The 50th state- Hawaii (9/15/25)

 Hawaii became the 50th state in 1959 (so did Alaska).  I was born in 1959.

Hawaii became MY 50th state in 2025!  I have wanted to go to Hawaii for a long time- long before it was the only state I had never been to, but Paul was not really interested. He used to go there for business on a regular basis and felt like it was too commercialized.

However, this summer we had to be back in Green Valley for a pre-drywall meeting for the new house in early August.

Although it is beginning to take shape, it still has a long way to go…

My job was to take pictures of each of the rooms, from every angle, and meticulously label them so that if we need to know what is behind a wall later on, we can check the pictures.

Once we were done with everything there, we headed up to Havasu. Y’all, there is a reason we don’t spend summers there.

It was too hot to do anything, including taking the boat out…..so after 3 days of going stir crazy in the house, Paul asked me “what’s the temperature in Hawaii right now?”

Within 24 hours we had booked a 12 day stay in Hawaii. The biggest decision was which islands to visit. We didn’t want to spread ourselves too thin, so we only wanted to visit 2 islands- we needed to come back in about 2 weeks so we could head to California for a party. 

I really wanted to see the USS Arizona, so that meant Oahu, and Maui was high on my list so that was our second island. We debated hard about the big island because the volcano was spewing, which would have been really cool to see. In the end, Oahu won- but we headed to Maui first.

Our airbnb at Ka’anapali Beach had a fantastic view- one we never got sick of while we were there.

We could walk to stores and restaurants, and enjoyed many sunset views while we ate dinner and listened to live music.

Although we could snorkel right from the beach, and we did, we also took a commercial snorkel trip by boat.

Of course, no trip to Hawaii would be complete without attending a luau- the one we went to was walkable from our hotel-

 

it probably wasn’t the best one out there, but we had fun.

I also got to check another national park off my list. Haleakala National Park was my 53rd national park visited (there are 63, but some we know we will never get to see).

Haleakala is an active shield volcano that covers about 75% of the island of Maui. One of the top things to do is to drive to the top to watch sunrise.

We were lucky enough to score permits to make the drive up there.  This involved driving a Very windy road completely in the dark. It was slow going, for sure.

Before we left we grabbed the blankets off the bed and some towels- because we brought exactly zero warm clothes with us. With the wind whipping at the top, we were still cold but it was worth it!

Exploring the island involved a day trip on the Road to Hana. There is an app to download that shows you exactly what to look for along this scenic route.

The drive is not for the faint of heart since it is a long, narrow, windy road.

For our final snorkel adventure before moving on to Oahu, we did a commercial trip to Hanauma Bay. Parking is a nightmare here apparently, so we chose to let someone else worry about the driving. The snorkeling was awesome. {edited to add, brain fart, Hanauma Bay is on Oahu}

I loved Maui, but as soon as we got to Oahu, I knew what Paul meant. There is a lot of “city” in Oahu- including, of course, Waikiki Beach- which is where I wanted to stay.

 Might as well stay at all the iconic spots!  The view from our place was not nearly as good as on Maui, but we were only one block back from the beach.  Unfortunately that block is mostly high rises filled with high end shopping.

I did think the “parking” for surfboards was really neat to see.

We did some short hikes the day we drove around the island to explore, mostly looking at the views…

The USS Arizona has a timed entry system, which wasn’t a problem at all because there are so many other things to see there. We made a day of it. To get to the Arizona requires a short boat trip and once you dock, you have 10 minutes to see the memorial. It doesn’t seem like it would be long enough but it actually is.

This is just a memorial, with a listing of all the names of those lost. The museums detailing the war, and Pearl Harbor specifically, are on the mainland of the island.  There was a lot of great information, and it was actually a great segue for us after our visits to the Roosevelt and Eisenhauer presidential libraries this summer.

Hiking wise, we also made the trip up Diamond Head- a volcanic tuff cone just outside Waikiki.  The 450 ft of elevation gain allowed us to get some great views of the surrounding area.

Since I almost always have fresh pineapple in the house, I was interested in touring the Dole Plantation.

There is a kind of hokey train ride that takes you through the pineapple fields, with a canned spiel about the plantation.

The best part was our snack at the end of the tour…

The time passed by fast and soon we were on our way back to Lake Havasu.

Everything Lincoln (8/1/25)

 

Plotting our trip back west, of course with it being the height of summer, we were trying to stay north ish and find things to do that were along our route. Given the weather, hiking is pretty much out. It’s been over 90 almost every day and the humidity has been soaring.

That had us looking for indoor things to do and since presidential libraries seem to be sort of a theme this summer, we looked to see which ones were at least semi along our path.

Lincoln was one of them.

Although Lincoln was born in Kentucky, he lived much of his pre-presidential adult life in Springfield Illinois.

Growing up very poor, in a one room cabin, he had very little access to formal education. Nonetheless he taught himself to read and write well enough that he was able to secure an apprenticeship to an attorney and was himself admitted to the Illinois Bar in 1836.

 

As a young man he arrived in Springfield with his brand new law degree, no money, and no place to live.

Luckily he immediately made friends and soon flourished in town, beginning a job as a lawyer in a law firm. He met his wife Mary, and after a courtship, they married, and had 4 children. Before leaving Springfield he had become quite successful as an attorney, and had served as both a state legislator and a member of the U.S House of Representatives.

Slavery was of course one of the biggest issues of his time and Lincoln was 100% against it. Southern states allowed it, northern states did not. 

Of course, the situation was much more complicated than I would want to get into but in 1854 the Missouri Compromise, which prohibited slavery in all remaining territories was essentially overturned, opening all territories to slavery. He was so outraged, he made the decision to run for president. So, he arrived in Springfield a pauper, and 25 years later he left as the president elect.

The museum was clear to point out that from the moment of his assassination, Americans have not seen Lincoln clearly. He wasn’t a popular candidate for president….he ran against 3 other people and only received 39%  of the popular vote- but he did secure the majority of the electoral college votes and became the first Republican president.

One of the displays is a TV news show starring Tim Russert, reporting on the election as if it was taking place in modern times. Very entertaining.

 Many Americans were upset that Lincoln won, in fact, before he even took office, several states had seceded from the union, with South Carolina leading the way.

Lincoln vowed that the “Union” would not be an aggressor in a conflict and that if the southern states wanted a war, they were going to have to fire the first shot. And so they did.

What followed was 4 years of intense conflict and bloody battles, resulting in over 750,000 casualties. In 1865 it was finally over and the country started the process of rebuilding.  

But they did it without Lincoln. He was assassinated just 5 days after the end of the war. 

 One of his most famous acts as president took place January 1 1863, during the height of the war, when he signed the Emancipation proclamation which declared that all persons held as slaves within the rebellious states "are, and henceforward shall be free”. So, technically, no slaves were actually freed at the time of its writing because it only referred to slaves in the states that formed the confederacy and of course, they didn’t recognize his authority.

 

The house where Lincoln lived with his wife and children, and the only house he ever owned,  is now part of the national park service. In fact, the whole neighborhood is, which gives you a good sense of what the area would have looked like in the 1800s.

 

Lincoln is also buried in Springfield, along with his wife and three of his children….the three that did not survive to adulthood. His oldest son Robert is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

We actually visited the tomb twice- once during their usual daytime operating hours, and once in the evening. 

Although the tomb closes at 5 pm, every Tuesday in the summer, at 7 pm there is a flag lowering ceremony, complete with with musket firing and period music. Usually. 

Only lightning causes cancelation, and wouldn’t you know it, in the 2 hours before the ceremony we got over 2.5 inches of rain. With the occasional flash of lightning we debated going, but decided to bundle up and check it out.  

The only thing that was canceled was the musket firing- the music-provided by the 114th Illinois volunteer infantry-still took place and luckily the rain had stopped. Once the flag lowering ceremony is complete, the flag that has been flown for the past week is given to one of the audience members. I had my fingers crossed, but the flag went to someone else. Oh well.

For the 3-4 people who still read this blog, you may have noticed that this post is a year late. My bad. I only posted it because I wrote the basics a year ago, in real time, so it was easy enough to throw it up here. 

We also went to the Eisenhauer Presidential Library, in Abilene KS, which was fantastic, but I didn't do a draft of a post back then and it's too much to try and put it together now.

 

This man was so talented in so many ways, it is beyond amazing to me. 

We needed to be back in Green Valley AZ to do a walk through of the new house in August of 2025. Not a great time to be in that area of AZ, for sure.  More on that later.

So, even though not many people still read this, I am catching up on what we are doing because as we get older I realize that I  use it a lot to remember where we have gone and what we have done. So in order to continue doing that for this summer, I will do a few posts about our winter adventures. 

A Month in Massachusetts (7/12/25)

 I grew up in Massachusetts, and spent much of my adult life there. It’s where Paul and I met, and where my kids grew up. All of my siblings are still here, and most of my childhood friends.

These days when we visit, its usually for a week or so, and many times I fly in on my own. Although our daughter lives in L.A., our son still lives here in MA. We booked a month in an RV park near him with several thoughts in mind, mostly some leisurely visits with family, and also the opportunity to see more people than we usually have time to see. We succeeded on both fronts.

Basically our time there can be divided into two: visits with friends and family, and outings with Stephen, our son. The highlights from some of our more notable outings-

Our first day trip was to the historic town of New Bedford MA, an old coastal fishing town. By the mid 1800s, New Bedford was considered to be one of the richest cities in the country, in large part due to the whaling industry.

Two types of whales were hunted the most frequently on the east coast- the Right Whale and the Sperm whale. In fact the Right whale got its name because it was the “right” whale to hunt. It moved slowly and floated after it was killed.  Interestingly, species such as Humpbacks were not sought after because when they died, they sank, making it virtually impossible to harvest them. By the late 1800s, the Right Whale had been hunted almost to extinction. Now the biggest threat to the Right Whale is entanglement in fishing gear. Estimates say that 83% of all Right Whales have been entangled at least once.

The Blue Whale is the largest mammal on the planet and can grow to be 100 feet long. Their tongue weighs as much as an elephant.

In keeping with our whale theme, another of our outings was a whale watch that we took from Boston.  Any excuse to be on the ocean is probably what went through our minds. Stellwagen Bank is a marine sanctuary off the coast of Massachusetts.

Paul and I made several trips there many years ago, on our own boat  and were enthralled with the whales. We had a family of 3 circling around our boat for a short while, actually rolling to look at us. The thought “we need a bigger boat” went through our minds.

This trip was not a disappointment either, with plenty of opportunity to enjoy the humpback whales.

In and amongst our trips to the beach, shopping, etc. we took another day trip up to the town of Lowell, where the Lowell National Historic Park is located.

Lowell was a planned industrial city, which made use of a canal system to generate power for the mills. We booked a tour of the Pawtucket Canal by boat, getting a different take on the whole system.

The canal system diverts some of  the water from the Merrimac River to the Pawtucket Canal and into the town of Lowell.

One of the problems with re-routing a river to come through town via canals is that when there is a serious flood-the town will be what floods.

 

Until 1850 there was no flood protection for the town, but that year, an engineer named James Francis built a massive flood gate. Many townspeople thought he was crazy, and they called it Francis’s Folly.  The wooden gate was 25’ x 27’ and at least a foot thick.

It was held up by a shackle. Well, on April 22, 1852, the call went out to drop the gate. the only way to drop it was to take a hammer and chisel to the shackle- which they did, and the gate worked exactly as it was supposed to, holding back the flood waters.

Thereafter it was called the Great Gate.

The rest of our time was spent visiting family and friends, although we did find a lighting store that was going out of business and we bought some light fixtures and fans for the new house. Our rig is packed to the gills.

So…

We saw my brothers and sisters several times..

We met up with Rich, one of Paul’s fraternity brothers….

We had dinner with long time boating friends Peter and Susan, on their boat…

And we saw our good friend Maryellen a couple of times- once with her daughter and her family. Maryellen was our next door neighbor for years… “Best neighbor Evah”.

We actually saw quite a few more people but I am terrible at taking pictures when I am with friends and family. Guess I am having too much fun to think of it!

The house is now starting to look like a house: