail the rock back to Hawaii.

Checked out windsurfers flying across the water and surfers gliding by in the foreground from Ho'okipa Lookout. Maui is the windsurfing capital of the world and this is definitely where the action is.