Fifty Candles

[UPDATE: May, 2015—As I gradually go back over my old travelogues, I‘ll be leaving the original text intact but adding additional comments in boldfaced enclosed in brackets to expand on what was originally said. I‘ll also add some additional photos to enhance the original travelogues. I‘ve waited six years (or at least until the sixth calendar year) before revising any of my travelogues. Some of them have seemed far in the past when I‘ve gotten around to writing the revisions. Others, like this one, seem like they just happened yesterday. It‘s hard to believe it actually was six years ago that I went to Hawaii. I notice that the original version of this travelogue was written in an old version of Microsoft Word (with the .doc filename extension), though. At least two newer versions (with extension .docx) have come out since, and a number of significant events in the world have transpired as well. I suppose enough time has passed to work on this revision. I distinctly remember downloading the font that was used for the main title and daily headers of this travelogue. It‘s called ―Hawaiiah‖ and was a free download from some website that offers numerous fonts. While it would be absolutely illegible in any size smaller than what‘s used here, I love that font. To me the gorgeous tropical flowers were really more memorable than the beaches in Hawaii. The orchids or hibiscus flowers that obscure the letters in this font help preserve my memories of this trip.] Before 2009, at one time or another, I had been to forty-nine of the fifty U.S. states. About half the states I‘d say I know quite well, while others (notably New Hampshire, Connecticut, and Rhode Island) I‘ve only passed through quickly without actually setting foot on their soil. [I‘ve since spent the Hibiscus flower night in Providence and seen quite a few of Rhode Island‘s attractions.] I‘d actually been within the geographic boundaries of all the states from Alaska to Florida and Maine to California, though—and that meant there was just one more place in America I hadn‘t been to. My last state would be many people‘s first major vacation destination, the Pacific paradise of Hawaii. [It does amaze me how many people have been to Hawaii, but haven‘t been to Chicago—except possibly for making a connection at O‘Hare.] As is true with many major trips, I‘d toyed with the idea of going to Hawaii for years, really ever since my grad school friend Sandra moved there in 1993. It‘s never really been at the top of my list, though. I‘ve very much enjoyed the urban vacations I‘ve done in recent years, and those were about as far removed from lounging at the beach as could be. [As it would turn out, this trip would be more of an urban vacation than a beach getaway. It was definitely not the typical Hawaii surf ‗n‘ sand holiday.] What put Hawaii back in my mind was our new President. Barack Obama wrote very favorably of his birthplace in his autobiography Dreams from My Father, and I enjoyed watching last December when the networks followed his family on their Christmas vacation ―back home‖. It looked like a very enjoyable place, and certainly not all beach resort. I did some looking and before long my sister Margaret and I had bought tickets and made lodging reservations for an extensive trip to both America‘s and my fiftieth state. We actually bought our airplane tickets at the wrong time, just shortly after Christmas. Prices had dropped a bit because of the recession, and we thought we were getting the best deal we‘d get. In fact, oil prices plummeted in the spring, with airfares following suit. [Strangely, while oil prices have also dropped in 2015, there has been no corresponding decline in airfares or other transportation prices.] If we‘d booked five months later, we could have traveled for less than two-thirds what we paid. Our fare wasn‘t bad, though—particularly when you realize the distance from the Minneapolis to Honolulu is nearly the same as it to London. I did re-book our main hotel a few months after making the original reservation. Tourism had dipped a lot in Hawaii, and pretty much all the hotels were offering good deals. I was able to book a better room at the same hotel for about $30 a night less than what we‘d originally reserved. This year would be a particularly interesting one to visit Hawaii, because 2009 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the chain of islands joining the Union. Hawaii has a unique and fascinating history, having been first a British protectorate and later an independent country before becoming a U.S. territory largely for the convenience of American businessmen who ran the sugar and fruit plantations. The Hawaiian people argued to get full statehood pretty much ever since they became a territory, but not until August of 1959 did they actually become a full part of the United States. I hoped to learn more about the history and also to experience some of what Hawaiian life was like on this trip. A news vendor hawks the Honolulu Star—Bulletin at the time of statehood in 1959 My day began today with a trip to our local Chevy dealer. My eleven-year-old car has had various issues on and off for the past four years or so, and on a recent trip up to Minnesota to see my brother Steve the exhaust system started rattling and getting louder again. I had arranged to have the Chevy mechanics look at it while I was out of town—much easier than trying to get in there during the school year. I‘d love to trade off my car for something newer, but it‘s unlikely that will happen anytime soon. [I finally did buy a new car last fall, well after the Metro had topped 200,000 miles.] I was a bit jealous of the ―Cash for Clunkers‖ program the government sponsored recently, but unfortunately my car gets far too good of mileage to qualify for that. In fact, short of a hybrid (which there‘s absolutely no way I could afford), anything I‘d trade for would mean a decrease in fuel economy of at least 10mpg. … Oh, well! [The car I have now gets significantly poorer gas mileage, and I miss the economy of the Metro.] The car dealer REALLY wanted to give me a ride home when I dumped off my car. I was planning to stop by Hy-Vee to pick up something for lunch, though, and given that I‘ve walked pretty much everywhere this summer, the ride was completely unnecessary. It took a bit of doing to refuse their repeated offers, but eventually I was out of there. We‘d originally planned for me to go over to Margaret‘s before our trip. With the car problems, though, I‘d changed things and arranged for her to come over here instead. Once I got home I finished packing and pretty much spent the morning just waiting around. I also started writing on this travelogue. I was planning to try something different on this trip. Over the summer I‘d bought a tiny ―netbook‖ computer, and I thought I‘d see how it went to haul that along and write on the travelogue during the actual trip. The idea reminded me of our mother taking an old portable typewriter on our family vacation to Alaska back in the ‗70s. She was the inspiration for writing these travelogues to begin with, and this seems like the modern-day version of what she did on that trip. … Well, having Margaret come over and pick me up was the PLAN at any rate. Shortly after I wrote the previous paragraph I got a call from Margaret. Her car (a Geo Tracker three years older than my Metro) had broken down about thirty miles east of Algona. I spent much of the middle of the day making arrangements to have her vehicle towed and to get mine back so we could take it up to the Twin Cities. [Not too long after this trip Margaret traded the Tracker for a new Chevy Sonic. She‘s proud that she will be paying it off ahead of time this summer.] I met Margaret at the car dealer‘s, and we left from there. We left town about 2:30, and while my car was noisy it was tolerable. [The Metro rarely did have serious problems, but in its final years I never fully trusted it.] More importantly it got us safely northward. There seemed to be construction everywhere in Minnesota; they‘re definitely getting their money out of the government stimulus package [unlike neighboring Wisconsin, which refused to take money from that program]. None of the construction was really annoying, though, and we made pretty decent time. Around 5:30 we made it to the Holiday Inn Express in Eagan, where we‘d arranged a park-and-fly deal. This was a strange hotel [which has since re-branded as a Quality Inn], a big rambling place that appeared to have been built as a convention complex but has traded down to become a tourist-oriented airport hotel. It was not a bad place at all, though. Check-in was quick and efficient, and the room was clean and pleasant.

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