Blogs from United States, North America - page 20

I just finished reading an interesting novel, and the story involves 3 or 4 different people over several years. The author’s approach, which works for the book, is to tell part of the story from one player’s perspective, then tell another player’s story from a different time, sometimes historical and sometimes current. It works in this story, largely because each segment begins with a heading telling the time. Nevertheless, it sometimes confuses me. Then it occurred that our blog is going similarly, but without the timeline clues of a heading, so I think it best to start each segment off with a paragraph telling where in our trip the segment is meant to describe. So far, we’ve described our journey from Lynden down to Yuma, where we spent last winter, then continued on to most of ... read more

I don’t know why I’m writing this blog anymore. Nothing is interesting or exciting. We had tickets to hike Diamond Head this morning at 6am. Kamie said he wanted to return to Pearl Harbor and do a guided tour on the USS Missouri. The idea was to hike Diamond Head then Uber over to the Missouri and back. He wasn’t up in time for Diamond Head so we lost our ticket time (reservations only there) and we left late for the Missouri. Don’t get me started. The USS Missouri was the last battleship ever used by the USA and the site of the surrender signing by Japan in World War II. It was an okay tour but then it got hot standing out in the sun listening to the guide. We found out on the way ... read more

Savannah, Georgia is sublime. There have been a handful of places that I’ve been reluctant to leave on this trip. I was heartbroken to leave Savannah. What is so marvelous about this small Southern city? Forsyth park, Mrs. Wilkes Dining Room, Bonaventure Cemetery, E. Shavers Bookstores (both of them), Bull Street, Riverfront, Doki Doki, Leopolds, Slyders, SCAD, Tybee Beach, Tequila & Tacos, The Wayne Mansion, Vintage & Thrift Stores... The moss laden trees lining street after street of houses, from very small charming bungalows to mansions that would rival any in California. The city has managed to maintain the famed southern hospitality without seeming too sweetly hospitable. The modernity of Savannah doesn't overshadow the old fashioned appeal. We have been to a couple of dozen towns and cities on this trip and without a moment's hesitation, ... read more

Woke Up In Paradise this morning – How about you? Okay. Just kidding. Today was a loud wake-up from Kamie’s mom at 5am with a text saying his 101-year-old granny had passed away in her sleep overnight. We took showers and left for our 8am reservations at Pearl Harbor. Our Uber said 12-minutes from Hilton Hawaiian Village to Pearl Harbor Memorial Center. We grabbed an Uber in a stinky vehicle with a guy bumping his stereo speakers for an hour through congested rush hour traffic. Why are these people not working from home? Hawaii needs to get the memo that WFH is here to stay. By the way, Hawaii has a major littering and soil erosion problem. Typical island sites but you would think because it’s an American property, the Hawaii DOT would clean-up the sides ... read more

For about the past six months, we’ve been living and working in Aurora, the second largest city in Illinois, just 35 miles west of Chicago. When most people think of Chicago, they think of the United States' fourth largest city with about 3 million inhabitants. Toss in the total number of people that live in the suburbs and that total swells to about 10 million. We are going to save all that for the next blog and spend our time here describing some of the unique and cool things we did outside of this area. We’ve managed to do a lot of exploring and certainly do not want to provide a blow-by-blow of every weekend, but did want to talk about some of the highlights. If you are in the area visiting and venture away from ... read more