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Kauai 2024 – Part 2 – “The Strange Tale of Bullfrog”

February 18, 2024

I ended my last blog with a video I took of the weird sound coming from Steph and Vic’s back bushes. What in the world?

Here is the video again.

“Oh that’s a bullfrog,” said Steph. We’ve had it for a while. Maybe a year. You haven’t seen it before?”

“No, Steph. In all the visits we’ve had with you over the past 11 years we have never seen a bullfrog.”

Which was true. In all our previous 10 visits to Kauai none of us visiting from Idaho had ever seen or heard a bullfrog in Kauai. They don’t exist in southeast Idaho where we have lived the past 23 years.

Even though we lived in Georgia for 11 years before moving to Idaho, my last memory of encountering a bullfrog was in childhood about 60 years ago in Mystic, Connecticut. We lived near some woods with a path to Pee Pond, a frog haven, where my older brother David loved to catch bullfrogs. We’d see one perched on a rock and he’d stealthily sneak up behind it and grab it. They were quick jumpers though and he missed most of the time. But he’d catch them too. My brother would wrap the captured frog in his hand like a burrito with its head poking out and raise it eye level so we could stare at that adorable frog face. “Gotcha!” Then he’d let the frog go. Except for one prized giant bullfrog he captured and carried home. Named him “Junior.” Sadly, Junior met with a violent end. He quickly escaped from the bucket of water my brother set him in as a temporary habitat. We searched all over for Junior. A couple days later we found him splatted in the neighbor’s yard. Apparently the teenage neighbor kid, Trevor Bogue had run him over with a lawn mower. Bad Trevor! That’s the story I remember about Junior, anyway.

So it was pretty exciting for me to discover that bullfrog in Steph and Vic’s bushes just inches from their pool. I named him ‘Froggy’ and I chuckled every time I heard him croak, which was several times a day. And with this link I’ve definitely confirmed it’s an American bullfrog: https://californiaherps.com/frogs/pages/l.catesbeianus.sounds.html

Open the link and scroll down to the ‘Short videos of the American Bullfrog Advertisement sounds,’ click on the picture of the frog and you will experience what we hear blasting out of Steph and Vic’s bushes in Kauai.

Here’s another informational link: https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/american-bullfrogs-fast-facts.htm#:~:text=Bullfrogs%20are%20the%20largest%20species,and%20live%20around%208%20years Only male bullfrogs croak, ‘advertisement sounds’ to attract mates and to aggressively protect their territory. They also don’t sleep; they stay awake and alert even when they appear to be resting. So they croak during the day and are active through the night.

Stephanie said the neighbors next door got so annoyed with Froggy that they captured him and dropped him off at the other end of the golf course. Two days later the frog was back. Frogs have a strong homing instinct as well. Lol

I happened to be out on the patio when the croaking started up and I captured this video. You can hear another frog echoing him although it’s hard to tell how close the other frog is. A bullfrog can be heard from half a mile away.

I suppose the croaking would get a little tiresome. Like when he interrupts your dinner conversation, which actually happened. We were talking over the frog through the open windows and I had a hard time concentrating on the conversation. Then David got up and stepped out on the patio. “There’s the frog!” he said. We all went out there to see. Froggy had jumped in the pool.

Not easy to capture a photo of a frog in a pool, but he looked to be about 5 inches long. Bullfrogs can grow up to 8 inches long and weigh a pound.

He took off swimming

“Hey, it’s a friggin’ frog!” I know. I seem to have experienced some strange attachment to this fella. Do you suppose I’ve connected with my spirit animal? https://a-z-animals.com/blog/frog-spirit-animal-symbolism-meaning/ “When a frog hops into your life, get ready for a big change!” For starters, they are associated with transformation as they start their lives as tadpoles in the water before morphing into land dwelling frogs.

Speaking of transformation now this blog is morphing into recognizing the dark side of bullfrogs …

I grew up in Connecticut around bullfrogs in their native habitat. And I hadn’t seen one for 60 years until this trip to Kauai. I’ve been rather excited about it until I started doing more research about the proliferation of bullfrogs around the globe and their devastating influence on the native species of the areas they have propagated. The bullfrog’s natural range extends from Nova Scotia to central Florida, from the Atlantic coast to Wisconsin and across the Great Plains to the Rockies. However, they have been introduced around the world by humans because we like to eat their legs (apparently), dissect them in labs, keep them as pets (did you ever keep a pet frog in a fish bowl?) and through other means. They have voracious appetites and will eat about anything they can fit in their mouths – birds, bats, rodents, frogs (yes, they are cannibalistic) newts, lizards, snakes and turtles. They prey on native species and are able to out-compete them for survival.

Bullfrogs are an invasive species even in states like California and Arizona where they were intentionally introduced as a food source but are multiplying at a fast rate with few predators. Check out the you-tube video in this link “Help Stop the Spread of Bullfrogs in Wyoming” (!!) https://www.invasivespeciesinfo.gov/aquatic/fish-and-other-vertebrates/american-bullfrog

So my happy bullfrog love tale has taken a dark turn … I had no idea …

A student, Heidi Beswick Cutia, is researching the invasion ecology of the bullfrog in Hawaii. https://spectrumlocalnews.com/hi/hawaii/environment/2022/02/12/a-researcher-s-quest-to-learn-more-about-hawaii-s-invasive-bullfrogs

Bullfrogs were brought to Hawaii from eastern North America about 120 years ago so people could eat their legs. They have spread to all the main Hawaiian Islands. Although people haven’t been paying much attention to them. Bullfrogs should not be confused with the more commonly spotted bufo toads. We’ve only spotted this native toad once in all our visits – January of last year near Kahili Beach.

Bufo toad

Little is known about Hawaii’s bullfrogs, except that they are inhabiting the wetlands and eating other native animals such as endangered Hawaiian stilt chicks, snails and native insects. “A U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service study from 2004 put radio collars on endangered stilt chicks at the James Campbell Wildlife Refuge and found that when they could determine the cause of death for the stilts that 77% of them were being eaten by bullfrogs.” Stilt chicks are a long-legged, back and white, slender shorebird with a long thin beak. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawaiian_stilt And they are an endangered species.

Along with the harm they cause in the low-lying wetlands, bullfrogs can also scale steep waterfalls into high-elevation streams and wetlands where there are a lot of native species.

So what about that bullfrog in Steph and Vic’s hedge? It might be a great place for it. If it mates with a female and she lays eggs in the pool, then the pool maintenance guy will dispose of them. So even if Froggy thinks he has a cushy spot (which he certainly does) he is not going to produce any offspring.

That fence behind Froggy’s habitat will be coming down after they complete the construction on the adjacent golf course. And if Froggy hops out there he might just get run over by a lawn mower.

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Aloha Kauai! January 2024

February 13, 2024

Alright, so I’ve already written 62 blogs on Kauai, about 6 blogs after every trip we’ve made over the past twelve years – invited you along to experience the trip vicariously, if you will. It occurred to me this trip that maybe after 62 blogs I could just let the blogging thing go – go to Kauai, come home and get on with reality and stop with the reminiscing. But don’t you want to go back to Kauai? Let’s go! We fly from Idaho Falls to Salt Lake, to Seattle, then Lihue all in one day. We can do this! Are you packed and ready?

Wednesday, January 16 – Alarms blast off at our house at 4 am and we head to our first flight – leaving Idaho Falls at 6am. Yay! We (David, Megan, me and my brother Eric, who spent the night with us) hop into David’s truck, park at the airport, board on time, arrive in Salt Lake. With a four-hour layover, we have plenty of time to enjoy a leisurely breakfast, get a few extra steps in, before heading to the gate for our flight to Seattle.

Our plane to Seattle is at the gate. Hey, Megan, pose for a photo! (We’re already flagged from lack of sleep.)

Salt Lake City – 10:40am

We should be boarding now for the 11:15 am flight. Uh, well there is the minor detail of the weather … No worries. We go ahead and board with only a 20-minute delay due to the massive snow collecting on the runways. And luckily we have a 3 1/2 hour layover in Seattle (so smart!) so still plenty of time to enjoy a nice meal in Seattle before boarding our flight to Lihue.

We board the flight and settle in with our noise cancelling headphones and cushy neck pillows and … uh, the plane doesn’t seem to be moving. Of course the plane will need to de-ice. Not a problem. Just pick out a movie on your own personal movie screen in front of you! I’ve got a great book. Relax … We have a 3 1/2 layover in Seattle. The plane pulls out of the gate and moves a bit and we’re stalled again. It’s hard to tell what’s going on outside with that heavy snowfall but there sure are a lot of planes lining up.

Well, long story short, we are asked to stay in our seats as we could prepare for take off at any time. And we sit right there for the next three hours as they plow the runways. Megan finishes her movie. Finally we’re in line to get de-iced, good sign! We do take off. It’s a 2-hour flight to Seattle. By the time we land in Seattle we’ve been strapped in our seats on the plane for 5 1/2 hours.

The 6 1/2 hour flight to Lihue has already boarded by the time we land in Seattle. David and Eric run to the gate to hold the plane while Megan and I race to the nearest ladies room. But we do make the flight to Lihue. Thank goodness for that 3 1/2 hour layover. Of course we’re starving. Well, this trip isn’t as bad as when we booked first class tickets to Kauai two years ago (yeah!) from Salt Lake to Lihue through San Francisco. You can guess how that turned out. We boarded our first flight in Salt Lake which had eliminated first class because they had changed to a smaller plane. Then we ended up landing in Monterey because San Francisco was socked in with fog. Sat on the tarmac in Monterey for three hours waiting for the fog to lift in San Francisco. Re-booked a later flight to Lihue in cattle car. I blogged about it of course. In case you want to read the hot details here’s the link: https://decompressionofaboomer.com/2022/02/06/kauai-2022-do-you-know-the-way-to-monterey/

So now we fly ‘Comfort Plus’ on Delta, which gets you seats at the front of cattle car, with a little extra leg room (maybe?) and free drinks and one extra slightly larger bag of chips beyond the usual snacks from the snack cart. That way, if you get bumped from your flight (which, at this point seems likely) you have a better chance of rebooking similar seats (not at the back of the plane in cattle car when you have a connection to make…)

So now we’re all settled in on our flight to Lihue. Try to cop some ZZZZ’s on the 6 1/2 flight. (Impossible.)

We land in Lihue, Kauai about 8:30 pm. Rent a humongous van and drive in the dark to Steph and Vic’s house on the north of the island. I roll down the window and inhale the ocean breezes. “Hey, Megan, out your window there’s the Pacific Ocean! Can you smell it? Hear it? Maybe we’ll see it tomorrow!” We arrive at Steph and Vic’s about 10 pm – 1 am Idaho time, which, added up to a 21-hour travel day. Steph and Vic had prepared a nice meal for us. We had finally arrived! Boy was it was wonderful.

Thursday, January 17 – It takes a bit to decompress once you arrive in Paradise. I heard the most beautiful bird song our first morning. Wonderful, and I wanted to know what kind of bird it was. I had downloaded a free app called “Merlin Bird ID” where you press ‘record’ and capture a bird song and it will identify the bird. Steph and Vic had a western meadowlark singing away in their back yard. So, imagine yourself, waking up in Paradise that first morning, walking toward the kitchen, bare feet over cool tiles, looking out at the brilliant sun, when you hear the sound of a meadowlark – check it out on this you tube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRgU4xS06sM

We took a morning walk around the Princeville golf course and heard a lot of Myna bird song – (identified by Merlin) – here you can hear it too (skip the add…) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Ix1hugefpo

A major golf course in Princeville (behind Steph and Vic’s house) is being refurbished and is enclosed in a tall green mesh fence. You see a lot of that fence in my photos. Hopefully the golf course will be reopened in the next year. But on our first walk we also saw a nesting Albatross – right up against the fence about three houses down the street from Steph and Vic.

I wonder how the nest even survives. They nest on the ground right in people’s yards. It might be because they are imprinted to return from the sea to nest in the place they were born, and maybe these albatross were here before the houses were? Albatross don’t find a mate and start breeding until they are at least 7 years old. https://ypte.org.uk/factsheets/albatross-wandering/breeding-5e050f07-1dc7-477a-adcd-dfe1fbc0b194

Here we are on our walk through the wooded path along that same golf course near the Westin resort.

Eric, David and Megan

You will always come across feral chickens on this path. Likely with clutches of newly-hatched chicks. Here’s a photo I took and a video (I hope you can open the videos!).

Back home at Steph and Vics I recorded this really strange sound coming from their back bushes. Is it a bird? Merlin did not recognize it. Do you?

Well that about wraps up our first full day in Paradise. We’ll have to solve the mystery …

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Neuschwanstein Castle, Linderhof Palace, and Fairy Tale King Ludwig II of Bavaria

October 28, 2023

This story begins with the wooden puzzle above that arrived at our house from Liberty Puzzles a few weeks back. I discovered Liberty Puzzles during COVID and over the past two years have amassed a broad collection of these intricate, wildly creative wooden puzzles. When I spotted Castle Neuschwanstein on the website recently I just had to have it. We have visited Neuschwanstein, the castle that inspired Walt Disney’s fantasy castle.

Granted, we visited Neuschwanstein Castle in Germany during the spring of 1987, more than half my lifetime ago. I was 33. Dang, that was a long time ago. David and I and our two young sons, Aaron and Ben, traveled to Bavaria in Germany. I captured a few photos of the trip with my trusty point-and-shoot camera. You know, you buy the 110 film with 24 exposures, load it in the camera, shoot, wind, repeat to the end of the roll, with no clue as to what you have until you get the film developed. (If you understand this or have ever even seen a roll of film, it belies your age.)

I put the photos in an album that has been sitting on a shelf for 36 years. And we know where they’ll likely end up (dumpster). In the meantime, they just seemed destined for my blog. So I pulled them out and took photos of them with my i-Phone. Are you ready for the trip to Bavaria, Germany to visit two of the Fairy Tale King Ludwig II Castles? Here we go. (How could you be so lucky?)

We’re at the train station now. The Hauptbahnhof. (I promise this is the worst photo – I just wanted to make sure I knew how to spell Hauptbahnhof).

Hauptbahnhof means “Central Station.” Like in Berlin, or Hamburg, or in this case, maybe Munich? Not sure which central station it is. Or why we were even at the train station. We were living in Sweden at the time of this trip and I assume we drove to Germany. Those blurry figures on the left are David with Ben (almost 3) and Aaron (almost 5). Are we having fun yet?

Descending the escalator! (??)

If we were taking photos with a smart phone it would tell us exactly where we are. But with these photos I have to guess the exact locations. We are definitely in Bavaria in the south of Germany, just one or two kilometers from Austria. The foothills of the Alps!

Our destination today is to visit Neuschwanstein, King Ludwig II’s 19th Century fantasy castle, which sits in the hills above the incorporated village of Hohenschwangau near Füssen. Check out this link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuschwanstein_Castle King Ludwig II commissioned Neuschwanstein Castle as his own personal retreat but also in honor of composer Richard Wagner whom he greatly admired.

There it is! (With Aaron and Ben in the foreground)

How do we get to it? From the small village of Hohenschwangau just below the castle? Here we are, I believe, in the nearby town of Füssen. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Füssen David, take a picture of us with that castle in the background! (Okay not too thrilled with my hair, which I had to cut off due to it being completely fried by a recent perm. Remember those 80’s perms? Disco on, baby!) Anyway,

That castle behind us must be the Hohenschwangau Castle, the childhood residence of King Ludvig II? Maybe, or it could just be one of Germany’s 20,000-plus castles https://germanyinusa.com/2019/05/02/germany-home-to-more-than-20000-castles/

Here is a screenshot of the Hohenschwangau castle from this Wiki link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hohenschwangau_Castle

Which does look remarkably similar to the castle behind us in the photo. So, maybe?

In any case, King Ludwig II, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_II_of_Bavaria was born in 1845 and spent much of his childhood in the Hohenschwangau fantasy castle (above) built by his father Maximilian II near Füssen in Bavaria (where we are now). Ludwig was continually reminded as a child that he would ascend to the throne one day. From an early age he was both extremely indulged and severely controlled by his tutors and subjected to a strict regimen of study and exercise. According to his mother, he was an extremely introverted and creative child who spent much time day-dreaming. You can imagine him as a child peering out the windows of the Hohenschwangau Castle to the foothills of the Alps, imagining the huge fairy tale castle he would build for himself one day. Which is exactly what he did.

Crown Prince Ludwig was 18 years old in 1863 when his father died after a 3-day illness, and he ascended to the throne. Although ill-prepared for office, his youth and good looks made him popular in Bavaria and elsewhere. Except his real interests lay in art, music and architecture. His extreme shyness caused him to avoid large public functions and social events whenever possible. He increasingly withdrew from day-to-day affairs of state and spent much of his time absorbed in his own fantasy world. He commissioned the construction of three fantasy palaces/castles: Neuschwanstein Castle, Linderhof Palace, and Herrenchiemsee. The construction of Neuschwanstein began in 1869. https://www.neuschwansteincastle-tours.com/neuschwanstein-castle-history/ The castle’s construction was King Ludwig’s passion project, and he was involved in every aspect of the planning and design. Christian Jank made the castle’s overall design, and King Ludwig hired theater artists to design the castle’s interiors. Intricate murals and decorations cover almost every surface of the palace. King Ludwig spent his own private money from the royal family and borrowed extensively to build his castles, defying all attempts by his ministers to reign in his spending. When his castle building threatened to bankrupt the Bavarian state, his ministers accused him of insanity. In 1886, they deposed him on the grounds of mental illness and had him committed to the custody of Lake Starnberg castle. This accusation has since come under scrutiny.

The day after his imprisonment, Ludwig II was found dead in Lake Starnberg. He had gone out for a walk after dinner with his physician Dr. Gudden and they were both found dead, head and shoulders above the shallow water near the shore. Gudden’s body showed signs of strangulation and blows to the head and neck. Ludwig’s death was ruled a drowning but the official autopsy report indicated that no water was found in his lungs. Ludwig was a very strong swimmer in his youth and the water was about waist deep where he was found. Speculation exists that Ludwig was murdered by his enemies while attempting to escape from his imprisonment. A Memorial Cross has been placed at the site where the body of Ludwig II was found in Lake Starnberg. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ludwig_II_Memorial_Cross_Lake_Starnberg.jpg He was forty years old at the time of his death.

Neuschwanstein Castle was intended to serve as King Ludwig II’s private residence but it was never completed before his death. It had been under construction for 17 years. Seven weeks after his death, in 1886, Neuschwanstein was opened to the public and since then, more than 61 million people have visited the castle. More than 1.3 million people visit annually, with as many as 6,000 per day in the summer.

Back to our visit to Neuschwanstein in the spring of 1987, 36 years ago, 101 years after it opened.

This might be a view of Neuschwanstein from Füssen?

We have made it up to the castle!

There I am holding Ben. Aaron might be totally out of sorts, being too small to see over the stair rail.

This link on Neuschwanstein is fabulous – all you need to know of the history and King Ludwig II, plus a complete tour of every room of the interior: https://www.neuschwanstein.de/englisch/ludwig/biography.htm

Great views of Füssen from the Castle

This experience might have been a bit lost on the kids.

Oh, but wait, there’s more. Next we will visit Linderhof Palace, the smallest of the three palaces built by King Ludwig II and the only large palace he lived to see completed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linderhof_Palace

King Ludwig actually lived here. Linderhof, in comparison to other palaces, has a rather private atmosphere with only four rooms that have a real function. The Hall of Mirrors was used by the king as a drawing room. Because Ludwig II used to sleep in the daytime and stay awake through the night, “the mirrors created an unimaginable effect for him when they reflected the light of the candles a thousand times. The parallel placement of some mirrors evoke the illusion of a never ending avenue.” Huh. Somehow that all-night activity doesn’t sound like it would mesh well with his assigned administrative duties.

What I remember most from Linderhof is the magnificent terraced gardens surrounding the Palace. Apparently among them was a 300-yr-old Linden tree with a seat in it where Ludwig would take his ‘breakfast’ at sunset hidden from view (of his adult supervision?) amongst the branches. Here are the photos we took of our visit 36 years ago:

A few more photos from our trip to Bavaria…

Here I am with Aaron and Ben – love the murals on the buildings!

And the gardens. I can’t believe we did all that walking with two small children and one little ‘ol banana stroller. You see here that Ben has relenquished the stroller to Aaron. I wonder if they’ve been keeping score this whole trip on who’s turn it is to ride.

David with the kiddos:

Take a play break at the fountain!

It was great to sit outside by a Jagerhaus (hunting lodge?) and enjoy the Bavarian spring weather.

Oh no! Who could have predicted that a bee would land on the rim of Aaron’s coke and sting him right on the lip as he lifted his can to take that oh-so-innocent sip? When you ask Aaron about this trip he will say that he does remember that cruel bee sting to his lip! We all do.

Yeah, well, the kiddos are 40 now. Dang. What does that make us? David and I. How did we find ourselves at this (ahem) stage of our lives so quickly?

That about wraps up our trip to Bavaria, Germany, 36 years ago where we visited two of King Ludwig’s fantasy castles. I dunno, I may have to lock myself overnight in a hall of mirrors reflecting the light of the candles a thousand times, creating an unimaginable effect on my brain to tackle that intricate wooden 641-piece Liberty puzzle of Castle Neuschwanstein.

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Alpine Mountain Days!

July 2, 2019

Every year the town of Alpine, Wyoming holds a Mountain Days Festival on the third weekend of June, a tradition which started over a quarter-century ago. This year it was held on Friday-Sunday, June 21st – 23rd. The festival includes Mountain Men, Native American Performances, live music, food vendors, commercial booths, a triathlon, chili cookoff, raptor show …

Alpine Mountain Days
June 21-23, 2019

My brother Eric, who owns an Antique/gift store, has a booth at this festival every year. This year David and I decided to travel to Alpine and check it out. We rented a room at the Flying Saddle Resort just outside of town, on account of the motel on the main drag, the Bull Moose Inn and Saloon, was booked. (Do towns with a population of 828 have suburbs?)

Alpine, Wyoming, is about 40 miles south of Jackson Hole (where purportedly the billionaires have run off the millionaires) and many Alpine residents work in Jackson. Alpine sits at the end of the Snake River Canyon where the Snake River enters the Palisades Reservoir. Three rivers converge at Alpine, the Snake, the Salt and the Greys. You would love Alpine if you enjoy snowshoeing, ice fishing, or skiing. The snowfall, on average, is about 500 inches a year.

Here you see an aerial photo of Alpine from this Wiki page (which grants permission to share)

Alpine – uh, somewhere in that valley snowfield

We arrived in Alpine on Friday evening, June 21st. The first day of summer (yay!) and a high of … 58 degrees? Although when I complained about it to Eric he said, “You should have been here two years ago when it was 93 degrees.”

I took a photo of Alpine from our resort – where you can see the convergence of the Greys river into the Snake.

Alpine is hard to catch in photos


The Salt River converges into the Snake near Palisades Reservoir on the other side of Alpine.

Up and at em’ early Saturday to hit the Mountain Days Festivities. Free Pancake breakfast! Or breakfast at the one restaurant in town, the Yankee Doodle Cafe. The triathlon starts at 8 Am – swimming! We heard that participants were jumping in, then back out, on account of the 33-degree water temperature. But they did announce a winner after 10:30 am who crossed the finish line.

Meanwhile check out the booths! At least 30 of them, food vendors and merchants selling American Indian jewelry, photography, alpaca wool clothing, pottery, art, furs, Davy Crockett coon hats (Classic! My brothers each had one, uh, about 55-60 years ago?) – here, I took some photos – :

Shop till you drop!

Might be tempted on a Davy Crockett coon tail hat for nostalgia, but a whole skinned coon?

No country for raccoons

One booth was plastered with wooden signs:

“NO TRESPASSING – VIOLATORS WILL BE SHOT – SURVIVORS WILL BE SHOT AGAIN” (??) Might be a big seller in this part of the country, based on the retail shop on the main drag across the street:

Get your guns and ammo here!

At some point Smokey the Bear made an appearance

“Only YOU can prevent forest fires!”

Smokey on a toke break. (Ha – Just kidding)

Our most favorite booth of all was, of course, Eric’s. We walked right past it the first time through, I was so distracted by the bright merchandise and baubles around me – I was looking left, and you entered his booth to the right, under a little awning, but then it spread out into an open grassy area, because, well, I can only explain this in a video I took of Eric’s booth. (Turn up your sound…)

That’s Eric sitting back there in the blue fleece, on this breezy Saturday in Alpine.

Garden spinners – flowers, eagles and owls, Oh My! Dragonflies, and even a bat – metal garden art of all sorts. Propelled by the wind. Newly refinished antique trunks and dressers. An old carpenter’s work bench. And Sasquatch!

A disgruntled Sasquatch walking out of Eric’s booth

Across the street from the vendors is Mountain Man Trader’s Row and the Indian Village:

A weathered bunch

Where the mountain men and Indians gathered, danced and sold their wares.

The Shoshone Indians performed ceremonial dances. I captured a bit of one – not the most elaborate, but worth sharing

imparts maybe some understanding of the origins of punk rock (??)

And of course, the chili cookoff. Eleven entries – and for five bucks you could sample them all and not be hungry again for six hours.

Chili Cookoff!

The chicken chili won. (Note to self- Make chicken chili next time I enter into a chili cook-off contest with a $50.00 1st place prize. All the red chili’s taste nearly the same, because they look the same.)

On Saturday afternoon The Teton Raptor Center presented two raptor presentations, free to the public. Well worth seeing! Located in Wilson, Wyoming (near Jackson Hole) the Teton Raptor Center receives and rehabilitates injured raptors from private citizens and Fish and Game, with the goal of releasing them back into the wild. They keep the raptors who can’t survive in the wild, due to permanent injuries. They use these birds to educate people about raptors and how human behavior affects their well-being. The presentation today included a Golden Eagle, Red-tailed Hawk, Great-horned Owl,a Bald Eagle,a Kestrel, and a Peregrine Falcon. I took photos of them all while listening to their histories.

Meet Gus, the Golden Eagle:

He fledged the nest with a broken wing that never healed properly. So he couldn’t fly. Gus is the second oldest bird in the center, at 14 years old.

Owlie – the Great horned owl – was hit by a truck in Wilson Wyoming.

Owlie and the Bald Eagle

One wing was too badly damaged to heal properly. His disposition was very grumpy until they discovered he had severe arthritis in his damaged wing. They removed the section of wing that was inflamed and learned that owlie’s owlishness had been due to pain. He is now a much happier bird. Owlie is also 14 years old, one of the original birds in the center.

Owlie with the red tailed hawk

Red tailed hawk

The red-tailed hawk – was brought in with a broken wing after being hit by a car. The wing was rehabilitated but when they released him he refused to leave. They finally determined that in addition to a broken wing he suffered from a brain injury.

One point that was driven home in the presentation – Don’t toss apple cores and other edible scraps out your car window thinking it’s fine because they are ‘biodegradable’. Birds fly down to snatch up the food but can’t get aloft enough on take-off to avoid getting hit by passing cars!

The Bald Eagle: Female (you can tell males and females apart by their size – females are much larger than males!)

Bald Eagle!

She was sent to the center from Missouri – found sick from a severe bacterial infection caused by drinking polluted water. She was finally healed, but the infection had seriously damaged the bones in her wings so she could no longer fly.

You can tell her age by the color of her head. It doesn’t turn completely white until the bald eagle is about five years old. This eagle is about four, which is why she has a salt-and-pepper-colored head.

Photo of the kestrel – a much smaller bird, but still a raptor (but I don’t remember the story…)

Kestrel- in the photo above and below

Peregrine Falcon: This guy was captured after not leaving his nest:

It was discovered that he had a bacterial infection in his eyes. The center was able to cure the infection and restore his vision, but the peregrine falcon couldn’t hunt because his cloudy vision had caused him to miss grades K-12 where the parents had taught the fledglings to hunt.

Check out this link to the Teton Raptor Center. You can visit these birds in Wilson and experience educational raptor encounters similar to what we experienced here at Alpine Mountain Days. Or come to Alpine the third weekend of June during any year!

Eric, David and I ate dinner Saturday night at the new brewery in Alpine – Melvin Brewery – that started up in Jackson, Wyoming, and then they moved their headquarters to Alpine and vastly expanded their operation.

The Melvin Brewery sits right at the tip of Palisades Reservoir. They distribute beer to bars in Idaho Falls and other surrounding areas. Here is the view from their patio (although lovely for summer, but a bit too chilly to eat outside today.)

Melvin Brewery Patio overlooking Palisades

It’s Sunday morning and we need to hit the road back home. We stop by Eric’s booth one more time and hang out a bit. The morning is peaceful, the air is calm, and noticeably warmer than yesterday. We sit, entertained by the little children that belong to the Indian family that sells alpaca wool clothing in the booth behind Eric …

Too precious!

David is wearing his new ‘Melvin Brewery’ sweatshirt he bought yesterday from a vendor.

We particularly like the back of it.

Yeah! Don’t hate. Party.

And on that note I think I’ll put a wrap on this.

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Kauai’s Epic Rainfall, April 14-15, 2018

February 10, 2019

(January 2019 Kauai Trip – Part 2)

Imagine you are visiting or living on the north shore of Kauai near Hanalei in the middle of April, 2018. You wake up on Friday, April 14, 2018 to a hard rain. Forecast calls for a major storm, so you hunker down inside your residence. The storm hits about 5 am but it’s ever more fierce than you imagined. It’s raining HARD, and continuously, throughout the day and into the night. You just can’t believe the persistent pounding on the roof and surfaces outside. Finally in the middle of the night, Friday night, you go out and capture a video: (take a little time here to listen – the sound of rain (albeit in small doses) can be a bit relaxing …)

Video taken Saturday April 16,3:30 AM by Theriault Brigette

Finally by 5 am Saturday the rain begins to subside. This storm turns out to be epic – dumping an average of 2″ an hour in Hanalei – 48 inches in 24 hours! Residents emerge to discover widespread damage and devastation – washed out roads, upturned vehicles, homes on the verge of collapsing or washed away, people stranded. Landslides.

You venture out, manage to get down along Hanalei Bay and witness the aftermath, maybe capture some respectable photos and video of the devastation. Here’s a video from (what must be) a drone, where one can see that Weke road – which runs between multimillion-dollar houses along Hanalei beach, near the dock, is clearly destroyed. So are several houses…

April 2018 Flood-posted by Aaron Feinberg

Rescue teams disperse in helicopters, rafts and jet skis. 152 people are evacuated by helicopter. Flooding sweeps a herd of buffalo away at a nearby ranch and buffalo are stranded in peoples’ yards and in Hanalei Bay. Buffalo stranded in Hanalei Bay? Yes. Someone captured a video of Hawaii cowboys, “Paniolo” on jet skis catching stray buffalo in Hanalei Bay:

Hawaii Paniolo catching buffalo

30 campers are stranded on the Kalalau Trail along the now-isolated Napali Coast. Bad timing for a backpacking trip! Turns out the Kalalau trail and Napali Coast are cut off because the only road going there, ‘Kuhio Highway’ has sections that are completely washed away.

To give you an idea of where this epic rain occurred, here are a couple of maps of Kauai. This first one is of the whole island –

Island of Kauai

This second map is a closeup of the North Shore where the April flood hit the hardest: Hanalei, and Napali Coast…

North Shore

The section of road in red is the Kuhio Highway that connects you to the Napali Coast – Ke’e Beach, Kalalau trail, Lumaha’i Beach… The road is closed because of extensive April 14-15, 2018 flood damage.

So when David, Eric and I visited a couple of weeks ago (Jan 17-31, 2019) we hung out on Hanalei Beach and then decided to take the Kuhio highway over to our favorite beach of all time, why of course, – Lumaha’i Beach! We weren’t even through Hanalei when … What ??

Kuhio Highway

Wow! Nine months after the flood and the highway is still closed? Is there no way to get to Lumaha’i Beach?

Nope. Not unless you have a permit to go past the barrier – and only as part of a convoy that enters and exits the area every 1 1/2 hours. If you live past the barrier, then you get a pass, but you still have to enter and exit the area with the convoy. Say you are a contractor, building a new house or or something past the barrier. You have to get a new permit every Monday (in Lihue) to enter the area for that week, and exit, with the convoy.

We learned much of this from talking to the locals. The Kuhio Highway had literally been washed away in places off the edges of the slopes of the Napali Coast. After removing debris they have to ‘slope scale, stabilize and reinforce’ the road – it’s a massive construction project. Here’s a link with lots of information about the ‘Project Status’ of the road repair – (for you engineering types who would likely find this fascinating):

Project Status as of 12/28/18

The town of Hanalei is fully alive, however, with businesses open and doing fine. Eric even successfully persuaded David and I to walk with him to the end of Hanalei Beach and then further along the rocky coastline to see if we could get to Lumahai Beach on foot. Sure Eric, why not?

We didn’t get too far till we had to turn back!

The end of the beach at Hanalei Bay

Directly parallel to us, off to our left is where the convoy begins. David counted 60 cars that lined up to go through at about 12:45 in the afternoon, January 26, 2019.

Here’s a couple more photos I took of Hanalei Bay as it looks now:

Hanalei Bay

The dock

And a couple of the houses on Weke Road along the beach near the dock that were severely damaged on April 15 and still standing, as if they haven’t even been touched since the flood (insurance settlement issues?? Too unsafe???):

Now dear reader, if you have any time, energy or inclination to look at another April 15, 2018 Kauai flood you-tube video – this last one is really quite interesting. It was posted by a local woman – obviously someone who lives or has lived on or close to the beach here where the flood took out these houses. Anyway, she provides close-up coverage of the flooding around the houses on the beach and interesting commentary about the building of these (multi-million dollar?) houses in this unfortunate location:

Weke Road Flood update Hanalei 5-2-18- Felicia Alongi Cowden

And lastly, wouldn’t you still like to get to the fabulous Lumaha’i Beach? Dang! Well, you’re in luck because I can take you there. Here is a video of the beach I took on a previous trip to Kauai, way before the flood – posted in one of my previous Kauai blogs – link here.

Although my video doesn’t hold a candle to a video I found on You tube of the same spot: click on this video by Cyndi Totti – taken on January 20, 2016, during record high surf with an added bonus of lots of girls in bikinis diving into the crashing waves (You’re welcome).

Aloha! Now you understand why my brother Eric was coaxing David and I to walk with him along the treacherous rocky coastline beyond the barrier to get to Lumaha’i Beach!

Meanwhile, back at home in Idaho at the moment …

Sunday, Feb 10, 2019

Yeah. Nature pretty much gets her way.

No worries. We’ve hired a crew to shovel us out. They’ve just pulled up in front of our house

Sweet!

Young strapping males

Feb 10- 5 PM – Yes!!

Oh, BTW- After every hike on the beach at Hanalei we do have the option of refreshing ourselves with a round of Iniki Mai Tais at the Kalypso Restaurant in Hanalei.

Kalypso, Jan 21, 2019 3:15 pm

And feed off of my brother Eric’s infectious energy.

Although look at those eyes. What new mischief is he up to? Devising another lawless scheme to get us past that barrier over to Lumaha’i Beach? Hmmm. Seems likely. What do you think?

Oh, and by the way, click on this link if you’d like to give to the Kauai Relief and Recovery Fund through the Hawai’i Community Foundation.

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Winter Albatross

February 8, 2019

February in like a lion

Thursday, February 7, 2019 – Southeast Idaho News headline:

“Snow event declared in Idaho Falls, move your vehicles”

What? Out of the garage? We have to shovel first!

I snapped a photo of David a few minutes ago, shoveling off our back deck

Thursday, Feb 7, 2019

You know, to help us cope with this problem:

Rudy wants in!

I don’t know about you, but I need a tropical vacation. It’s only February and the extended forecast calls for more, uh … Well here, nothing says it like a photo – a screenshot of our extended forecast:

just deal with it

Winter blahs, anyone? Hey, I know! Let’s jet off to my happy place! Kauai!! David and I travel there every January to visit my sister Steph and husband Victor who own a house in Princeville, where they live about half the year. David and I, and my brother Eric have visited Steph and Vic in Kauai every January since 2011 – we returned from our latest trip just a week ago – February 1st. I’ve blogged about our trips every year (45+ Kauai blogs!). So this year I thought, what the heck, forget the blogs. Enough already!

Except, how to get through February? I know of no other way but to jet back to Kauai. Are you on board?? Ready for takeoff…

Uh, not there yet. We’re still on our 6-hour flight from Denver to Lihue, Kauai. My legs have gelled into tingling blobs from sitting so long … looking for scenery now, besides ocean… Oh look! An Island!

Not sure what Hawaiian island this is, just great to see land

Yes! Mid-afternoon, Thursday Jan 17, we’ve landed in Lihue, rented the SUV, driven about an hour to the north shore, and are circling the familiar fountain – Princeville! – just blocks away from Steph and Vic’s house now.

Fountain in Princeville

I don’t know about you, but it takes me a day or two to decompress and relax into vacation. Take in the views, tropical foliage, fauna, and smells. Soak up the sun. Let the ocean breezes caress your face… Breathe in … Release… Relax into your happy place!! Here, let me take you there …

First of all, sit on the patio in a reclining chair, stretch out your legs. Take in this view overlooking the golf course to the ocean:

Paradise

Notice the albatross. Albatross? Yeah, that huge bird out there in the grass – one of the most magnificent birds on the planet. They have to run along the ground, into the wind, to take off but they are highly efficient in the air, using dynamic soaring to cover great distances with little exertion. According to this article, they are capable of traveling 10,000 miles in a single journey and circumventing the globe in 46 days – they manage to fly without expending almost any energy.

Sit a while, and they’ll fly overhead, dip and glide parallel to the ground, swirl back up, here you will see two …

and maybe just maybe, they will land a few feet in front of you.

Adolescent albatross engaging in mating dance

The Layson albatross is a large seabird that ranges across the North Pacific. They fly south from Alaska and the Arctic and arrive on the north and west shores of Kauai in mid-November each year, some to mate and some to nest and have their young. They stay on the island till Mid-July. Kauai is the only place in the world where albatross can be found in residential areas and on golf courses. They are enormously entertaining!

Take a walk in Princeville and you will likely see an Albatross nesting in someone’s yard. We took a walk near Sea Lodge Beach and spotted this one:

Nesting Albatross. The egg hatches in about 60-64 days

Nearby there were several gathering. Here comes one now… Mr Big Stuff. Look at that swagger!

Adolescent males and females bond through ritualized mating dances that may take place over several years. On January 30 I happened to capture their mating dance on video:

Albatross bond for life and do not find another if their partner dies.

Albatross return to their place of birth to begin the mating dance when they are 3-4 years old. They don’t successfully reproduce (1 egg) until they are 9 or 10. The egg hatches in 60-64 days. Adults with chicks to feed take foraging trips that last up to 17 days and travel 1600 miles away from their nest. It takes about 165 days for a nestling to fledge.

Wisdom, an albatross on Midway Island, is recognized as the oldest wild bird in the world. She was first banded in 1956. Check out this link! to learn more about Wisdom who, at age 66, has hatched chicks two years in a row! (Female human’s worst nightmare.)

If you want to learn more about these fascinating birds here’s a link that poses and answers about every question you could think of to ask about the Albatross.

Also, the link to my blog I wrote a year ago about the Layson Albatross on Kauai with my photos, videos and commentary.

Oh, ahem, one last note on the Albatross, FYI, in Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poem, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, the killing of a ‘harmless albatross” dooms the ship’s crew.

Okay, time to kick your cardiovascular system into gear with a hike down to Anini Beach! Yes, the sign is still there…

Tourists angry. Hike too steep!

David and Eric hike down to Anini Beach, coming back up is the killer…

Anini Beach is serene. Wade in and catch sea cucumbers!

Anini Beach

Something is always in bloom in Paradise

Hibiscus and orchids


Pick mandarin oranges off the trees in your own yard

Okay, are you there yet? Relaxed? Basking in the wonders of Paradise? Good!

Back in Idaho today we did get shoveled out!

Feb 7, 2019

Me, personally? I’m looking forward to waking up tomorrow to a Kauai sunrise

And maybe checking out Hanalei Bay. Are you coming along?

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Hong Kong – Part 2

June 2, 2018

China trip – Part 8

Saturday, April 21 – Only two days till we fly back home to Idaho. I wake up with a dull headache, and a queasy stomach. That nasty whatever-it-was thing I came down with yesterday seems to be more than a 24-hour bug. No worries. Victor has already visited an apothecary and delivered me some Chinese medicine to cure my ills. I sucked down a dose of it last night and again this morning. Po Chai pills in bottle form could certainly relieve whatever ails me

PO CHAI PILLS

Made in Hong Kong – good “for relieving fever, diarrhea, intoxication, vomiting, over-eating, and gastrointestinal diseases.” (Tourist’s panacea!) You pull the top off the vial and down the whole batch of peppercorn-like balls, hopefully in one gulp. I gulped down four of the eight vials getting myself back online, and brought the remaining doses home with me, you know, for any future vomiting, over-eating, hangovers or gastrointestinal ills …

So, what to see of Hong Kong in two days? Whatever plans we make, I’m in!

Hong Kong is split in two by Victoria Harbor; the modern city springs up along the northern shore of Hong Kong Island and the southern tip of Kowloon (the peninsula extending from the Chinese mainland). On Hong Kong Island the central city goes only a few kilometers south into the island before mountains rise up.

We are staying near the shore at the Shangri-la Hotel in Kowloon. Today we’ll take the Star Ferry across Victoria Harbor to Hong Kong Island. Then take the tram to the top of Victoria Peak and enjoy the fabulous views of Hong Kong on both sides of the harbor.

8:30 am Saturday we’ve just stepped out of our hotel and are walking to the ferry

Hong Kong Island in the distance

We merge with a huge crowd, board the ferry, and almost before I realize it, we’re cruising across Victoria Bay. We meet another ferry surging toward the dock from the opposite direction…

Star Ferry / Hong Kong Island

The Star Ferry has been running across the harbor since 1888. It’s only about a 10-minute ride.

We arrive on Hong Kong Island and walk to the Peak Tram. There’s a long line waiting for the tram, the wait is almost an hour, feels similar, we concur, to waiting in line for a ride at Disney World. But what else are we going to do? You people-watch in line and try to guess the language and/or country of origin of the people around you.

It’s 10:45am and we can finally see the front of the line! We should board the tram shortly …

Peak Tram

We’re on top now. We let everyone else off the tram first. (My brother Eric took this photo – I pulled it off his FB page)

We walk back down Victoria Peak on a paved path. Here’s a couple of photos from on top.

View of Hong Kong from Victoria Peak. Kowloon side of Hong Kong is across the Bay

Hong Kong Island

But a video is better!

In contrast to mainland China, where we saw maybe 2 dogs, dogs seem to be popular pets in Hong Kong. Especially poodles.

Poodles!

Five poodles in the photo!

More poodles!

All impeccably groomed. We also see several golden retrievers. And a bulldog:

All these pets are likely sharing a very small apartment space with their owners.

We spend the next hour exploring the island of Hong Kong on foot.

Buy your raw meat here!

Intestines for dinner – Yum!

Rare delicacies! Google delicious recipes for preparing entrails. Stewed pork intestine … ?

There’s a whole block of Hong Kong where you can purchase dried fish, displayed on shelves in open bins. (It doesn’t spoil sitting out in the heat all day?) I recognize the shrimp!

Suddenly we’re boarding a double-decker bus (follow Victor!).

Eric and David

I don’t dare check out the upper deck for fear of missing our stop.

A pencil-thin young man dressed like a rock star in skin-tight pants and broad patterned glittery shirt, boards the bus with a suitcase. He’s here to go shopping!

We’re back near the ferry dock now

Hong Kong island

Headed back across Victoria Bay

We spend the rest of our time here exploring Kowloon. The streets and sidewalks are jammed with people in the evening. Restaurants abound and eating out is very inexpensive.

Saturday, April 21 – 9:30 pm

Sunday, April 22, is our last day. Tomorrow we fly home to Idaho. Victor shows us around Hong Kong on the Kowloon side. He takes us past the apartment he lived in with his family when he was in High School back in the early 60’s.

Victor’s apartment in early 60’s

After High School Victor’s father insisted he go to college in America. Victor went to the University of Florida for his undergraduate degree, and then to MIT where he got his PhD. MIT is where he met my sister, Stephanie. They both made their careers at MIT and have lived in Boston ever since.

We walked through Kowloon Park in Hong Kong. Went up these steps to enter the park …

Difficult canvas for a mural!

We pass a group doing Fan Kung Fu or Kung Fu Fan! I take a video

It would be hard enough learning how to control the fan, much less learning the Kung Fu! Check out this short video on youtube of a Kung Fu Fan Master!

Alas. All good things must come to and end. I have to put a wrap on this!

For our final dinner, Sunday night, Victor takes us down to the docks for a fresh seafood dinner. By ‘fresh’ I mean we literally picked out our seafood swimming in water tanks, one seafood vendor after the other, lined the dock. We picked out large and small shrimp, a whole fish, scallops, abalone – they cooked them up – and moments later, we were served!

Have you ever seen a shrimp 8 inches long?

The largest shrimp you’ll ever see

We ordered one and then another half pound of smaller shrimp.

Shrimp

And scallops …

Fresh scallops!

Abalone:

Abalone

Pick out your fish!

We sit out on a patio on the water and the dishes come out, one by one:

Boiled shrimp!

Scallops!

Abalone

We are just finishing up!

… I do believe, the most delicious fresh seafood dinner available on earth!

I capture one last photo of the bay as we leave the restaurant.

Sunday, April 22, 7pm

The sun has set on our trip to China.

The next morning, Monday, April 23, we travel home. By 10 am we’re at the Hong Kong airport.

Hong Kong airport

11-hour flight to Seattle

At some point I take a selfie. I don’t sleep well on planes!

From Seattle David, Eric and I fly on to Salt Lake City, and then Idaho Falls. Steph and Victor catch a direct flight to Boston. I take one last photo in the Seattle airport before we part ways

Eric, Victor, David, Steph

‘Xiexie’, Victor and Steph. Thank you for the trip of a lifetime!

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Hong Kong!

May 26, 2018

China trip – Part 7

Friday, April 20 – Alas, we’re en route to our last stop on our 2-week trip to China – Hong Kong, where we plan to spend our last three nights.

Destination cities – from Beijing in the north, traveling south to Hangzhou, Guilin, and Hong Kong

Friday, 8:30 am – We’re out front of our motel in Guilin, loading up to head to the Guilin train station – in a torrential rain.

Shangri-La Hotel – Guilin

When our driver, Terry, pulls up at the train station to let us off, we’re ankle-deep in water getting our luggage out. I’m stressing about my i-Phone getting ruined in the outer pocket of my getting-saturated nylon purse (why didn’t I think of wearing my purse under my raincoat?) as we orient ourselves out and around the train station to find the correct entrance. Whew! We’re inside now. The place is mobbed! Where do we go? Oh, up this escalator. A fine young Chinese fellow who speaks very good English overhears our conversation and points me in the right direction. (Overall, we found the Chinese people to be very warm, helpful and friendly toward us.)

There’s the gate to our train! Get in line, stay together! I take a photo:

Guilin Train Station

But you can’t really capture this crowd in a photo. So I take a video:

Today we travel 360 miles east-southeast by train from Guilin to Shenzhen – and then from Shenzhen we take metro trains, from Shenzhen to the border crossing at Hong Kong, and then down the Hong Kong peninsula to the southern tip.

We’ve boarded the train to Shenzhen now. I take a couple of photos of the scenery passing by us at about 130 mph.

Rice paddies

One of my few rural photos!

The train ride from Guilin to Shenzhen is about 3 hours. Settle in for relaxation and reading! I’m sitting between David and Eric. We’ve packed along some munchies and drinks, bottled water, beer, peanuts – but I’m just not hungry. Can’t seem to concentrate on my reading, either. I set my kindle aside. My stomach is queasy. Hmmmm. Surely I won’t get sick … Could it be motion sickness? David pours servings of beer in paper cups for himself, Eric, Steph and Victor. The empty cups get returned back to him, he stacks them on his seat tray and excuses himself to the bathroom. Suddenly my stomach hurls its contents. One hurl at a time, as they say. Boy were those cups convenient! I very calmly pick up the first empty cup, fill it to the brim with my first hurl. Then the second cup. Then the third, and fourth. Oh no! Wait, thank God there’s extra room in my half-empty water bottle! Eric, meanwhile, leaps into the isle, finds the stewardess, and returns with two large plastic garbage bags and several small barf bags. Got it covered! What the hell? We dump the cups of puke in a trash bag and I head to the bathroom. David stocks up on paper barf bags for future use …

We get off the train in Shenzhen. First leg of the trip done! LEG? Yes, we still have to get from Shenzhen to the border crossing into the Hong Kong Peninsula, go through customs to enter Hong Kong, then take the metro 12 more stops down the edge of the peninsula to the lower tip of Kowloon.

Here’s a couple of maps from travelchinaguide.com – The first photo shows the Hong Kong peninsula. Shenzhen, in mainland China, is in red letters – Hong Kong is the lighter green area:

Hong Kong

The second map is the Hong Kong Metro. After we get through customs we catch the blue line at the top of the peninsula – travel south along the edge of the New Territories, through Kowloon to Hung Hom, the station furthest south (at yellow highlighted area) – 12 stops (I know, I counted them down!)

We get off near the yellow highlighted area

Yeah, so long story short – I actually took a picture when we got off the train from Shenzhen – right before we went through customs.

Welcome to Hong Kong!

We just kept going as a group and I would signal them – we’d pull out of the crowd, I’d barf in a nifty paper bag from David’s stock …

Good thing David had about a dozen of these

dump it in the trash, pull out a fresh bag, get it ready for the next hurl …

Hello barf bag, my new friend …

and we’d proceed on. My stomach timed it just right so I got through customs without a hitch, barfed before we arrived at the agents’ station and barfed on the other side.

Oh, but wait a minute. Did I digress? You wanted to hear about Hong Kong! My bad …

After we get off the metro, Victor snags us a 5-person taxi to take us the few blocks to our motel – Shangri-la Hotel Kowloon (of course! We have grown to love this hotel chain). So we are staying on the southern tip of the Hong Kong peninsula, right across Victoria Bay from Hong Kong Island. I go straight to bed that Friday evening, while Steph and Vic, David and Eric go out and explore the city. No worries. Eric takes photos. Great photos. (I’ve pulled them off his Facebook page. He said I could use them, plus, he beat me to this story by 3-4 weeks.)

So, dear reader, it’s Friday night, April 20th and you’re in Hong Kong! Just because I’m sick doesn’t mean you can’t go out on the town with Eric and David and Steph and Victor!

You run into Spider Man

Any ladies in distress? I’ll hang upside down for you

And this floating guy. An Angel?

Levitating human statue? Top this Las Vegas!

And, uh, this guy.

My next boyfriend

Who, I think, must be either a God or made of wax because what human could really have arms like that?

Eric also captures some nice evening photos of Victoria Bay

and the skyline just after dusk on Hong Kong island:

Hong Kong Island

Yeah, so tomorrow we catch the Star Ferry – from the southern tip of the Kowloon peninsula across Victoria Harbor to Hong Kong Island. Take a tram to the top of Victoria Peak and hike back down! Here. I’ll give you a sneak preview…

Star Ferry across Victoria Harbor

I’ll be on that ferry tomorrow. Just hope I don’t get seasick!

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Guilin – Day 2

May 21, 2018

China trip – Part 6.

It’s Thursday, April 19, 10 days into our 2-week trip to China. We are on our third stop, Guilin, a popular tourist destination because of its renown karst topography.

Destination cities – from Beijing in the north, traveling south to Hangzhou, Guilin, and Hong Kong

Guilin is about 1000 miles southwest of Beijing. We are staying three nights at the Shangri-la Hotel in the center of the city.

The city itself is not very charming. Fodor’s travel book explains that Guilin was heavily bombed during the Second Sino-Japanese War (from 1937 -1945) and rebuilt in the utilitarian style popular in the 1950’s.

Original settlements on the Li River banks go back as far as 314 BC. The city was established in 111 BC during the reign of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty.

A dozen small ethnic groups call Guilin home and so a variety of living conditions and lifestyles prevail throughout the region. There are about 8 different Guilin languages – Mandarin, Cantonese, Vietnamese, Zhuang and Mienic languages, to name some of them.

Yesterday we took a river cruise down the Li River along the karst peaks (per my previous blog) – today is our last full day here. Here I took a photo of the view of the city from our motel window.

Guilin

On the corner square right below our hotel window a large group of mostly women are working out to upbeat music.

We venture out on foot to explore the city. On the opposite corner square from the dance/exercise group, another boom box is belting out tunes and couples are gathering to dance. I turn to take a photo, and this happy couple strikes a pose.

(By evening the square is packed full with dancing couples.)

Back to our morning walk … A few blocks from our hotel we enter an open market, where the locals shop for groceries –

Abundant fresh produce:

Fresh meat

How long does it stay fresh?

Yum! Pig’s feet! And what’s that next to the feet?

No idea what to do with these items

Ugh! A pigs face? Uh, so, Halloween mask or something? Waste not, want not. Pig snout stew? Do instructions in English come with these purchases?

Get your fresh chicken here!

Throw it on the barbie

Throats slit, feathers plucked, they’re ready to go!

You want a closer look, do you? No????

Yep, their throats are slit, alright

Chicken feet are a delicacy, of course! Not sure about chicken heads. Don’t really want to make eye contact with the thing, be forced into a conversation with it, before I cut its head off.

On the other hand, if you really want fresh chicken or duck, just buy a live one out of this caged selection:

Live chickens on the left, ducks on the right

Eric thought of buying all the ducks and then setting them free on the river. I could purchase bread to feed them! But then they’d all just be caught again … Yum! Peking Duck is calling us for dinner …

Well, it certainly does make you think about what you’re eating, that another animal is giving up their life to provide you nourishment, and you basically have to tell them so, make amends to the animal face-to-face when you buy it. Fair enough …

A lot of families come through on their motor bikes to shop.

Not sure how they would carry their groceries. Add a live duck to the mix?

It was quite amazing to see parents with their children riding through town traffic on these small bikes – no big deal, no helmets, no need to hold on …. no worry apparently, about safety.

No problem, this toddler is perfectly secure…

No room for a car seat?

Yes, there’s a toddler in there …

Hey, it works! We saw families riding on electric scooters in every large city we visited. Didn’t see or or hear of an accident – thank goodness. Not that they don’t happen! Can’t imagine. I wonder what the accident statistics are or how much news coverage these accidents receive. In any case, there doesn’t seem to be much worry or government safety regulations concerning travel on electric scooters. The Guilin city streets are designed with separate parallel lanes for cars and motor scooters. But of course, these lanes merge into intersections … Here, I took a video of the intersection right below our hotel – gives you an idea of how one might worry about the safety of an entire family on an electric motor scooter …

Oh, and by the way, cars and scooters do not yield to pedestrians. The rule seems to be: The biggest moving mass on the road gets the right-of-way. Note to pedestrians: Get out of the way of anything that can run you over!!

In the afternoon our driver Terry delivered us to a popular site in the center of Guilin, The Prince City Solitary Beauty Park. Inside are the decaying remains of an ancient Ming Dynasty palace built in 1393. Sun Yat-sen lived here for a few months in the winter of 1921. We walked around the park and then climbed up the main attraction in the park, the Peak of Solitary Beauty. This is a 492-foot high karst peak, with carved stones leading to the top. It’s an intense workout for your legs getting to the top, but totally worth it for the great views of Guilin. Here we are climbing the steps to the top of the Peak of Solitary Beauty:

And views of Guilin from on top:

Guilin

Climbing back down now …

It was difficult to capture a photo of the peak from the ground. This is my best effort:

Peak of Solitary Beauty

For dinner, our concierge, Ray, had made us reservations at a fabulous restaurant – Chunji Roasted Goose Restaurant (yes, roasted goose is their specialty). Terry, our driver, delivered us there and back again (Do I feel special? Pinch myself!). It was top-notch in all respects, round tables with cloth tablecloths, elegant lighting and decor, prompt, polite service … Here, I’ll share my photos of the evening. First, the restaurant:

Our server:

Chinese local beer was great!

Some of our dishes (Victor always makes fantastic choices!):

Too pretty to eat!

And one last photo of the busy chefs in the massive kitchen!

Well, okay. It’s Friday morning now, April 20. Today we travel by several trains to the last destination on our trip – Hong Kong! We have met Terry, our driver, out in front of the Shangri-la Hotel and are ready to hit the road to the train station in Guilin. Oh, except Eric can’t find his raincoat.

Yeah, we are in for several new adventures today, for starters, we wake up to a torrential rain. (An omen?) While Eric digs in his suitcase looking for his raincoat I take a video.

Are you ready? Pile into the van with us and Terry. We’re on a new adventure!

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Guilin! Li River Cruise

May 14, 2018

China Trip – Part 5

Tuesday, April 17, 2018 – We have checked out of our motel in Hangzhou, and are on our way to the airport to catch our flight to Guilin, a city about 800 miles south-southeast of Hangzhou. When you’re hanging out at West Lake in Hangzhou, it’s hard to imagine that you’re nestled in a city of 9.4 million people. I captured a couple of photos during our 45-minute drive to the airport, the first one of an older apartment building in the center of town

and the second photo of a typical newer high-rise apartment complex

But since you really can’t capture the layout of the dense urban sprawl in a photo – here – I took a video on our drive to the airport in Hangzhou –

New high-rise apartment complexes are springing up everywhere in China, however, property development in China is vastly out growing the number of people who can purchase them. According to this article, the Chinese government is launching building development across China to promote economic development. Property development has become big business! According to this article, “The 2011 estimates by property analysts state that there are some 89 million empty properties and apartments in China and that housing development in China is massively oversupplied and overvalued, and is a bubble waiting to burst with serious consequences in the future.” Well, that was a prediction in 2011. In 2018 the property development industry appears to be alive and booming as strong as ever. Still a bubble waiting to burst?

I wanted to mention this in my blog; it was amazing to see the huge new apartment complexes springing up around every large city we passed on the train.

We have arrived at the airport in Hangzhou. Wow! It, too, looks brand new.

Airport in Hangzhou

Oops! I’d better quit taking photos. I’m lagging behind David, Victor, Steph and Eric! (Well, not Eric – he’s taking photos too.)

A photo from the air now, as we approach Guilin:

By the way, Guilin is our third stop on our two-week (north to south) trip to China – the city furthest inland and our final destination on mainland China –

Destination cities – from Beijing in the north, traveling south to Hangzhou, Guilin, and Hong Kong

Guilin is situated in one of the world’s most beautiful landscapes, a region of limestone karst hills and mountains, rising almost vertically from the earth.

Karst Peaks near Guilin

These peaks were formed 200 million years ago when the area was under sea. Limestone was created from fossilized prehistoric sea-floor sediments. The sea bottom was pushed upward by geological forces and the sea receded. The exposed alkaline limestone was then eroded by the natural acidity of rain water collected in streams. Peaks developed from the land left after erosion by the streams. Cave systems have also developed in the limestone – a spelunker’s dream!

But we aren’t spelunkers. We are ordinary American tourists looking to book a relaxing cruise down the Li river right smack dab in the middle of these peaks. We check into the Shangri-La hotel in Guilin (having been thrilled with the Shangri-La in Hangzhou!). Victor immediately meets with the concierge ‘Ray’ who lines us up with a driver for the duration of our stay, ‘Terry.’ (This must be their given English names for when they serve English-speaking tourists?)

The concierge, Ray, and our driver, Terry.

We developed an affectionate bond with Ray and Terry, who treated us like we were the center of the Universe, responsive to our every need, during our stay at the Shangri-La Hotel in Guilin.

Ray and Terry

Somehow, too, our first evening there, Eric got snagged into participating in a dance in the lobby, much to our amusement. I caught the tail end of it in a video, with David, Victor and Steph watching in the background (the FAR background, I might add, so as to avoid Eric’s fate…)

These two hotties are the ones who snagged him.

(Okay, even Eric admits, it was totally worth it.)

So it’s Wednesday, April 18th, Ray has secured tickets for us to take the 4-hour Li-jiang River Cruise down the Li River along the Karst peaks. We meet Terry, our driver, at 8:15 am and he drives us 45 minutes to the Zhejiang Pier. Here – I took a photo of a picture in our brochure that shows you where the cruise originates on the Li River in the north to where it docks four hours later at the city of Yangshuo – a distance of about 80km or 50 miles:

Li-jiang River Cruise route

Okay, so Terry has dropped us off and we are in line (with hordes of people!) with our passports and tickets. Just move with the crush of the crowd. Our boat is number 12, which is, uh …

Which boat is ours?

Luckily Ray had also arranged a guide to help steer us along, a poised, well-dressed young lady who spoke excellent English, who greeted us in line and accompanied us onto our boat, which happens to be at the end of this dock.

It’s a tremendous relief to know we have found our boat, as, you can see, these boats are set at docks extending widely to the right

Boats to the right!


and to the left …

Boats to the left!

Ah… Relax now. We have a table to sit at inside our boat on the bottom level. With free hot tea service!

David, Jody, Victor, Steph

But the place to be is on the top deck…

Eric

There’s definitely a few other foreigners on this boat

Look at the boats behind us!

David and Eric

Vic and Steph

Jody and David

Several times during our trip a Chinese person would ask to pose for a photo or two with us, to which we happily concurred. This was one such lady, who wanted a photo with David and Eric.

Fun!

At some point our guide found us on the top deck – “Hey!” She informed us. “Did you know that we are passing the very spot that is pictured on the Chinese 20 Yuan bill? It’s coming right up!” Huh?

Here is a photo of the 20 Yuan bill:

And here is the photo I captured at the spot!

Scene on the Chinese
20 Yuan bill

And our photo memory of the moment:

David, Jody, Steph, Eric

(Don’t know where Victor was)

Pretty good, huh! I have at least 50 more photos … No? You don’t want to see them all? Okay, here’s just a couple more:

Up ahead is the famous rock face called the ‘Nine Horses Hill’

Nine Horses Hill

Left to the viewer to interpret how to find the nine horses in its face:

We are below again now – getting ready to dock, and totally entertained by this precocious little toddler sitting with his family across the isle from us. I’m trying to get his attention for a photo but he simply will not look at me!

His grandmother steps in to assist – just turn his head!

Oh well. That’s fine. A few minutes later he has settled down with his family. He’s so cute!

As I said, precocious. Definition: (of a child) “having developed certain abilities or proclivities at an earlier age than usual.” Is that a candy cigarette or a real cigarette? Hmmm. Hard to tell. I remember decades ago, when I was a kid, how much I loved candy cigarettes, posing with them, pretending to smoke, crunching them down slowly as I ‘smoked’ them. They have long since disappeared from store candy shelves. One interesting statistic we learned from one of our travel books is that 63% of Chinese men smoke cigarettes.

We have docked and are getting off the boat now in Yangshuo.

Docked!

We file through a huge market, but we just want to escape the crowds.

This woman in front of us reminds me never to buy a souvenir hat or T-shirt with Chinese characters on it.

Buy this t-shirt with English on the back!

Instructions to Victor from the driver are for us to walk to Kentucky Fried Chicken where he will meet us. Okay, that should be recognizable enough!

The city of Yangshuo has a population of about 300,000 people. Nestled amongst karst peaks!

Here is a video I took on our walk through a city shopping street:

Suddenly, across the street, an out-of-place Kentucky Fried Chicken sign comes into view – attached atop a building that doesn’t look even remotely similar to a Kentucky Fried Chicken! (Thank you, Victor, for orienting us here. I’ve no idea how we got here…)

Is it really a Kentucky Fried Chicken?

The next moment we walk right into our driver, Terry. I suspect maybe we stood out in the crowd more than he did.

Terry leads us along a main road to his vehicle. The traffic is crazy! A lane for cars and a lane for motorized scooters and rickshaws tearing along at the same speed and no one is wearing a helmet!

I took a couple of photos on the 50-mile drive back to Guilin.

Terry and Ray had arranged a tour for us on the way home – of an organic tea plantation. It was hot now in the late afternoon and we were glad they didn’t put us to work!

Hey, we’re just tourists!

As I said, it’s an organic tea farm. Workers suddenly appeared in the rows setting out sticky tar paper to catch insects!

Setting out sticky paper (yellow) to catch bugs

We learned the whole process of harvesting and preparing the tea leaves.

And enjoyed several different samples of hot fresh organic teas.

Whew! Exciting day, huh? Well, we have one more full day in Guilin before we head to Hong Kong. Are you ready? I have at least a hundred photos to prove it!

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