The title above describes the reality of travel.  We're abut 5500 miles away from Hawaii, with maybe something serious about to happen there, and the location of the Azamara Journey off Greenland means that WiFi is really, really slow.  One video can take up to 24 hours to download.  Thus, I will for the next few days show that a video is there, but I probably won't be able to link it to You Tube until the ship arrives in Montreal.  Then, I can try to reload ten videos each day.  That is the limit. The biggest news of the day, for me, is the coming of Lala, now a tropical storm, but projected to increase to hurricane strength, and make landfall over the Big Island of Hawaii tomorrow. I know two hurricanes that badly damaged the island of Kauai, but don't think a hurricane has ever in recorded history made landfall over the other islands.  So I asked Google AI if the Big Island of Hawaii has ever been struck by a hurricane: That is correct. In modern recorde...

For the next few nostalgic Tuesdays, I will post on the best hotels I have enjoyed in the past.  I will begin with the Mauna Beach Hotel on the Big Island of Hawaii because this was the first luxury hotel I ever experienced. Pearl and I got married on 22December1962, and I recall having part of our honeymoon at the  Mauna Kea Beach Hotel . However, my memory must be faulty, because I checked  Wikipedia  and learned that this hotel opened on 2July1965.  So this must have been our second honeymoon. I was then working as a factory engineer at the Hutchinson Sugar Company in Naalehu, also on the Big Island. The Mauna Kea Beach Hotel: Developed and constructed by Laurance Rockefeller, who fell in love with Kaunoa Bay on the Big Island. Secured a 99-year lease for a 500-acre parcel from Richard  Smart, owner of  Parker Ranch , which at one time was the largest cattle ranch in the USA.  This is interesting. 19-year old John Palmer Parker jumped ship in K...

I earlier mentioned that my very first airplane flight was when I was around 10-years old from Honolulu to Maui.  I was born at Queen's Hospital in Honolulu in 1940.  Grew up in Kakaako and when I was in high school, took a trip to Hilo.  The first 18 years of my life was otherwise spent on Oahu.  I left in 1962 for Los Angeles to spend the summer living with my older brother, who got me a summer job at the Naval Civil Engineering Center, Port Hueneme, California.  Then spent 3.7 years at Stanford University. During our junior year, most of my friends decided  to join the first full year of John Kennedy's just announced Peace Corps when they graduated.  So I had to do something similarly sacrificial.  To explore my possible future, I found a summer job with C. Brewer in Hilo.  Lived in the Boys Club, and adjacent was the little league field of a team I watched.  They went all the way to Williamsport for the Little League World Series in ...

  For those new to this blog site, I'm on a 7-day Pride of American cruise through the Hawaiian Islands. Yesterday and today, the Big Island. This island has the audacity to call itself Hawaii, so the state has to differentiate it by calling it the Big Island of Hawaii.  And big it is. With an area of 4050 square miles, it is 41% of the State of Hawaii. Is bigger than Rhode Island and Delaware combined, about the same size as Connecticut and slightly smaller than the country of Qatar. Picking up from yesterday in Hilo, there is what I did on this side of the island. Lunch of Mexican Tortilla Soup and assorted curries and such on mixed salad. With a cone. We caught a shuttle to downtown Hilo and were met by my Blue-Bar Pigeon and friends. Walked through the Farmer's Market.  Rambutan. Soursop. Dragon Fruit. Longan, a cousin of lychee. Garlic and ginger. A large Jackfruit.  As long as my cane. Mangosteen, said to have curative powers. Did you know coffee also comes fro...