We Take Ourselves With Us

Winter came very early to Upstate, dumping a surprise 8 inches of snow.  So as we set off to our 11ish hours of flight from Toronto to Vancouver to Honolulu on November 16, we were surrounded by thick, heavy, slushy blankets of white. And, after those 11ish hours of flight, one ridiculously long Trusted Traveler bottleneck (about 50 TTs in line for two frequently malfunctioning terminals), and four time zone changes, we finally got to Honolulu.  Whew! We got to our lovely, friendly, nicely sized, and Hilton Honors-point-paid-for Doubletree and fell into our beds for one night of on-land sleep.  Time zones were on our side in this direction, which assured we were up for brekky--including Harper's first Loco Moco : rice, eggs, ground beef (sans gravy) which is a gf/lf eater's dream meal.  This tie-dyed Mickey t-shirt got a "stay frosty" hand sign more than once (from people Harper swears thought she made it), so thanks two day trip to WDW! Le...

So, this summer, we had an amazing trip to Iceland planned.  We were going to ride the small Icelandic ponies, soak in the blue lagoon, and stalk Bjork.  Instead I spent about a week in the hospital, found out one of my kidneys was dead and infected (that’s a twofer), got a nephrectomy tube for a while (look it up, it’s super gross), had surgery to remove said kidney, and couldn’t lift anything heavier than gallon of milk for about six weeks.  Goodbye, Iceland; hello, binge-watching Wild, Wild Country and home nurse visits.  What a great summer. Oh, and when I wasn’t binging Netflix shows about cults, I started planning a reboot vacation around Thanksgiving holiday.  Iceland’s not as attractive an option in November as it is in August.  Enter Hawaii!  On reflection, this selection may have been in part unconsciously influenced by my watching the entire Brady Bunch Hawaii arc on MeTV while I was in the hospital. Eager readers of this blog (...

Ned reminded me that I forgot to include this photo in the blog.  It's from an above-the-fold, front page story in the Anchorage paper that was available in our hotel. On our last two family vacations, I've tried to sum up our experiences: once with a song , once with a video .  To me this photo is our trip in a nutshell: surprisingly sunny and friendly, and eerily, supernaturally beautiful.  And, always wearing a fantastic hat. Need I remind you? Keep it "remarkably alive," Alaska! We love you!

On our last day in Vancouver, we slept in: our flight home wouldn't leave until 11:30pm, so we were in no rush.  As we searched for a lunch destination, the Wallflower Modern Diner offered great GF/DF options and was in a hipster neighborhood we had yet to visit.  So, we were in. The diner was great; the crowd uber-cool; and it served mac and cheese with rice pasta and vegan cheese and GF apple pie w coconut milk ice cream.  Yes! Harper noticed a cool boutique across the street, and Penn--who's changing his style up from "licensed t-shirts" (his words)--wanted to check it out, too.  They picked up some surprisingly well-priced dresses, shirts, a bomber jacket, and a new charcoal Herschel backpack to carry it all along with us to our day's destination: the Capilano Suspension Bridge Park . The park grew out of the bridge itself, which has been around for over 100 years in some form.  In the early 80s, the park was purchased and...