Updates

Week 18 of 52

We have had pretty good luck timing our cross-country trip to see friends and events along the way, and during our stop in Montreal we had hoped to visit our friend, brilliant pianist and unique personality, the Queen of Ragtime, Mimi Blais. Unfortunately, Mimi was performing in Missouri this week, not far from where we passed a couple of weeks ago, so we missed hearing her play and we missed her in Montreal. But we got the next best thing: she graciously invited us to stay in her apartment while she was away. Seems we find ALOHA wherever we go!

Montreal has all the attributes of a big North American city with the charm of France. The combination of buses and subways got us all around town quickly and cheaply. Montreal also has a hi-tech bike rental system, BIXI, that lets you rent a bike at dozens of BIXI stations around the city, use it for as long as you need, and drop it off at the same or any other BIXI station. The automated stations keep track of your time and charge your credit card only for the time you use. We took BIXI bikes for a ride from Le Vieux-Port (the old port area downtown along the St. Lawrence River) to St. Helen’s Island, site of the 1967 World’s Fair, and back across another bridge to a different section of town without having to worry about getting our bikes back.

In the Old City, the interior of the Notre-Dame Basilica (photo at the top of the page) blew us away. The photo shows just one part of this amazing building. There’s also a separate chapel with an astonishing bronze altarpiece. We haven’t been to the Vatican, but this has to be the most impressive church we have seen, even topping our memories of Notre Dame in Paris. The Catholics sure did know how to find incredibly talented craftsmen.

Quebec City has lots of charming cafes; we had a fantastic lunch at Bistro Le Brigantin.

Montreal may have the charm of France, but Quebec City has the charisma of Paris! The city is one of the oldest in North America — some of the buildings in the old section date back to 1600 — and drips with European charm. Unlike Montreal, not as many people speak English in Quebec City. We dallied three days here, wandering around and marveling at the architecture, museums and fountains, listening to street musicians, shopping, and then sitting at a sidewalk cafe and having a coffee or gelato.

Looking at the Fairmont Chateau Frontenac Hotel from the lower part of the old city.

Inside the old “walled city” we certainly got a taste of what we will experience on the European part of our trip. Between the setting and everyone speaking French, it’s like being in France without the jet lag. And outside the historic section lies a large metropolitan city in a picturesque setting next to the majestic St. Lawrence River, with fantastic parks and a spectacular waterfall, Montmorency Falls. Charm, convenience, and green space, what more can anyone ask for in a city? Quebec City is Sharene’s new favorite!

WTF lamode?

We aren’t easily offended by coarse language but we had to take a second look at this window display on a main street in downtown Quebec City of what appears to be a trendy new line of fashion. Perhaps the F word means something different in French? Somehow we can’t see this brand establishing itself at your local Sears or Walmart! Ah the adventures of traveling to new and exotic places!

The Haskell Free Library and Opera House straddles the US/Canadian border at Derby Line, Vermont.

Harrison likes to seek out geographical oddities when he travels. On a visit to Vancouver BC several years ago, we drove to Point Roberts, Washington, which is part of the United States but the only road in and out goes through Canada.

So as we approached the international border between Quebec and Vermont, Harrison remembered hearing of a town with buildings that straddled the border. One house has its living room in the US and its kitchen in Canada! The town is Derby Line, Vermont, and we visited the Haskell Free Library and Opera House that indeed is bi-country. There is literally a black line on the floor inside that divides the building between the two countries.

It’s possible (but prohibited) to drive across the border at this unguarded intersection. Locals told us they walk back and forth all the time and we did, too. How civil.

MAHALO RICHARD AND ANN!!!!

Once we came back to the good ol’ USA, we drove through some more incredibly picturesque territory… this time in Vermont and New Hampshire. The green rolling hills and trees were just stunning and we had lots of sunshine (yea!).

As we write this we are on beautiful, sunny Cape Cod, Massachusetts, visiting friends from Puna, Hawaii! We are staying with Richard and Ann who spend summers at their quintessential Cape Cod “cottage” across from Nauset Bay, one of the prettiest areas of the Cape. These two have spent the last two years renovating and adding on so now this “cottage” is a summer rental that sleeps 10! Plus they have their own house on this bay view lot. So we are 6000 miles away and, once again, sharing good times and lots of aloha with dear friends from Hawaii.

Two countries, four provinces, 15 states, and 22 beds, lugging all the luggage above in and out of hotels and homes of friends and family!

So here our cross-country road trip ends. Tomorrow we land in Boston for a full month! We found a great waterfront apartment in a historic building on the North End and we’ll spend the next month exploring Boston and preparing for our time in Europe. We’re looking forward to one place and one bed for the next 30 days.

Thanks for coming along with us on our cross-country trip; we’ve had a lot of fun and appreciate all the wonderful comments from everyone along the way.

Until next week,
A hui hou!
Sharene and Harrison

Week 17 of 52

Here it is the end of May and we can’t find any sun! But gray skies, a little rain and one evening of being chased back to our hotel because of a scary, windy rainstorm didn’t keep us from having a good time in Ohio, upstate New York, and a quick trip into Canada to see Niagara Falls.

First stop this week was Dayton, Ohio, home of the Wright Brothers and the birthplace of aviation, where every self-respecting pilot has to visit the Aviation Trail. Harrison toured the Wright Cycle Company, where Wilbur and Orville invented the airplane, Carillon Historical Park with the original 1905 Wright Flyer III, and Huffman Prairie Flying Field, a quiet, peaceful, and still open field over 100 years later where the brothers developed and tested their early airplanes. Harrison was almost alone on those visits and found them very moving, which made the next stop quite a shock: the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force, the largest and oldest military aviation museum, with one million square feet of exhibits and throngs of visitors. That museum is focused on aircraft used in wars, which is understandable since it’s an Air Force museum and a lot of aviation development occurred during wartime, but it was a little disappointing to see so much interest in wartime air power when there was relatively little interest in the fascinating story of how flight occurred in the first place.

Cleveland is not exactly tourist destination numero uno. Perhaps best known until recently as the place where the Cuyahoga River was so polluted it caught fire (immortalized in the Randy Newman song Burn On), it shed that image by becoming home to the incredible Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Museum.

We both loved the museum although we have vastly different experience with music. Sharene has three musical favorites: the Beatles, Janis Joplin, and everything else! Harrison’s musical interests and knowledge run much deeper. But this is one first-class museum with lots of stuff at every level for both of us. Their current tribute to Women Who Rock showcases about 70 women from Bessie Smith and Ma Rainey, the first artists to record the blues, all the way up to the present with Queen Latifah and Lady Gaga. We loved how they featured so many early black musicians and gave them the attention and credit they deserve for being the catalysts of rock and roll. (Blues legend Robert Johnson was one of the museum’s first inductees.) Lots of videos, costumes (including Michael Jackson’s sequined glove), listening booths, and a wonderful tribute to Alan Freed, the Cleveland DJ and promoter who coined the term “Rock and Roll.”

High-energy HK celebrating his birthday on the drive from Ohio to Buffalo!

After Cleveland we headed to another tourist mecca — Buffalo, New York — to see Alan. Alan was one of Harrison’s closest friends at the MIT radio station and Harrison later worked with Alan to build his first recording studio. Alan (the ultimate Buffalo Booster!) gave us a grand tour of Buffalo and took us across the border to see Niagara Falls. It was gray and misty and could have been a perfect setting for a murder mystery with the fog and steam rolling across the roads. As you can see from the top photo, that is one huge waterfall and impressive no matter the weather.

Kim, Harrison, and Alan at the Chameleon studios.

The following day Harrison toured Alan’s current studio, Chameleon Communications, and said hello to Kim. Alan and Kim have been business partners since Harrison worked with them in 1973. That’s one impressive partnership!

More fun than Niagara was ComedySportz the next night, a fast-paced improvisational comedy show played with two teams. Alan is a long-time performer in this high energy show. (Coincidentally, our friend Margie is a performer in the Portland, Oregon, ComedySportz, but we didn’t have a chance to see her perform when we visited Portland.) The show requires quick feet and an even quicker mind. We laughed the entire show. ComedySportz plays in many cities nationwide and in the UK and Germany, so if you have one in your area… go! Thanks, Alan, for a great time in Buffalo!

To see everything and everybody on our drive across the US, we have driven fast between destinations, stuck to major highways, and booked cookie-cutter hotels between our stays with friends and relatives. We saw lots of beautiful scenery, but Interstates bypass most towns, particularly the small ones, so you miss a lot of detail. We decided to do it differently on our drive across upstate New York from Buffalo toward Montreal this weekend. We headed to the south shore of Lake Ontario and followed the scenic Seaway Trail all the way to the Thousand Islands. Along the way we crossed the famous Erie Canal, saw the house where Sharene’s grandparents lived in Rochester, and passed through town after charming town.

Henderson Harbor

Henderson Harbor

For the first time on the trip we had not made advance hotel reservations, but we found a vacancy at The Willows on the Lake, a cute little lakeside resort in Henderson Harbor owned and operated by a couple who used to live in Mukilteo, Washington, where attentive readers will recall we visited James and Judy just after we left Seattle. We had an unexpectedly great meal (including perfectly prepared walleye, the favorite fish of Harrison and every other Minnesota native) at nearby Ryan’s Lookout. We watched the hazy sunset from the lakefront gazebo in front of our cabin. After all the spectacular territory we’ve seen on this trip, we didn’t expect much from upstate New York — perhaps that’s why the day turned out to be such a sublime pleasure.

We’ve landed in Montreal today, still gray with a chance of thunderstorms… but hey, if we wanted guaranteed sunshine we would have stayed in Hawaii. So with raincoats and umbrellas in hand, we’ll go forth and explore this world-class city.

Until next week, a hui hou!
Sharene and Harrison

Week 16 of 52

Aloha all:

We didn’t plan this, but we found ourselves at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway during race week, and by some interesting coincidences, we discovered the details of some family history. A few trivia questions first:

• Did you know this is the 100th anniversary of the first Indy 500 race?
• Did you know the drivers now go almost 230 miles an hour?
• Did you know this is the largest single-day spectator sporting event in the world?
• Did you know the two handsome guys above are Sharene’s great uncles who raced in the 1930 Indy 500?

If you didn’t know all that (particularly the last item), welcome to the club! This was one of those serendipitous situations… We came to Indianapolis for one reason only: to visit Harrison’s cousin Jean. Her son, Greg, invited us to his Tower Suite at the Speedway to watch the qualifying trials on May 21st (the Indy 500 is next weekend). Thousands of people attended this event and because Jean’s family has had a suite for many years (it’s similar to a luxury box at a baseball field) we received lots of special treatment and of course had a great view.

When we arrived in Indianapolis, Sharene recalled a vague memory of some family member who was killed during the Indy 500. Thanks to Google we found the sad story of her great uncles, brothers who crashed during the 1930 race. Uncle Cy Marshall was the driver and lived, but his brother, Paul, died. Cy returned to Indy 17 years later to race one more time. We visited the archives at the Indy 500 museum right on the track and found the above photo.

Had we not come to Indianapolis on this particular weekend, had Jean’s son not had extra tickets and invited us along, and had Sharene not remembered this story told by her mother long, long ago, we would have missed this interesting connection.

Harrison, Jean, Greg, and Greg’s sweet little girls overlook the track at Indy.

We also had a wonderful visit with Jean and her family on and off the track. Jean is a fascinating woman whom we have always admired. When she turned 50, she made a life-changing decision to solo-hike the Appalachian Trail. Her letters from the Trail became an inspirational book, There Are Mountains To Climb, and she began a second career as a speaker and hiking guide. She still hikes regularly and had just returned from a hiking trip when we arrived.

Junior and John

Any trip across the US would not be complete without a stop in Granite City, Illinois! A bustling metropolis across the Mississippi from St. Louis with at least one good restaurant. Sharene’s nephew John and his partner Junior pose in front of the new front doors of their home, part of a big renovation. We were so happy to see them doing well after a rough few years.
Here’s another trivia question for you: who wrote the music for the movie, The Sting, including its most famous tune, The Entertainer? If you thought it was Marvin Hamlisch (who won an Academy Award for that music), you’re in good company but you’re wrong! For The Sting, Marvin Hamlisch adapted music written by the King of Ragtime, composer Scott Joplin, arguably the greatest composer of the first truly American popular music.

As a great lover and sometime player of ragtime, Harrison couldn’t get this close to St. Louis without making an emotional pilgrimage to the Scott Joplin House, where Joplin lived for several years and composed several of his most famous rags, including The Entertainer. Besides the music, this home is one of the few physical artifacts remaining from Joplin’s life.

With David's Family

Sharene's Brother David and Niece Jocalyn

Our recent destinations have all been about family. We left Harrison’s cousin Phil in Des Moines last Monday for Kansas City, home of Sharene’s brother David and his family. David’s house is a cacophony of energy. Their huge, wiggly basset hound Lady greets you first, followed by Nathan, an energetic and chatty 8-year-old. Then appears Jocalyn, a lovely, poised 13-year-old who is very charming (as long as it’s not morning). David directs traffic for all that needs doing, including getting kids off to school and keeping track of who is going where with whom, while answering phones and emails since he works at home and is always juggling lots of balls. Luckily, Betty, his girlfriend, is calm and unflappable through it all and brings a bit of saneness to the house!

We really want to thank them for a lively few days, the great tour of Kansas City — a beautiful city of fountains, jazz, and charming outdoor shops — and a wonderful meal at The Majestic, an old downtown Kansas City restaurant with rich woods, good food, a talented early jazz piano player, and a very cool mural on the wall.

After four family stops we say goodbye to family for a while as we leave the Midwest. This week we head to Dayton and Cleveland, Ohio, and Buffalo and Niagara Falls, New York. We’ve gone from winter to summer in two weeks and we love finally seeing green rolling hills and fabulous green trees. And we’ve made it to the Eastern time zone, where we’ll remain until we leave for Europe.

A hui hou,
Sharene and Harrison

Week 15 of 52

Aloha all!

Cowboys and Indians, Custer’s Last Stand, Lewis and Clark, Crazy Horse, the Badlands, four Presidents and John Wayne. Throw in a few famous covered bridges, an English castle in Iowa, a renowned drug store, and visits with friends and family, and that’s our Week 15!

Mt. Rushmore was dramatic and imposing, one of those monuments that makes you proud to be an American. You walk down a long promenade displaying the flags of the states and look up at these amazing leaders of long ago, representing the birth (Washington), expansion (Jefferson), preservation (Lincoln), and development (Roosevelt) of the United States. We pondered which modern-day presidents might be considered for immortalization on this mountain with the divided country we have now. We decided it’s best to just admire these four and pass on the debate…

Then there was Crazy Horse. Sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski began this towering monument-in-the-making over 60 years ago and, as of today, they have his face completed. (Makes Hawaiian time look like the speed-of-light!) You can see the model below and the progress so far, but get this: it’s so massive, you can fit the four heads of Mt. Rushmore in the section where his hair will be flowing back. This is one big art project. Privately funded, it won’t be done in our lifetime, but it sure is a noble tribute to Native Americans and, in our opinion, they deserve such a grand display.

We loved Badlands, the only National Park left with no restrictions on where you can wander. Our off-season visit once again let us enjoy a popular park with only a handful of other visitors. The luscious green prairies (normally brown during the dry summer tourist season) provided one edge of a beautiful frame for the fascinating rock formations in the park, with the gorgeous blue sky on this picture perfect day forming the other edge. All the better to see the prairie dogs and the HUMONGOUS bison. (Lesson of the day: the correct name for the American animal commonly known as buffalo is bison). Lots of baby bison were running around their mammoth 2000-pound mamas so, needless to say, the photos of these behemoths were taken from the car window!

Good thing we had great weather in the Badlands, because it turned gray, wet, rainy and unpleasant for our 12-hour drive from South Dakota to Iowa. On the way we toured another Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center in Sioux City, Iowa (those guys had a major impact throughout the West), but the drive had one big highlight: dinner in Missouri Valley, Iowa, with Jerry and his wife. Jerry was a high school friend of Sharene’s brother and she hadn’t seen Jerry for (gulp) 40 years (it really hurts to say that). But it was great to reconnect — thank you Facebook!

Another piece of trivia everyone should know: The Duke and Harrison share the same birthday! (Harrison’s a little younger.) John Wayne was born May 26, 1904, in this house in Winterset, Iowa.

INTERESTING SIGHTS IN IOWA!

A true English manor house in Des Moines, Iowa!

One of the actual Bridges of Madison County.

Hard to believe this young-looking couple has been married 46 years!

It wasn’t John Wayne’s house that brought us to Iowa, or the covered bridges, or the English mansions. It wasn’t even that Harrison’s favorite musical, The Music Man, was conceived here. It was the chance to be treated like royalty by Harrison’s cousin, Phil, and his lovely bride of 46 years, Joan, who live in Des Moines. Phil and Joan visited us at Hale Kakahi twice in our 10 years on the Big Island and we have wanted to visit them for years. We thank them so much for their amazing hospitality in their own mini manor house (pictured right). Joan is the most incredible cook and hostess and Phil could not have been more gracious and always has a great story to share. They didn’t just send us to the sights of Iowa, they played tour guides to the city, the covered bridges, the Salisbury House, the Des Moines Symphony and more, and we thank them so much for making our Iowa experience unforgettable!

Although we know you would be fascinated (!), we’ll skip the details of our visits to the Little Bighorn, site of Custer’s Last Stand, and to famous Wall Drug in South Dakota. We say goodbye to Iowa on Monday, and as Wilbert Harrison says, we’re Goin’ to Kansas City, Kansas City here we come!

This week we’re hoping to find spring and maybe even a little sunshine!

A hui hou!
Sharene and Harrison

Week 14 of 52

Kate, one of Sharene’s best friends, says the outdoors is her religion. Well, after this week, we’re ready to join her church! We have been the lucky guests of the majestic mountains of the Canadian Rockies and Glacier National Park this past week and have loved every (snowy) minute of it.

The photo above shows us actually walking on frozen Lake Louise in front of the elegant Fairmont Hotel in Banff National Park, Alberta (one of many first snow experiences for Sharene). The locals kept apologizing for all the snow — it is May, after all — but we just tell them we’re from Hawaii and if we wanted warm weather, we would have stayed home! It is pretty amazing to think that in just a few short weeks, that frozen tundra we were walking on will be open water. Frozen or melted, the beauty of lake, mountains, and hotel is incredible.

While others bemoaned the extra long winter, we felt lucky to explore these places without the crowds, enjoying the wonder of the snow without having to drive in it, and being able to get out and hike, explore, and have some very new experiences.

Our first stop was Jasper National Park west of Edmonton, Alberta, with a sweet little town that surprised us with several unexpected Greek restaurants. We rode a Swiss-style gondola to the peak of one of the mountains and got a bird’s-eye view of the area. We also hiked to some of the picturesque lakes. This one got the memo that spring is here and summer is on its way, because it’s starting to thaw out! But it still has a ways to go, and thinking how long a single frozen chicken needs to defrost makes us wonder if it will really will be ready for summer….

The drive from Jasper south to Banff took us along the Icefields Parkway and numerous spectacular glaciers. Look closely and you may see the vehicles that actually drive visitors onto the ice. As massive as these glaciers still are, they are getting smaller every year as the Earth warms, and a number of them may disappear entirely within our lifetimes. Uh, yes, this photo was taken by us, on May 4th.

One of our favorite hikes was a snow hike along Johnston Canyon in Banff. The temperature was cool, but the sun was out and we had a great walk. Lots of snow and ice on the ground so Sharene took baby steps and held on to the rail as Minnesota-born Harrison walked on confidently (see first photo with HK on the left) and then waited patiently for Sharene to catch up.

Next stop was the village of Banff — a true young blood’s heaven — full of cute 20 and 30-somethings, mostly from Australia, who come to ski during summertime down under. (Gee, that could have been our excuse for coming here from Hawaii!) The town has a posh, European feel and most hotels are within walking distance of the charming downtown. We can only imagine what it would look like in a flower-filled summer.

Banff Springs Hotel

Banff Wildlife

Rocky & Bullwinkle Corner

And there is wildlife everywhere! Elk, deer, moose, caribou, antelope; we didn’t recognize all of them but they were all over the place, even on the as-yet-snow-covered golf course. Many of the street signs are critter-based, so for all you Rocky and Bullwinkle fans out there, where else can you tell someone to meet you at the corner of MOOSE and SQUIRREL?

We left Banff Thursday morning and headed south for the States and Glacier National Park. We skirted Calgary, Alberta, and while we’re usually impressed by most things Canadian, Calgary looked like LA in 1970 before the Clean Air Act with a thick layer of yellow smog. Ugh!!

We passed through Cardston, Alberta, a small town in the middle of nowhere just before the border, and were astonished to find the Remington Carriage Museum, housing the largest collection of horse-drawn vehicles in North America — over 250 carriages, buggies, wagons and sleighs shown in a series of informative displays. An amazing find in a very unexpected place!

How many people get to have a national park all to themselves? We did! After spending the night in East Glacier, Montana, where most businesses are still closed as they dig themselves out after a killer winter, we got up early Friday morning and drove to the Two Medicine entrance of Glacier National Park. The road was closed to vehicles at the parking area just inside the entrance, but it was open to hikers all the way to Two Medicine Lake. We walked the four-miles round-trip to the frozen lake and back, and we were THE ONLY visitors during our entire time in the park. What an experience!

Photo 1 Shows how high the snow is (or how short Sharene is).

Photo 2 Can you find the white rabbit in the snow?

Photo 3 We think there is a lake out there somewhere.

Friday night we arrived in Great Falls, Montana, and they don’t call Montana Big Sky Country for nothing! We had a nice couple of days here visiting the C.M. Russell Museum and the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center (thanks to Gig Harbor Rick for those great recommendations). We even hit the First Friday Art Walk downtown and a big band concert!

So, we’re down from the mountains, the sun is shining, and this week we head to Rapid City, South Dakota… a world away from Hawaii.

WISHING ALL THE MOTHERS OUT THERE A BEAUTIFUL MOTHER’S DAY. WE SURE MISS OURS….

Until next week, a hui hou,
Sharene and Harrison

Week 13 of 52

The Road Trip begins!! We left Seattle on Tuesday and headed north. Judy and James, new friends who feel like old ones (as in long time…) invited us to their beautiful home in Mukilteo overlooking Puget Sound with more of those killer ocean views. It’s what we learned in the vacation rental business: people love water; they love to look at it, get in it and go on it. Oceans, lakes, pools, spas and bathtubs, water is king. Anyway, back to J & J, we felt like we have known each other for years, but in fact we just met! We have mutual friends and one of them, Larry Klimen who is THE original social network guru, hooked us up. Thanks Larry, you were right, they are a wonderful couple and hanging out on their sun-filled lanai (oh, we mean patio) and talking story with them was just great. We know we will stay in touch.

We had a relaxing ferry ride over to Whidbey Island, met our dear friend Bev for dinner, and helped her kick off her 74th year at a restaurant owned by a former tour guide from Honolulu. So with that reference, we say hau‘oli la hanau to our dear friend Bev whom we adore. Where there is Bev there is laughter and light.

Back in the 1970s Harrison met Mel and Mark, real estate agents who lived a few doors away from his West Seattle home. They sold his house when he left Seattle and he’s kept in touch with them ever since. When he told them we were driving through northern Washington on our way to Vancouver (the tulip photo at the top was taken near their house), they invited us for lunch. We were in for a first-class surprise when Mark served us a 5-STAR lunch on a perfectly set table (these ARE Sharene’s people!!!) complete with fresh tulips! Lunch was to die for, but we had such a great time catching up with them that the afternoon flew by. Mel and Mark try to get to Hawaii each year so we had lots of island talk going on; they even had some Hawaiian music playing for us! Such a lovely couple… they’ve been together over 41 years. Here’s a snapshot of them when they first met and one now. Mahalo, guys, for a wonderful and long-overdue visit. If you want to come to Amsterdam instead of Hawaii this fall, just let us know; you can help us set a table there anytime!

Mel and Mark Then

Mel and Mark Now

Continuing on the Realtor theme: when we arrived in Vancouver we made sure to meet up with Alan and his beautiful wife Debbie; they used to own and manage some short-term rentals that we used numerous times on our previous trips to Vancouver. They took us to an amazing Chinese restaurant (we were almost the only non-Chinese there, which is usually a good sign). We thought they were crazy to order so many dishes, but somehow we managed to eat almost everything! Thanks, you two, and so nice to see you both again. We forgot to ask you… where is that fountain of youth you must be drinking from? It’s hard to believe, but these youngsters have been married going on 25 years!

The theme of Week 13 must indeed be Realtors, because our amazing, welcoming, gracious, and lovely BC hosts this past week were none other than the Realtor (and her husband) who helped us buy and then sell our condo in Vancouver years ago. (Without Lyn, the most fun real estate transaction we ever had would never have happened.) Lyn and Richard made us feel like family the moment we stepped inside their home and our time with them went by way too fast. Richard is about to retire from his law practice, but Lyn loves real estate too much to quit right now. But she does take holidays now and then so we hope we’ll see them more in the future.

We had a wonderful bike ride along the Sea Wall on our last day in Vancouver.

We left British Columbia yesterday and had a long but scenic drive to Alberta. This coming week will be filled not with friends, but with visits to Canadian and American national parks, so we’ll be on the lookout for bears, cougars (the four-legged kind), and other varmints.

Hoping you all have a good week. It’s May!

A hui hou,
Sharene and Harrison

Week 12 of 52

It’s Easter Sunday, the end of Week 12 of 52, and the end of our time here in Seattle and the incredibly picturesque Northwest. We’ve loved it here and as many have pointed out, we weren’t even here in the summer when it’s really gorgeous! (We did get a taste yesterday when it was 75 degrees, an amazing blue sky without a cloud in it, and lots of people out on Alki Beach biking, skating, walking and having a great time!)

We had a “bucket list” of things we wanted to do while we were here and we still had a few items we hadn’t done. We finally made it up to the top of the Space Needle and WOW! What a view in every direction. We also went to the Experience Music Project. The photo above (the one that looks like stomach surgery gone wrong) is the building designed by Frank Gehry and, well, it’s different…. They just opened up the Nirvana exhibit so even though we’re flower children from the ’60s we now know all about the “grunge music scene of the ’90s.” Seeing the outside you can only imagine how innovative the exhibits were, lots of good fun especially for Harrison who has such eclectic musical tastes.

Music seemed to be the “theme of the week.” We got to hear the Seattle Symphony play Gershwin and Tchaikovsky at Benaroya Hall and then we topped it off last night with some wonderful southern eats and good blues at the Highway 99 Blues Club near Pike Place Market. A true blues bar with live music every night of the week.

If that musical lineup isn’t diverse enough for you (remember a few weeks ago it was bluegrass and barbershop quartets!) we have another book recommendation, this one about Israel Kamakawiwo‘ole (yes, we can spell that WITHOUT looking it up). Facing Future by Dan Kois gives you an inside look (sometimes sweet, sometimes not so pretty) of the musician who is now famous throughout the world for his Somewhere Over the Rainbow medley and who is a legend throughout Hawaii. At only 144 pages (small kine for our Hawaii contingent) it’s a quick but good read. Even if you’re not interested in all things Hawaiian, the CD is wonderful.

The lovely and talented Jim and Donna!

As the first leg of our year-long trip comes to a close, we want to say a very heartfelt mahalo to our dear friends, Jim and Donna. They stayed in our condo in Honolulu for a month last December, and in return, we got three months in theirs in Seattle! We didn’t plan it that way, we just loved it here so much, we kept extending! And thanks to their kindness and generosity, it has been a wonderful start to our extended retirement party. Thanks you two, you are very special to us.

So what now? We leave Tuesday for a 4–5 week driving trip across the northern states and parts of Canada, starting out by heading up to Vancouver BC via Whidbey Island and Anacortes. The plan is to end up in Boston around the first week of June and hang out there until we leave for Europe in early July. We’re completely wired with 3 laptops, 2 iPhones, Skype, GPS, and Harrison’s digital library of 5,000 songs he installed from his collection before we left. If our technology dies, we have maps, Bananagrams, and some Trivial Pursuit cards, so we’ll be just fine!

Next stop: Vancouver!

Thanks to all our friends in Seattle, Portland and Ashland for your thoughtfulness and generosity. We had a great time…

A hui hou!
Sharene and Harrison

Week 11 of 52

Aloha all:

Our friend Jeanne’s visit ended last Monday with a trip to the famous Pike Place Market, an open-air market that is over 100 years old with lots of shops and cafes, vendors that sell everything, great produce, and amazing fish! Jeanne and Sharene celebrated their last night with fresh crab, sourdough bread and a nice chardonnay, and played a game of Bananagrams. Sharene has known Jeanne for over 30 years and had no idea she grew up with a different dictionary than the rest of us… we had some fun laughs at some of the words she thought up!

Thursday night we saw the Dukes of Dixieland play at Benaroya Hall. If you like traditional jazz weaving strands of pop, gospel, and country with authentic New Orleans sounds, then these are the guys for you. Funny thing was, Sharene had the famous New Orleans funeral song “Just A Closer Walk With Thee” going around in her head for days afterward, but they didn‘t even play that one. Ah, the power of suggestion….

We checked in with our former partner and friend, Steve, to see how he and his wife Iku were doing in Japan. They own a beautiful home on the Big Island and we asked why they hadn’t left to come to Hawaii to get away from Japan. His answer was quite moving: there is a very strong sense of community and of not giving up here and we feel a commitment to stay. All the foreigners that I know here feel the same way. Rather than leaving I actually have strong desires to go up north and volunteer to help; I wish I had the language skills to make that feasible but I know I would just be in the way.

The sentiments he wrote are similar to other stories we have heard coming out of Japan. An amazing time in their history.

Just when we were discussing how there had been no natural disasters for a few weeks, no broken bones or big illnesses with us or our friends, we got a call from Rick. (Remember Rick? He fell and broke his hip a couple of weeks ago.) Well, Laurel, his younger daughter, ended up in the hospital with pneumonia this weekend! So off we went to visit Laurel at the same hospital where Rick had his surgery just 10 days ago.

So this is the part where we tell you about Gig Harbor and its amazing hospital, St. Anthony, which could almost double as a 5-Star resort. (Harrison calls it the Taj Mahospital.) This photo is just one view looking out to the courtyard, but this is one impressive, huge state-of-the-art hospital… and Gig Harbor is just a small seaside town south of Seattle with LESS THAN 10,000 PEOPLE!

Poor little Hilo will never see anything like this….

Rick, H, Laurel, Maggie, S

Not one to stay down for long, Laurel’s hard to see behind Maggie, but she’s laughing and smiling and happy to have visitors even though she’s really sick. Laurel is an occupational therapist and has worked at this very hospital, but this is the first time she’s been a patient, so she’s fascinated to be on the other side of the fence and might have a little better understanding of her own patients once she’s back to work.

So now Laurel and Rick now have matching walkers!! These two have such a great outlook on life, we know they won’t be down long.

So here’s another “we’re not on a little island anymore” story… Harrison went to hear Sarah Vowell (author and public radio commentator) give a talk on her new book Unfamiliar Fishes, a look at the history of Hawaii from the arrival of the missionaries to the overthrow of the monarchy and annexation to the United States. Sounded to him like a pretty obscure topic for a Seattle audience, but the 800-seat hall she was speaking in was completely sold out! He didn’t get to hear her, but he bought the book and highly recommends it if you’re interested in how Hawaii came to be the way it is. It’s an interesting read even if you’re not all that interested in Hawaii, because so much of what happened in Hawaii was related to bigger US and world issues of the time that are relevant even today.

So that’s it for Week 11! We’re on the countdown here in Seattle, only 10 more days here in this beautiful city. Thanks for letting us share a part of our lives with you and we wish you all a safe and uneventful week, because sometimes uneventful is a good thing!

A hui hou,
Sharene and Harrison

Week 10 of 52

Aloha all:

Here we are in Week 10 and we’re still having a great time in the Northwest.

We started the week out by going to Gig Harbor (near Tacoma) to see our good friend Rick (see Week 6). Rick had an unfortunate accident this past week; he slipped on some mud, fell, and before he knew it, he was being wheeled into surgery and is now the proud owner of a brand new hip! Rick, in typical fashion, is in good spirits but this is one more reminder of how life can change in an instant. Oh did we mention his wife and his daughter were suppose to go to Maui the next day? The good wife and daughter they were, they opted to stay with the patient instead; that’s the true meaning of ALOHA.

Since we were in the Tacoma area, there were two places on our Must See list. First, the Museum of Glass. Truly incredible. Of course the glass sculptures and objects show immense creativity, color and grace, and leave you scratching your head as to how these pieces of art are actually made as you can see from the photo above as an example. But then you go to their HOT SHOP where you watch them work; these are not staged demonstrations, you really watch the team making items with the molten glass. Fascinating. The best part by far, though, was seeing the Kids Design Glass Collection. This is where kids can use their imaginations and submit their sketches of animals, plants, or anything they can think of, and the Hot Shop Team turns their designs into a piece of glass art, staying true to the child’s drawing. There were dozens on display, the glass sculpture alongside a photo of the child’s art.

Next, at Tacoma Art Museum (TAM) we were lucky enough to catch a traveling exhibition of Norman Rockwell’s work. No photos here for you (they were prohibited) but it was a lot of fun to see every one of the hundreds of his Saturday Evening Post covers displayed with many of his larger works. What an American icon and a lot of his art is so clever and whimsical.

Harrison left for Boston on Friday to attend the 50-year anniversary celebration of MIT’s student radio station, which over the years has had the call letters WMIT, WTBS (which Ted Turner bought), and most recently WMBR. He spent many hours there (probably too many!) when he was a student. While at MIT he saw Alan, a long-time friend from Buffalo, NY, who was a close colleague at the station. They’re in front of the Stata Building at MIT, which has an unusual design by Frank Gehry. He gets back to Seattle on Tuesday.

S, Bev, Jeanne

While Harrison was on the East Coast, Sharene’s long-time friend Jeanne from Santa Cruz came up to spend the weekend. They had a great time seeing some of Seattle’s sights and then took the ferry over to Whidbey Island to hook up with Bev. Jeanne, Bev and Sharene all worked together at Bank of America (about 100 years ago!) so it was fun to get together again. Jeanne and her husband are real estate agents in Santa Cruz (where they donate 10% of their earnings back to the schools… how cool is THAT?). And Bev was with us (Harrison and Sharene) on our second date back in 1986!

For those of you who knew Phil Harper, a radio DJ for many years in Seattle, you’ll remember him as someone who lived life large and who was a booming personality. Phil passed away in 2004, but we met up with Judy, his wife of 25+ years at her Queen Anne home. Judy is happy, healthy, and yes, that is her not-so-baby grand piano! It was great to catch up with her.

We sure have had a wonderful time in Seattle; only two more weeks here and we’ll hit the road to start traveling by car across Canada and the US until we get to Boston (just in time for MIT’s 100th Anniversary!). But we still have a few more fun things on our bucket list to do while we’re here. Thanks to everyone for the positive feedback on our weekly travelogue. Sorry if we’re a little long winded; doesn’t look like we would be very good Twitterers, and that’s probably just as well!

Have a great week. A hui hou!!!

Sharene and Harrison

Week 9 of 52

Aloha all:

We’re baaaaaacckkkkk…. Yes, we know you just heard from us a few days ago, but it is Sunday so it’s time for another update. We just finished Week 9 of our year-long adventure and it was another action-packed week.

Max, S, Rod

There are always too many people to see when we go back to San Francisco. We never get them all in and this trip was no exception. But Sharene did get to see a couple she hadn’t seen in many years and it was such a treat to spend some time with them at their amazing Victorian, built in the 1880s. Max and Rod have been together for over 47 years and bought this house together in 1964! Max and Rod treated Sharene (and a few friends) to a fantastic dinner at a small but elegant Chinese restaurant on Hayes called ABACUS… we highly recommend it.

One of the reasons Sharene got to hang out with these two very cool guys, was that they had two very cool women staying in their very cool studio. The two women were Maxine and Maya, friends of ours from Switzerland who were kind enough to schedule their holiday at the same time as Cathy’s birthday week! Sharene played tour guide with Maxine and Maya—it wasn’t hard to impress them since the sun was shining and SF looked liked the world-class city it is.

Maxine and Maya

They started out at Twin Peaks, then hit the SF Museum of Modern Art, the Embarcadero, the Golden Gate Bridge and Park (of course!), Ocean Beach, and a place not to be missed on anyone’s visit and the highlight of Maya’s stay… the Sports Basement! (The old commissary at the Presidio has been turned into a sort of Costco for all clothes related to sports.) Who knew? So Maxine and Sharene went and had coffee while Maya was amazed at the difference in prices between SF and Switzerland for shoes and running ‘costumes’ as she calls them.

SF is known for its great restaurants, but Maxine is a European Julia Child and had an urge to cook dinner on her last night… so off to Whole Foods in the Haight we went and then on to Cathy’s flat in Cole Valley where Maxine managed to have deep, meaningful conversations with Cathy and Sharene while she cooked up a delicious creamy cheese and pasta dish. We offered to take her out, but she was right, it was more fun hanging out and cooking a meal together; when we look back on our European visits, those times were the most fun for us as well.

Harrison was happy to have Sharene come back last Wednesday, but then he flew to Spokane on Friday to attend the Sweet Adelines Pacific Northwest Competition. This is the women’s version of Barbershop Quartet; he wasn’t disappointed watching these amazing women perform. It was sort of like attending American Idol for the Barbershop Quartet genre. And the winner was his favorite: FRENZY. No website but they do have a Frenzy Quartet FaceBook Page for anyone interested.

We ended the week by going to Sammamish (a picturesque suburb east of Seattle) and having dinner at the home of Jeanne, a friend and former client. Jeanne owns a beautiful Maui condo at Kihei Akahi, just four doors down from ours. She loves to cook and has fed us on many occasions on Maui. This time, we got to see the fabulous Northwest home she shares with partner George (whom we have heard about for years and years) and their cat Handsome Hanson.

George and Jeanne

Their house and garden (which they designed and built) overlooks Lake Sammamish. After some maitais by the fire (a new trend in the Pacific NW?) we sat down to a beautiful dinner topped off with fresh, homemade blackberry pie. Between her home, her cooking, and her seamless entertaining skills, she’s a tough act to follow, that’s for sure.

Fun we had, but by 10:30 we said our aloha goodbyes and headed back to West Seattle. Sammamish seems a long way away, but we were home in 30 minutes! Without traffic, this area is a dream.

The skies are a little gray today, but there are lots of walkers and runners out along the Alki Avenue promenade in front of the condo; it’s great to see them. Yesterday, we watched a group of 50 or so walkers go by with their dogs all wearing scarves with red dots, and a sign asking for donations to help the pets who have suffered in the tsunami.

So as we end Week 9, we are once again thankful for all we have and for the dear friends we are having the opportunity to spend time and laugh with. In another three weeks we will have left Seattle so we have lots to do between now and then.

Have a great week and we’ll check in on Sunday April 10!

A hui hou,
Sharene & Harrison