Chris and Linnea's RoadTrip in 2017

Aloha all,

in my view, you can’t get much luckier than being able to take off for a month and go on a road trip. But it’s even better if you can pretend that you do it only to do your niece a favor. Unfortunately, Sandra was not able to come along, but I am very grateful that I have a job (and a wife!) that allows me to work on the road and a niece giving me an excuse to go on another road trip. Of course just to fulfill my duties as an uncle and to be fair, since Ronja got to go last year. Ronja and Linnea have a competition about whose road trip was more fun. I am tempted to call it a tie, mostly so that they have to go on more trips with me to settle the score.

We started off in Colorado again, because that’s where Homer (the RV that Bunt and Ann let us use again, mahalo!), spent the winter in his barn and because Kelly, Paul, Trevor and Cody are such nice people. While there, we got to go disc golfing, played ping pong, visited the state capitol and the historic Molly Brown House, went to the opening game of the Colorado Rapids pro soccer team and even got to play some early morning indoor Ultimate pick up. That was fun, but it also reminded me how lucky we are on Maui, where we can play frisbee outdoors all year long at any time and don’t have to get up at 7am on a Sunday, because that’s when the arena is available.

Our favorite part was the skiing. I ran out of superlatives to describe how much fun I had last year when I went skiing with Ronja for the very first time. It’s hard to describe the feeling you get from gliding down a mountain, especially when you never did that for the first 45 years of your life. Our friend Bunt describes skiing as “the closest thing to flying”, which I find ironic since as a pilot he spent over 30 years actually flying. For me, scuba diving is the closest thing to flying. Skiing to me is the closest thing to suicide without actually hurting yourself. I know that for most people, the hills I ski are totally harmless or even boring, but I feel like I a maniac, racing down the mountain at incredible speeds with no idea why I don’t crash all the time. Green and blue runs might seem super slow to experienced skiers, but I am as thrilled as any ‘real’ skier on any double black diamond run. What a rush! I am also glad that Trevor took Linnea on a black run once. That seemed to push her to her limits and after that she was really happy to stay with me on the beginner slopes again.

We spent one day skiing at Loveland, one day with Trevor at Arapahoe Basin and since we had so much fun, one more day later in the trip at Sunlight Mountain in Glenwood Springs. Since I had skied only two times before in my life, I am still amazed that I survived without any injuries, even though Linnea tricked me into going on some blue runs. The only time I crashed was when Linnea actually tried to help me to stay on the track and I didn’t believe that down that steep hill was where we were supposed to go. Instead, I found a nice flat path to nowhere, that let me safely fall into very soft snow. My favorite ski day was at Sunlight Mountain since it was the site of my greatest achievement (surviving the Sun King run) and my favorite run overall (a 4km long green run called “Ute”). Combine that with picture perfect blue skies, an incredible value and awesome view and it’s about as much fun as any person should legally be allowed to have in one day.

We had great weather overall, but on the fist day on the road, we actually hit a snowstorm. We barely saw the road a few feet in front of us. But parking on I 40 is not really an option and we had a game night to go to, so we kept going and made it to Copper Mountain safely. That game night in Copper was a spontaneous addition that I thank Facebook for. I wasn’t aware that we were so close to the new home of Allison (an Ultimate frisbee friend from Maui), let alone that she was hosting a game night that day. As most of you know, I love road trips and I love playing games, so being able to combine those two things is a real treat for me. As an extra bonus, in a bar later that night, Linnea ran into another Linnea who just happens to also play Ultimate frisbee. What are the chances? But it got even better. Now keep in mind, that Linnea is not the most common name in America. The next night, we have dinner at a random Chinese restaurant. Linnea just loves it. Just for kicks, we look up the Yelp reviews. Pretty much all of them 4 or 5 stars…until I find one single one star review. This person just hated the place…but I couldn’t stop laughing when I saw it…can you guess the name of that person? Yes, sure enough, another Linnea! Maybe better Linnea only met her fun, frisbee playing doppelgänger.

It was too cold and too expensive for us to ski at Copper Mountain, so we opted just to go tubing instead before continuing west and soon the weather improved enough that we could start our routine to finding a new disc golf course and playing a round or two pretty much every day. I want to thank all the nameless volunteers who build and maintain these free disc golf courses throughout the country, also the makers of the Udisc app who make it so easy to find them and Linnea for teaching me a thing or two about approaching and putting. She ended up winning 11-7, but not without some really close fought competitions on a variety of very scenic courses, from desert flats to snow capped hilltops, some even with the added bonus of wildlife encounters, such as deer, rabbits and a fox. 

Arches was probably our favorite of all the National Parks and National Monuments we visited. Even after hearing the scientific explanation for the 10th time why there are so many arches in such a small area, I have to say: The most logical explanation, even to my agnostic mind, is that the gods must be crazy. Some of these arches seem to defy gravity, like the Landscape Arch that is super thin but almost 100 meters across! The astounding number of arches alone defies the odds. We only saw a few dozen, but there are over 2,000 of them! Well, it’s pretty enough in that neck of the desert, I don’t mind going back there some day to see the rest. We also enjoyed a long hike in Canyonlands and seeing the cliff dwellings at Mesa Verde and the other archeological sites at the Navajo and Wupatki National Monuments. The Four Corners Monument is fun, but not really that impressive since it’s just a marker where 4 states meet and a bunch of gift shops, but I found it intriguing to read how the monument is exactly in the right spot, even though it’s at least 500 meters away from where the states were supposed to meet…

I never smoked a cigarette in my life. But thanks to the Marlboro commercials, Monument Valley is the quintessential landscape of the American Southwest to me. We got there in time to see a wonderful sunset. If you have been to Monument Valley, you might notice how special that is. Since you are looking east, you usually have to get up early for the sunrise to see the beautiful colors. But this just happened to be one of those 360 degree sunsets, allowing us to sleep in the next morning. We also were lucky to get a private horseback ride. Even though we paid for it, it felt like our new Navajo friend showed us his country rather than a commercial tour. Another advantage of this being on a Navajo reservation: They seem a little less concerned about being sued. There is no way anybody in the ‘regular’ United States would allow a novice like myself to trot, let alone canter or gallop. This is what I found intriguing about Marlboro country, not the smoking.

I must have been to the Grand Canyon half a dozen times now, but it does not seize to impress me. The size, the colors, the formations… Eventually, we will have to follow our friend RJ’s advice and plan a weeklong rafting trip through this amazing landscape. For now, we just walked along the rim and took a short hike into the canyon. We enjoyed finding the scariest looking spots to take pictures (that are not really dangerous), resulting in my favorite picture of this trip (see below).

On the way from the Grand Canyon to Las Vegas, we took a little detour on the historical Route 66. By far my favorite part was the semi ghost town of Oatman. The town and it’s location is pretty cute to begin with, but the free roaming wild donkeys just made it extra special. This unique town seems to attract unique people, too. By coincidence we stopped at a nearby pass that locals use as a place to party, as a memorial park to scatter the ashes of loved ones, as a pet cemetery or to get married. 

If you ask Linnea about her favorite and her least favorite city on this trip, you might get the same answer: Las Vegas. I fully understand: It boggles my mind that this city not only survives, but thrives in the middle of the desert. You have to love the shear craziness of it all, but how can you not be appalled by all the fakeness? What I like least about Vegas is the fact that they make it easier for you to loose a fortune or get married while drunk than to simply cross the street! What? Do we really have to walk through another casino just to get to the other side?

But I love the shows. We watched the Blue Man Group and a Cirque de Soleil show. I can’t tell you which one, Linnea’s parents and grandparents are reading this update and I don’t what them to think I’m a bad influence on Linnea. But it was the only Cirque de Soleil show available at the half price ticket office and it was equally amazing as other Cirque shows, just with different costumes (or lack thereof). Other than that, we rode the roller coaster through fake New York, walked along the surprisingly pleasant canals of fake Venice and marveled at the water fountain shows at fake lake in front of the Bellagio. Amongst all the fake stuff in Vegas, it seemed out of place to get any real historical experience here. But we found the Titanic exhibition at the Luxor to be surprisingly informative and authentic, considering it’s housed inside a fake pyramid. 

Surprisingly, one of the highlights of Las Vegas was a lunch at a sports bar. After we found out that both of the Swiss tennis stars had made it to the semi finals of Indian Wells, we started to pay attention. I wasn’t willing to drive a few hundred miles and spend a few hundred dollars just to see any tennis match. But the second Federer won his semi final and it was clear that the final was going to be an all-Swiss affair between Roger Federer and Stan Wawrinka, there was no way not to go there. How often can you see the world’s best tennis player AND take your niece from Switzerland to a big tennis tournament and guarantee a Swiss victory? Getting those two tickets for the final was like hitting an actual jackpot to us and we were more than happy to get up at 5am the next morning to make it to Palm Desert in time.

The lady’s final was an all Russian affair, we thought they were really good…until Federer and Wawrinka started playing. Tennis looks so much faster in real life than on TV. When I watch them on TV, I think to myself “They are good, they would probably beat me fairly easily”. When I see them in real life, I think: “Wow, I would not get a single ball back.” Federer won, just to cement his status as the best tennis player of all times. I guess the rest of the tennis world knew that already, now I agree.

Since we skipped over a few hundred miles to get to the tennis final, we ended up with more time than expected in Los Angeles. First, we naively thought that we could go to the Hollywood sign. Now, compared to earlier years, the directions from Google and Apple Maps have gotten much better; we have used them successfully to find all the RV parks and disc golf courses, etc. Not so easy with the Hollywood sign. The neighborhoods close to the Hollywood sign have convinced Apple and Google to show the sign in the right place, but when you follow the directions, you end up on the next hill over, at the Griffith Observatory. Now lucky for us, this turned out to be just as interesting. When Linnea was on Maui, before we went to see the Movie “La La Land”, we ran into our friend Annie on the beach and she told us to watch for the split second in the movie when they walk into the “Ann Marie and Jack Wilder Hall of the Eye” that they sponsored. Seeing the sign with their name in real life was more exciting for me than seeing that Hollywood sign, so I guess: Thank you for screwing with us, Google Maps.

Another thing that is hard to find in Los Angeles is a reasonably priced RV park. The otherwise RV friendly Walmarts don’t allow overnight parking in LA either. I was ready to look for a cheap motel instead when we saw the bright lights of Bob’s Big Boy Diner. We decided to eat first. Our server was so fun and friendly that I was encouraged to ask and sure enough, they allowed us to stay overnight in their parking lot for free. With the money we saved we filled up on burgers and pancakes and bought two 2-day passes for the Universal Studios, which are just around the corner from there.

We loved the new “Wizarding World of Harry Potter” attraction at Universal. “Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey” is an incredible ride that makes you feel like you really fly through Hogwarts and actually play Quiddich with Harry. Unfortunately, it also made us feel like we had to puke. Remind me to take some motion sickness pills next time I’m going on any thrill rides. Surprisingly, I also enjoyed the sweet butter beer in Hogsmeade. Other highlights at Universal were the much improved Studio Tour, the Jurassic Park boat ride, the Mummy backwards roller coaster, the animal and the stunt show as well as meeting Shrek and Homer (not our home Homer, but Homer Simpson).

With Ronja last year, we rode a tandem over the Golden Gate bridge on the last day, which was pretty cool. Of course Linnea would not let Ronja score an easy point in the road trip competition, so we rode a tandem along Venice Beach and to top it off, watched an NHL hockey game between the Anaheim Ducks and the Edmonton Oilers. Sadly, the next morning it was time to bring Linnea to the airport and continue the road trip by myself for a few more days. I was mostly trying to get Homer ready to be sold, but I was lucky to be able to squeeze in just a few more fun and interesting things:

Presidential history is one of Sandra and my favorite things, so I visited the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library im Simi Valley. It was easy to promise to go again with Sandra. Even though I spent all day there, it’s hard for us to see everything in one visit in most presidential libraries. Of course these places always make ‘their’ president appear in the best possible light. For example, even though they show Reagan’s younger years and his marriage to Nancy in detail, they never mention that he was married for nine years before he met Nancy. But (maybe compared to current events?) he seemed to have been a very decent man, husband and president. I found it ironic that they have Reagan’s quote “Mr. Gorbachev, Tear down this wall!” as prominently displayed as Trump nowadays proclaims his plan to build a wall. 

Allensworth is (or was) a very unique town. It’s the only town in California that was founded and governed by African Americans, former slaves to be precise. In 1908, when it was pretty much impossible for blacks to get a fair shake anywhere else, they started this town and were very successful for a while, until a declining water table, the relocation of the train station and the untimely death of their founder brought hard times to Allensworth. Today, it’s a State Historical Park that, at least when I went there, felt like a ghost town.

The Forestiere Underground Gardens in Fresno are an unlikely attraction and unlike anything else I have seen. A citrus farmer from Sicily bought this land over 100 years ago to start an orange farm. But he quickly learnt that the ground was way too hard to plant citrus trees commercially. He was also awfully hot in the summer. Since he had worked on the New York subway tunnels, he knew it was cooler underground, so he started digging a cave on his land…and basically did not stop digging for over 40 years. I guess he really digged digging. He envisioned an underground resort and for an obviously crazy idea, he was surprisingly successful. After 20 years of digging in his spare time, he had built enough of an attraction with underground gardens, dozens of caves, rooms and hallways that he was able to quit his day job. For the next 20 years he continued digging, pretty much by himself, making a living off tours and hosting parties in the cool caves under the desert heat. The Underground Gardens are still run by the family and they offer hour long tours through this eccentric place. Got to love crazy people!

Another amazing person who just keeps doing what he likes is Noel Stookey, who is better known by his middle name Paul. If that does not ring a bell: His friends include Peter and Mary. I saw the announcement for this concert at the historic Tower Theater in Fresno and I will admit, I was mostly interested because he was part of Peter, Paul & Mary. Not sure I would have gone to a concert by just any 80 year old singer/songwriter. At first I was hoping he would play mostly the old familiar songs, but that quickly changed. What a likable, agile, talented, interesting man. Every song he sang and every story he told made me smile, laugh or think. 

After three wonderful trips in Homer, our Home on the Road, it was sad to get him ready to be sold. But RVs don’t get better with age, especially if they don’t get used. So understandably, Bunt and Ann rather want to sell him. But since the competition for the best road trip between Ronja and Linnea was too close to call, I am convinced that there will be more trips in our future. Hopefully, Sandra wants to get in on the competition who has the most fun road trip ever. Going without Sandra has only one advantage: I was actually happy to come home. Oh yeah, and being back on Maui is not the worst place to be either. However, it makes me think that pretty much everybody I talked to after coming back from this trip and asked what was new and exciting answered “Not much, same same.” Now “same same” on Maui means same great weather, same nice people, same beautiful beaches, but life on the road seems a little bit fuller. That’s why my updates are so darn long. Sorry for that, but thanks for reading.

And that’s the news from Lake Linnea, where all the Swiss players are strong, all the disc golf courses are good looking and every day is more fun than average.

Aloha,

Chris

Awesome Australia

Aloha all,

if you receive this e-mail, you are either not on Facebook or you have expressed some interest about reading my travel updates. Either way, consider yourself part of our “intellectual friends” and as such, I hope you are not scared by the length of this text. 

Usually, I write my travelogs weekly, because I realize that otherwise they get way too long for most people to read. However, our three week trip to Australia was so full of experiences (and I also worked a little every day) that I did not get to write anything while we were still down under. That’s why this update will be so long that I suggest you only read it if you either have never been to Australia or if you have been to Australia yourself. In those two cases, I hope you might find something interesting in this writing, if you don’t fall into one of these two categories, feel free to ignore it. Of course, that would mean that you never hear about our new favorite city in the world, about our new favorite sport, why we love Australian history and how I met the Australian prime minister.

The main reason that we had not visited Australia earlier is that poisonous spiders and snakes are not amongst Sandra’s favorite animals. Surprisingly, we did not see any dangerous critters at all, even though Australia is known for having all these deadly animals. Granted, my knowledge of Australia before this trip was pretty much based on the Crocodile Dundee movie, a few visits to the Outback Steakhouse and reading half of the Bill Bryson book “In a Sunburned country”. In that book, he mentions deadly seashells, birds with razor claws and rays that give out 220 Volt shocks. Our friend Barb had also told us of being scolded after complaining of a rash: “You touched a plant???” like it’s obvious that nobody with a will to live would ever touch a green leaf. Bryson also points out that Australians always insist that the stories about dangerous animals in Australia are completely exaggerated, but without irony continue to tell you a story about a neighbor who lost an arm to a crocodile or a friend who found a deadly spider in his mailbox. So we were not quite sure what to expect. I hope you will continue to read, even though I can tell you, pretty much all animals we saw were very cute and fuzzy or very colorful birds and we never got as much as a mosquito bite. And we even touched the plants! 

Not everybody is so lucky: Last night I was catching up on the news we had missed while we were gone. By ‘catching up on the news’ of course I mean that I watched clips from the Late Show with Stephen Colbert. He was telling the story of this poor Australian guy who got bitten by a poisonous snake while sitting on a portable toilet at a construction site in Sydney. The scary part: He got bitten where it hurts the most. So nothing that Sandra would have to worry about. The funny part (not for him, but apparently for the crew at the hospital): This was the second time this year that this has happened to him…

Our tour got off to a good start: I always get a kick out of the fact that we can walk to our little neighborhood airport in West Maui, even more so when embarking on foot for a trip to Australia. Then the pilot on the Mokulele island hopper to Honolulu took us on such a scenic flight so close to the sea cliffs of Moloka’i that Sandra felt compelled to tip the pilot. When’s the last time you felt like tipping a pilot? Early the next morning we flew from Honolulu to Sydney on Jetair, the budget airline from Qantas. The flight was only $570 for a round trip of over 10,000 miles! Then again, if you want to check a couple of bags, reserve a nice seat,  watch a movie, get a meal and a blanket and buy the insurance, you could almost spend that much again on optional extras. Surprisingly for such a cheap flight, we flew in a brand shiny new Boeing Dreamliner, which is something we wanted to do before they were even in service, ever since we saw it being built on the factory tour at Boeing in Washington.

We spent three days in Sydney, which quickly became my new favorite city in the world! Sydney seems to have it all: All the amenities of a big city, but still very walkable, a great mix of historic and modern buildings, lots of gardens and parks, restaurants of any kind, theater and even a pretty nice little opera house. As customary, we wen to the next observation deck to get an overview of the city as soon as we arrived. This one was the revolving ‘O Bar’ at the Australian Square. Besides great views they had some of the best mushrooms I ever tasted. We also got an Australian sim card, an adapter and the handy Opal card for Sydney’s public transportation, which includes some very scenic ferry rides.

After getting a physical overview, it was time to get a historical overview. For that we went to the Sydney History Museum. Here we learnt that our hotel with the weird name “The Tank Stream” was actually at the very spot where the first Europeans settled. They chose that spot because of a stream that later got a tank (hence the name) and then got paved over completely so that we would have a place to stay. We would have never known just from staying at the hotel. We were quickly captivated by the unique history of Australia from a convict colony to a modern, cosmopolitan country. Luckily, we bought a museums pass here even though we had no idea how much advantage of it we would take. For example, we took a wonderful day trip on the public ferry to Parramatta the next day, where we visited the historic Elisabeth Farm and took a lovely walk along the river front to the Old Government House. 

I think I figured it out, why we enjoy American, and now Australian, history so much, even though neither Sandra nor I were ever really interested in history growing up in Germany. European history is way too complicated. You could study it for a long time and still be confused about who did what, when, where and why. American history is a already a lot more compact and therefore much more interesting to us. You feel you have a chance to at least get a rough idea what was going on at some point.

Now apply this line of thinking to Australian history: If you conveniently ignore the 60,000 years of Aborigine history and just start with the white people coming here you basically only need two dates to get a frame of reference for any building you see or any historical event or person you hear about: 1788; when the British arrived on the ‘First Fleet’ on eleven ships with over 1,300 people, about half of them convicts, to set up a colony and alleviate the overcrowded prions back home. And 1900; when the independent territories and colonies decided to form one republic called Australia. Neat and easy, isn’t it? It’s a dream for lazy history nerds like us. Australian history is not unlike American history, but even shorter and minus the wars over the control of the continent and the revolution to become independent. No tea was harmed in the making of this country.

Another reason why I love Sydney: There are Australians all over this place. I like Australia, but I have come to LOVE Australians. They are so easy going, friendly and helpful that it became a tradition, that after meeting and talking to an Australian, Sandra and I would turn to each other and say ’Such lovely people here!’. I wonder how Australians feel when they go to Europe. Are they wondering why so many people are either rude or at least seem to ignore other people? I actually asked some Australians that very question, but of course they were too nice to answer it.

Don’t get me wrong, I think most Europeans are very nice. Specially to people they know well. But I just love the ease with which Americans (and Australians even more so) talk to and interact with strangers. In Germany, I often still feel that the first thought if a stranger dares to talk to you is ”What does he want from me?”. Maybe Australians are so open because they found out that pretty much everybody you meet in Australia is very nice: In three weeks in Australia, we did not meet a single idiot, actually not even an unpleasant person. 

After three days in Sydney, we rented a car and drove on the wrong side of the road to the Blue Mountain National Park. Luckily, everybody else was driving on the wrong side of the road, too. As I was getting in the car, I remembered how in New Zealand we would continually start the windshield wipers when we wanted to use the turn signal. But even with that thought in mind, I managed to turn on the wipers on each of the first three turns. 

Based on a suggestion from a lovely couple we had met at a museum, our first stop outside of Sydney was at the Norman Lindsay House. I had never heard of the guy, which is surprising, considering how much he has accomplished in his 90 years on this planet. There are people who are more productive and there are people who are less productive. And then there is Norman Lindsay: He was a very prolific Australian artist. He created hundreds of paintings, anything from portraits to nudes to landscapes. He also did probably thousands of sketches, countless sculptures and wrote a dozen novels. He also wrote and illustrated two children’s books, including the very cute Australian Classic “The Magic Pudding”. He did all this while holding a ‘regular job’ for a total of 50 years as an editorial cartoonist with a newspaper. He also built additions to his house and gardens and designed his own furniture. By now, I am sure you are wondering what he did in all his spare time. That’s when he built scale model of ships, dozens of them and each one looked like they would take a normal person about two years to build. Just to mix it up a little bit, he was also an accomplished boxer. Wow!

The Blue Mountains appear actually somewhat blue. I think their bigger mistake is calling it a national park. Don’t get me wrong, it’s very pretty and we enjoyed our few little hikes we did there. But if you come expecting anything like an American national park, you will probably be disappointed. It’s very pretty, but too be honest, I thought the scenery wasn’t as spectacular as any of the national parks in the American West. I guess living in Hawaii has spoiled us even further. 

‘National Park’ also seems to mean something else in Australia than in America. There are towns inside of the parks, new homes are being built inside park boundaries and in the case of the Blue Mountains, they even put in two gondolas and the steepest train in the world (the cable-driven Scenic Railway with an incline of 52 degrees!). Not that there is anything wrong with that. Of course we rode all of the rides, most of them twice. But let’s just say: I am glad that nobody is allowed to build their home on the rim of the Grand Canyon and that there is no gondola over Bryce Canyon.

On our way to Canberra, we saw our first kangaroos. Sadly, roughly the first twenty of them in form of road kill. It must have been a particularly dangerous highway and they probably leave the dead animals on the side of the road as a warning to other drivers. Later, we got to see plenty of kangaroos grazing and hopping and being alive. We also learnt the lesson not to trust Google maps in the Australian hinterland. It sent us on a ridiculous detour, which turned out to be one of our favorite drives. We had not even realized we were not on the intended road anymore until a flagman stopped us where they had to alternate traffic due to a landslide. We got talking to the flagman for about 10 minutes while waiting. Such lovely people. He pointed out that this was not really en route to Canberra, but we might as well keep going, especially since the road was about to get very scenic and go through an actual cave. I dod not quite know what to expect, but our road actually did go through an impressive cave, even with some stalactites. 

Canberra is the very well designed, yet a bit sterile capital of Australia. They had to built a new city since neither Sydney, nor Melbourne would have ever agreed to let the other one become the capital of the newly formed Australian republic. Canberra feels a bit fake, but not in a bad way. 1908 it was decided to move the capital to this site roughly in the middle between Sydney and Melbourne to a place with little more than sheep pastures. 5 years later, the foundation stone was laid. Over the next few decades, many official buildings and government institutions were brought to the new capital. Yet, by 1947 there were still only 15,000 people living there. Today, there are close to 400,000 people in Canberra. It might not take much longer for it to look and feel like a real city.

As the capitol, Canberra has plenty of the kind of things we like to visit: Lots of museums, an observation tower and all kinds of official buildings like the Old and the New Parliament House. Yes, the city is only a hundred years old and they already have on “Old Parliament House”. I think the town hall in my home town in Germany is older than any building white men ever built in all of Australia, but I have never heard it referred to as the “Old Town Hall”. 

We spent most of our first day in Canberra at the excellent National Museum of Australia. In case you were wondering why it takes so long to visit a museum about a country with only about 200 years of history: They also had a special exhibition from the British Museum “The History of the World in 100 Objects”. The seemingly random objects, together with great descriptions and an audio tour, managed to give a pretty good summary of the entire history of the human race. That can take the better half of a morning. Objects included, for example, a clay tablet from Iraq on which a story strikingly similar to Noah and his Ark was written down, some 700 years before the bible was written. Or the chronometer that Charles Darwin used when he sailed on the HMS Beagle to the Galapagos Islands, triggering his theory of evolution. Surprisingly, one of the 100 selected objects was a counterfeit football shirt. This did not make any sense to me until I read the explanation: It was a jersey of the British club Chelsea, which is Russian owned. The sponsor on the shirt is the Korean company Samsung. It’s the shirt of a player from the Ivory Coast, who grew up in France. This fake shirt was made in Indonesia, sold in Peru and now displayed in Australia. Can you think of a better object representing globalization? 

We also took a tour through the New Parliament House. The tour itself was very interesting already and gave us some first insights into Australian politics. Guess what? Not every politician is a saint down there either. One of my favorite things of the whole trip was the infamous “Question Time” I got to attend in the House of Representatives. This is a British/Australian tradition in which the opposition gets to ask the government any question they want in front of a packed house and rolling TV cameras. What a difference to the session we attended in the Senate for a short while in the morning, where one person was speaking, only a handful of others were present and nobody seemed to be listening. Question Time is a circus in comparison. If you have ever seen the House of Commons in London in action, you get the idea. Otherwise think of the Trump/Clinton debate taking place for an hour every single day that the House is in session. Very entertaining, but I am not sure how much is actually achieved by it. But it might be a good way to keep the government responsible for their actions since it is the actual prime minister and all the secretaries of each department who have to answer any question the opposition wants to ask. They covered everything from gay marriage to terrorism. What a hoot! 

Leaving Canberra and heading further south to the coast, our next stop was Philipp Island, which is famous for it’s “Penguin Parade”. Every night hundreds if not thousands of penguins come ashore, waddle across the beach and march to their burrows in the dunes. It’s quite the spectacle and also attracts about 2,000 humans every night, which is surprisingly well managed. We splurged and booked the Ultimate Penguin Adventure. No, we did not get to play frisbee with the penguins, but instead of watching the penguins from the bleachers with a huge crowd, we got a personal guided tour with just 8 guests to the other, more remote side of the island. At first I thought our tour guide was not the most scientific naturalist. He kept referring to the animals as ‘the little penguins’ which sounded cute, but not very professional. Then when asked what that black bird was that someone had seen, he answered that it’s a Blackbird, which turns out to be the actual name of the bird and I also found out that the specific species of penguin on Philipp Island is actually called “Little Penguin”. That is pretty descriptive since they are only about a foot tall. 

We found our spot to sit on the beach and BOOM! like clockwork, right after sunset, the penguins started to show up. We thought the extra money for the Ultimate Adventure was already worth it just to get the warm clothing and the night vision goggles. So instead of freezing in the dark, we actually were pretty comfortable and enjoyed our new superpower enabling us to watch the penguins even when it got pitch dark. Our guide counted 184 penguins on ‘our’ beach, apparently a record for the month. Then again, that could be like the whale watching crews on Maui, who claim regularly that this particular trip is the best one in a long time. 

We also got to see our first Koalas on Philipp Island, first in a preserve, later we also saw them in the wild. They are a little hard to spot, but very very cute. The good thing about Koalas is that once you find one, he’s not running away, they sit very still for a long time for you to take as many pictures as you want. The bad thing about koalas is that they sit very still for a very long time. Not many action shots.

The day we got to Melbourne included our least and our most favorite activities of this entire trip. I had gotten a little used to driving on the left. I don’t mind big city traffic, how hard can it be, we weren’t even in an RV. I think I’d rather drive an RV in Manhattan than trying to get to a downtown hotel in Melbourne during rush hour again. Australians must be hard working people, we thought by 5pm on Friday, it shouldn’t be too bad. Well, it was. I swear that every turn we wanted to make was not allowed. Either it was a one way street, construction, coned off or in one case (at around 5:05pm) no left turn after 5pm. Even legal turns can be a challenge in Melbourne. Since they have a lot of trams on most roads in the downtown area, they have these so-called “Melbourne Hook Turns”, where you are only allowed to turn right (which is equivalent with our left turn) from the far left lane. Somehow this is supposed to make it easier to avoid hitting the tram, pedestrians or other cars. It’s so confusing that it has its own wiki page with a 4 step explanation, just to make one turn. At some point, when we hoped to be fairly close to our hotel, we just gave up and drove into the next parking garage, regardless of how far we would have to walk or how much we would have to pay. It turned out to be pretty close and not too expensive. 

As soon as we got rid of our car, we loved Melbourne. As usual, we first looked for the tallest building with an observation deck, which in this case is the Eureka Tower. At almost 1,000 feet above the city, we got a very nice view all the way around. We noticed the lights coming on at the Melbourne Cricket Grounds across the river. We asked around and quickly found that it was the semi final of ‘Footy’, as they call the Australian rules football here. People up at Eureka tower and various online sources did not agree whether the game was sold out or not. We decided to walk over and find out. The first person we asked how to get there not only escorted us to the stadium, but also gave as a synopsis of the rules and the history of the game along the way. Such nice people. And that even though I had called his team the Bullfrogs instead of the Bulldogs. What can I say, the same day in the morning, we had attended a Bullfrog concert on Philipp Island. 

Turns out “only” 88,000 people wanted to see the game and the arena holds 90,000. So we were lucky enough to get tickets. It’s called a semi final, but as we found out, it’s actually the quarter final of the league since you still have to win the ‘preliminary final’ afterwards before you get to the actual final. When I discussed how illogical this is with an Australian footy fan and he explained that it has historical reasons, we determined that it makes just as much sense as the American electoral system. Footy is fast paced and surprisingly entertaining. I encourage you to watch a game when you can. There is more action and more scoring than in American football and it has more continuous play than soccer. They also don’t pretend to be hurt all the time like soccer players do and they don’t argue with the refs much. I was already entertained just watching the throw ins by the referees, which seems to be a whole different competition by itself. Of course it helped that the Bulldogs (who were also the underdogs) came back from over 30 points behind to win 107-84 against their Melbourne arch rival, who had won the league the past three years in a row. Go Bulldogs!!!

Melbourne is another fascinating city. They actually have the oldest building in all of Australia. The Cook Cottage, in which Captain Cook spent some time, was built in 1755. Now in case you paid attention earlier, you know that white people did not settle and did not build anything in Australia until 1788. Specially with the Captain Cook connection to Hawaii, we had to investigate what that was all about. Turns out that an Australian business man bought this cottage in the 1930s and had it moved, brick by brick, from England to Australia. If Australia ever leaves the Commonwealth, they might have to pack it up again. The purchase agreement clearly states that this historic building has to stay ‘in the Empire’…

Melbourne also has a very good Immigration Museum. Just like on Ellis Island, I had to remind myself, that we are immigrants, too. Our experience was so much easier than the typical immigration story told in this museum or on Ellis Island. Most of them risked everything for a fresh start. For us it was more something fun to do for a couple of years after college. We just wanted to live abroad for a while to gain more experience and a new perspective. We only wanted to stay for a year or maybe two. We always had the option to move back if we want wanted to. Well, it’s 20 years later and that has not happened yet. My favorite part of the museum were the simulated immigration interviews where you could pick applicants, hear their answers and decide whether you’d let them in or not. Then they tell you whether current or former Australian law would have allowed them in. Unfortunately, it does not look good for workers in the tourism industry, over 45 years old and without an Australian sponsor. 

Next, we drove along the ‘Great Ocean Road’, a very scenic drive along the coast east of Melbourne. In Torquay we visited the ‘World Surfing Museum’ and wondered why Hawaii, as the birthplace of surfing does not have a similar museum. Part of the Great Ocean Road was closed due to the flooding they had a week earlier after very heavy rain. We still got to see most of the highlights - and mostly in sunny conditions.  We had cool, but otherwise very good weather even in the rain forest on the magical “Maits Rest” Trail. Think Hana coast, but with more moss, more mushrooms, more eucalyptus and more fern, which happen to be some of our favorite plants.

A very scenic and very interesting stop was the ‘Otway Lighthouse’. Considered the most important lighthouse in Australia since it made the passage of the early shipping route from Europe a lot safer. Apparently, making it through the roughly 60 mile wide Bass Strait between the Australian mainland and Tasmania was like ‘threading a needle’ to the sailing ships of the days. That’s why this area is know as the ‘Shipwreck Coast’ with an estimated 638 wrecks. We showed up late for the ranger talk at the lighthouse, but not only did he wait even though nobody showed up for the talk on time, we got a personal 20-min talk that lasted over an hour! Such lovely people, even though this one happened to be a British historian who had retired to Australia from Wales. 

Amongst other things, we learnt that the first telegraph connection from Australia to the rest of the world was completed in 1872, cutting the time it took to communicate with the ’home office’ in London by about 98%. The other number that really impressed me was that the mortality rate of the early crossings from Europe to Australia was about 2%. I can not even say whether I was impressed by how low or by how high that ist. Knowing about the many shipwrecks and the terrible sanitary conditions on board you might have guessed it was even higher. But 2% still means a lot of people died along the way. Just imagined every time you take a flight in a jumbo jet with 400 people, an average of 8 people would be carried off dead by the time you land. That could take the fun out of a trip even for us, as much as we enjoy traveling. 

The most scenic part of the Great Ocean Road is the area around the so-called Twelve Apostels. We knew they were rock formations, not actual apostles, we found out that there are also not twelve of them. Erosion has taken its toll, but might create a few new ones soon. It’s kind of like the ’Seven Sacred Pools’ on Maui, which are not seven and not scared. Close by is the hidden little “Tower Hill Preserve”, where we had some of our best wildlife sightings, including emus, wallabies and the cute koala you see on the picture below. Luckily Sandra spotted him, I would have walked right past him, even though he was at eye level three feet next to the trail.

Until we arrived at the ’Grampians National Park’, we had seen almost as many kangaroos dead as alive. This quickly changed. They were all over the place here. There was a ‘mob’ of kangaroos grazing on the local cricket grounds. Yes, that is the technical term for lots of kangaroos together. I bet they never have to mow that lawn. These kangaroos are wild, but surprisingly tame and they don’t shy away from their lawn mowing duties just because a few tourist walk around taking pictures. When a baby kangaroo is peeking out of mama’s pouch, it definitely competes with the koalas for the cutest animal in the world.

The most interesting stop on our drive back to Sydney was in Glenrowan. Their one and only claim to fame is that Ned Kelly was captured here and they milk that for what it’s worth. Now if you don’t know who Ned Kelly is, don’t make the mistake to admit that to an Australian 5th grader as I did. When I told an Australian family that a few hours ago we had no idea who Ned Kelly was, their young son looked at me in disbelief and asked “But isn’t that like the best and biggest story ever?” He gave me a look like I had just told him that I had never heard of Santa Claus. Except that this was even bigger since Ned Kelly was real! He is the Australian folk hero. The most famous outlaw and bushranger ever. They like to compare him to Robin Hood. He took from the rich, but he only gave to himself and his family. So I’d say it’s rather an Australian version of Butch Cassidy than Robin Hood. The story of him is exploited at various museums and exhibitions in this otherwise sleepy town. 

The most famous attraction is called “Ned Kelly’s Last Stand” and tells his story through a series of animated  indoor and outdoor theaters. Think Disney, but not as good. In fact, while seeing it and thinking “This is weirdly entertaining.”, I remembered reading about this very attraction in Bill Bryson’s book. He said that he found it to be so bad that it was actually good. Bill Bryson even considered seeing it again, despite it being overpriced, simply because it was so bad. He ended up not seeing it again for fear it might make some sense the second time around, thus ruining the experience. 

On the way into Sydney, we drove through the somewhat disappointing ‘Royal National Park’. We had a view of the Botany Bay, where the first settlers initially landed following Captain Cooks directions, but did not actually go there. There are reasons why the first settlers quickly moved their camp to where Sydney now stands, mostly the lack of water. We were told this historically important area is now mostly an industrial port with lots of containers and oil tanks. That’s why we did not actually go to Botany Bay, it probably would have been bad, but not bad enough to be good, like Ned Kelly’s Last Stand.

Back in Sydney, we enjoyed our new favorite city some more. We took another ferry ride, this time to Manly Beach. We also saw a Cirque de Soleil show and a Symphony with a choir of 400 singers at the concert hall in the Sydney Opera House. The choir sounded amazing. I am sure the soloists and the musicians were world class, too. But if it had been up to us, we would have made the choir sing the entire time, the rest seemed somewhat lame in comparison. We also found three more dramatic viewpoints. Under the Harbor Bridge on the other side looking back to downtown, on one of the Pylons of the Bridge and 880 feet up on the Sydney Tower. We skipped the Bridge Climb. I’m sure it’s fun, but it costs 15 times as much as the Pylon Lookout and can’t possibly be 15 times better.

We also took more advantage of our museums pass and visited the ‘Elisabeth Bay House’, the ‘finest house in the colony’ at the time and in a way you could argue still today. However, I am not too envious of the man who built it. His own son kicked him out of his own house when he was unable to repay his debts. For a balanced perspective, we also visited “Susannah’s Place”. This is a very modest dwelling in Sydney’s original neighborhood “The Rocks”. One of the few surviving houses from the 1800’s. Even more impressing than the 170 year history of the building, I thought was the fact that people still lived in these houses until 1990. Now, you are not allowed to even touch the walls. For good reason, some of them looked like they could come down pretty easily. Next, we saw the ‘Hyde Park Barracks’, where we got a captivating guided tour in a addition to the very well done audio tour. On the first floor of the Barracks is a great exhibition about the convict history. Did you know that the British also sent about 50,000 convicts to their North American colonies? That obviously came to a stop in 1776, which is probably the reason why they started sending them here in 1788. The second floor shows the various uses of the building throughout its 200 year history. On the third floor were replicas of the actual accommodations for the convicts. The advantage of the hammocks all being replicas: Visitors are welcome to hang out in them, listen to the audio guide, take a nap or imagine life as a convict being sent to the other end of the world.

The next museum on our pass was “The Mint”, Sydney’s oldest remaining building and the first place where they produced money in Australia. This could have been a disappointment, since the museum had closed and it’s now mostly an administrative building. However, we happen to run into the tour guide from ‘The Barracks’ the day before. He recognized us and continued to give us a personal impromptu tour through the building, the offices and the courtyard. This is actually a good example just HOW nice Australians are: After taking time out of his work day, giving us a free private tour, he actually said this: “I am so glad I ran into you!”. As if he did not realize that obviously, WE were the lucky ones, having run into him. And he actually seemed to mean what he said. Such lovely people. 

Another surprising highlight came on our very last night. Having had a great Himalayan dinner two nights before, we were looking for another exotic place for dinner, something we don’t get on Maui. But when we got tired and happen to walk by the noodle shop we had been to the very first night we arrived there weeks earlier, we opted for this safe option. We really liked it before and a warm soup sounded great. Little did we know until we sat down that since we had been there the last time, ownership had changed and it had a completely new menu. We ended up ordering the “Chef’s Fish Special”, since it was half off as a grand opening promotion. No idea what it would be, since the rest of the description was in Chinese (I think). Well, we got our exotic dinner after all. They brought a huge cast iron bowl with a seemingly endless about of the most flavorful fish. The server did not speak enough English to tell us what kind of fish it was, but it reminded me of what we call butter fish. We did not ask about the unknown spices of which there were plenty. It was the best fish I remember eating ever and we could not even finish it. 

The ridiculous long line at the check in counter for the flight home, the fact that we are too spoiled to be blown away by the scenery in the Australian national parks and the beer, which was decent, but not spectacular, were the only aspects about this trip that were not totally amazing. Other than that: Sydney is my new favorite city, Australians are my new favorite people, Footy is my new favorite spectator sport and if if we were to ever get kicked out of America, we know where we will try to move. However, I’d feel terrible to tell our family, since Australia is one of the very few places on this planet that is even further away from Germany than we already are.

But for now, we are not going anywhere, mostly thanks to the airport crew in Honolulu. After three weeks of being amazed how friendly everybody was in Australia, I have to admit I was a little concerned how we would deal without the Australian friendliness. Now picture this: It’s 5:30 early in the morning, we sleepwalk off the plane at the airport in Honolulu after a 9 hour flight and we are greeted not just by one or two but three enthusiastic greetings of “ALOHA” by the airport crew working the gangway ramp and in the terminal. What a nice welcome, even if we always wish to travel longer, it’s good to come home to Hawaii! Then we had our hanai family pick us up, got to hang with our Tuesday night ohana and I got to play and party with my golf and ultimate frisbee buddies already. What lovely people!

And that’s the news from Lake Australia, where all the history is interesting, where all the animals are good looking and everybody is much nicer than average.

Aloha,

Chris & Sandra

Updates from Chris & Ronja's Roadtrip in 2016

March 14, 2016

Aloha all,

we’re not even a week into this road trip and besides that Sandra is not with us, I enjoy it as much as I could ever enjoy a road trip. And if you know me, you know that I am really good at enjoying road trips, extraordinarily good. Enjoying road trips might be one of my best skills I have.

In case you are not aware yet why I would ever take a road trip without Sandra, let me explain: On my very first trip to the US, I traveled mostly by train. Occasionally, we rented a car, but renting a car when you’re under 25 was not easy in America. Under 21 it’s almost impossible. That seemed annoying then, but came in really handy now: My niece Ronja is 20 and she has heard enough about Maui and about road trips from her Uncle Chris and Aunt Sandra that she used her time off before college to first visit us on Maui with her very nice friend Sarah and then she wanted to go on a road trip on the US mainland. But since road tripping without a car is pretty hard, Uncle Chris was practically forced to take her on a trip. My arm is so twisted, it still hurts.

Luckily, our hanai parents Bunt & Ann still have Homer, which is perfect for a 3 week trip in cold country for 2 people. Obviously, we had to do this trip in winter, because the Ultimate Frisbee tournaments in Hawaii are in winter and if Ronja flies half way around the world, there better be some ultimate involved. Plus, if Sandra and I ever want to fulfill our dream of doing a really long road trip, there will be winter months involved, too. So we better get some practice in.

Homer spent the winter in a barn in Evergreen, Colorado at over 7,000 feet. We were concerned that we might spend the first week either snow plowing or waiting for warmer weather, but not only did we get lucky with the weather, Trevor even picked us up from the airport and within the first few hours after we landed, we got to play disc golf, go bowling, play ping pong and shoot pool…not a bad start and it went all uphill from there…sometimes even literally uphill, like when we did a short hike to St. Mary's Glacier at over 10,000 feet.

For some weird reason, I never went skiing, even though I am usually not opposed to fun. For the past 20 years, I have a pretty good excuse. The skiing opportunities on Maui are pretty limited. But I grew up close to the Black Forest and I went to college at the foot of the Alps…no idea why it took me 45 years to go downhill skiing for the very first time in my life, but in a way, I am glad I did wait so long. Since I am fairly old to start skiing and since I am a remarkably bad surfer and balance is usually not my strong suit, I expected to do very poorly. But I was willing to entertain Ronja and Trevor by attempting to ski anyway. At least Ronja seemed disappointed at first: I did not do anything real funny, except the one time when I ended up in a fence. I started skiing right away. Breaking, turning or slowing down took me a little longer. Later in the day, Ronja’s disappointment turned to being proud of her uncle and enjoying that we could actually ski together.

Before that day, I would have been happy to make it down the bunny hill with only minor injuries. To my surprise I barely fell down at all and quickly advanced to longer and even steeper slopes. Even though “steep” seems to be a very relative term for skiing. I feel like I am racing down an incredible steep mountain, while Ronja skis that same slope with about the ease I walk on a sidewalk…and Trevor skis on one ski or backwards to make it interesting for him. They just laugh when I call any part of a green run steep. But regardless of how flat or steep the hill was: I enjoyed it so much that I doubt any “real” skier on any black run can have any more fun. I have a hard time thinking of days when I had more fun than on my first day of skiing. What a rush!

So I did not get injured skiing at all, but since my one arm was still hurting from being twisted to go on a road trip with Ronja, Trevor had to twist my other arm to stay another day so we can play at an indoor Ultimate Frisbee hat draw tournament. We got even luckier: The tournament was supposed to be from 11pm-3am, but they got the arena earlier, so we were “already” done at 1:35am. Yes a.m. that is. Definitely the most fun I ever had playing ultimate after midnight, even though my team lost every game.

On Saturday, we started our actual road trip. Our first stop was Georgetown, just like it was last year with Sandra. I thought I could show Ronja our favorite Czech restaurant in town, but it was closed. But luckily we just happened to park across from a quaint looking tea room. Ronja says “I love tea rooms” and next thing we know, we sip tea in outrageous hats and have a fun conversation with everybody else in the tea room. It was really the cutest little place, it felt like being in a doll house, just with better food.

The next day, my experience from our last trip worked out better. We got to do the Hanging Lake hike again. Less water falling over the waterfalls, but more people falling on the snowy trail. And still one of the prettiest little hikes I know.

Today, we went skiing again. I guess I am hooked now. After one day of skiing I already have a hard time just driving by a ski area. Our first choice was eliminated by the weather, but “Powderhorn” was a great substitute, even though it was not powder snow. I still can’t believe that I skied downhill for over 8,000 vertical feet without falling down once. Maybe it’s good we are heading southwest away from most ski areas, before I get hurt. For now only my face hurts because I can’t stop smiling. 

Two more weeks, it will be way too short, but even though we are heading into familiar places for me on the way to California, I am looking forward to every mile of it.

Aloha and Mahalo for reading,

Chris & Ronja

March 21, 2016

Aloha all,

the main lesson we learnt from our previous road trips has been that it almost doesn’t matter where you go: There is something interesting to see in every corner of this great country. But when Ronja said that she wanted to go on a road trip, it was pretty clear, that we should go to the national parks in the Southwest. 

Even though I’ve been to most of them before, it still amazes me that in such a relatively small area there are all these unreal natural wonders. In the past week alone we have been to the Colorado National Monument, Arches National Park, Canyonlands, Capitol Reef, Bryce Canyon, Zion and we are now at the Grand Canyon. I find these parks truly amazing and I am glad to see them again. So no wonder it seems impossible to get a pictures of us standing still.

As Ronja and Sandra can attest, I love talking to all kinds of people on road trips. It’s always interesting and sometimes you get the best ideas that way. Like the suggestion of a park ranger to take the scenic route 128 when driving from Colorado to Arches NP in Utah. What made this drive even better is the fact that we forgot to bring any CDs with us on this trip. Let me explain: The number of radio stations in that neck of the desert ist pretty limited. But at one point Ronja said that the instrumental music reminded her of Hawaii. The next song was by Hapa, then Kealii Reichel…we had caught the Hawaiian Hour of the local radio station and by the time we reached the prettiest part of the drive, Brother Iz delivered his best rendition of “It’s a wonderful World”. Wonderful indeed.

I have heard the explanation why there are so many arches in Arches National Park a dozen times and I do believe in science, but I still find unbelievable (and impossible to remember). Delicate Arch (1st picture below) might be our favorite arch, but the one that made me realize how lucky I am the most is Landscape Arch (2nd picture). Last time I was there was about 25 years ago.That particular arch seemed so fragile then that it could have collapsed any moment. What I did not know until now, 25 years later, is that only a couple of weeks after I stood under that arch, a few tons of rock did come crashing down. Lucky me. One park visitor got even luckier and actually got a picture with the huge boulders in midair; without getting killed either.

I had been to Canyonlands NP before, too. But the views are always worth another look and we also made it to the ‘Upheaval Dome’ in the “Island in the Sky’ section of this park this time. What I liked about this place, besides the name, was the scientific explanation about the formation of this dome: In short: They don’t know. I am always impressed that geologists can tell with some certainty what happened in a particular place a few million years ago. But in this place, the consensus seems to be: We don’t know. Maybe a meteorite, but then again, there is no trace of a meteorite to be found…they just don’t know: how refreshing!

The next highlight: We played a round of disc golf like no other before. We found a golf course that actually offers golf carts to play disc golf. Ronja loves disc golf, but she definitely enjoyed riding the golf cart way more than the part throwing the frisbees. Adding to her enjoyment was the fact that I put one of my discs right smack in the middle of a lake right after announcing that I shouldn’t do that. I also lost another disc under mysterious circumstances, but two lost discs and the price of admission was a small price to pay for the fun we had. And even after 2 weeks of traveling together, I had no idea how lazy Ronja can be: She even putted while sitting in the golf cart…

Capitol Reef was a new National Park for me. It’s pretty remote and therefore not busy even during spring break. A surprising feature besides the rock formations and steep canyon was an apricot orchard, which was in full bloom. It smelled and looked amazing. Another highlight of the day came at the primitive “Hole in the Wall” Campground: Ronja (for the first time in her life!) went out into nature when "nature called". For my European friends who might not be familiar with this expression, I can give you two hints: It did not smell as good as the apricot orchard and the campground could also be called “Hole in the Ground” now….

Bryce Canyon was one of the first National Parks I ever went to and it’s still one of my favorites. We did our longest hike here and ran into fun people and fun formations. Hiking through the canyons full of weird shapes made out of the most colorful sandstone, I kept thinking “The Gods must be crazy”…. or drunk. Who comes up with that? No geological explanation seems more plausible to me than a god who got a little tipsy before creating that part of the land. 

Zion National Park is great, too. But it was pretty busy. There were a lot of people even in areas where you had to drive by car first, then take a shuttle, then hike a little and then walk through ice cold water in a narrow canyon. Of course we were two of those people. We did not go as far as others, but only because they actually prepared for it and brought the right gear for walking through the icy water. We just brought the enthusiasm to do it…until we could not feel our feet anymore. But as bad as it felt while walking in the cold water, it felt great afterwards. The German Dr. Kneipp was on to something!

Today, we made it to the Grand Canyon and I have to say, it is very appropriately named. Grand indeed. And even though I had seen and hiked it before, it still has some surprises for me: Like a beautiful sunset. After a pretty cloudy afternoon and not much color right around sunset, all of the sudden, the sky lit up in pink all over the canyon rim.

Now the only 'first world' luxury problem we have is deciding whether we want to see Disneyland and Highway #1 along the California Coast or a few more National Parks on the way to San Francisco. The good thing about this question: There is no wrong answer: We will have one more week of fun before we have to go back to our harsh realities: Me living on Maui with Sandra and Ronja going on a Eurail trip and playing frisbee tournaments, including Worlds in London. Road trips are always too short, but it doesn’t get much better than this. Life is good!

Aloha from a very grand canyon,

Chris & Ronja

April 2, 2016

Aloha all,

Life on the road is so much fuller. A week at home can slip by without much notice. Looking back at the one week since the last update, it feels like we had two months worth of experiences. So let’s take off where we we were last: At the great Grand Canyon.

Ronja and I did a half day hike into the canyon; barely enough to change the perspective of this oversized landscape. At the end of the hike it mostly changed my perspective of how small we humans are. On our way from the Grand Canyon to Las Vegas, we drove a part of the historic Route 66. Since a lot of the old charm and the old fashioned attractions are gone, we pulled over to play two different disc golf courses instead. We also took a guided tour through the ‘Grand Canyon Caverns’, the largest dry caves in the United States, which also double as an emergency shelter for up to 2,000 people or as a hotel for 2-6 people. For a mere $800, you can rent the whole cave for a night.

Las Vegas is the opposite of the Grand Canyon Caverns and the Grand Canyon: While one of the attractions of the cave is the total darkness and quietness you could experience there, the lights and sounds of Vegas never stop. And while the Grand Canyon has been carved over millions of years and looks pretty much the same as 1,000 years ago, Vegas has been transformed by humans within geological seconds: How weird what this desert plain has become, mostly because people keep playing the odds even though they are stacked slightly against them. After a week in the National Parks, the contrast was astounding: After parking Homer in the RV Park that just happened to be behind the California Hotel in Downtown, where all the Hawaiians stay, we walk the few steps to Fremont Street and everything was different:

Instead of a clear starry night overhead, there now was that crazy roof over us that is actually a huge video screen that plays a different light and video show every half hour. Instead of a few birds chirping, there were a few bands competing who is louder and more outrageous. And instead of people going on a hike, they are zipping overhead. And instead of a ranger or interpretive sign explaining the natural features of a national park, there were now a million signs explaining why you should drink more alcohol, gamble more, eat all you can eat and maybe watch a strip show. It felt like we were crashing a big party, but I guess it was just another night in Vegas.

We spent the whole next day exploring the strip, from the famed “Welcome to Las Vegas” sign (which seems pretty modest by today’s standards) to the various themed hotels, shops and restaurants. How crazy that in the middle of the desert you can now stroll along a Venetian canal, watch a 3D movie about M&Ms, eat Indian food, ride a monorail and a futuristic ferris wheel, just to name some of the lamer activities you can do in Vegas. We also watched four of the water fountain shows at the Bellagio and saw a Cirque du Soleil show called ‘Zarkana’. It was as spectacular as Cirque Du Soleil shows usually are. It was such an acrobatic show that I am surprised I caught a moment on camera below with no people flying through the air. Wow, what a show!

After a long day out, around 1am or so we got tired and returned home to Homer. Lucky for Ronja, I knew a short cut. Too bad that is was blocked by a tall fence around the RV park. Jokingly, I told Ronja that “this fence wasn’t here this morning”. Obviously, I knew that I just didn’t remember right or was a little disoriented. I was a little surprised since I seemed to remember the huge long opening with no wall or fence, but reality proved me wrong…until the next morning. On the way back from the showers, I noticed some construction workers by that fence. I just had to ask them when the fence was built. Sure enough, it was built the day before. There was no sign of it in th morning and it looked like it had always been there when we returned 15 hours later. Nice to find out that I am not totally loosing my mind yet.

As mentioned in the last update, we now had to make the decision whether to go to Disneyland or whether to see some more national parks on the way to San Francisco. Going to Disneyland would have meant a lot more driving and getting to the park on Easter weekend during spring break, one of the busiest days of the year at Disney. So I have no doubt that visiting some more national Parks was the better choice, but we were both a little disappointed that we were so reasonable and responsible.

Death Valley was alive this winter. We got there a little too late, but still saw some nice wildflowers. Our favorite part were the sand dunes, which seems ironic: If all we wanted was to play in the sand, there was really no need to fly 6,000 miles and drive for 2 weeks, we could have stayed on Maui and walk across the street to the beach. Death Valley was both a low point and a high point of our trip: 282 feet below sea level, but with 94 degrees also a record high. Hard to believe that just a few miles further north, several passes were still closed, blocking all short routes to Yosemite. 

Our next stop was Sequoia National Park. Redwoods sure look like trees, they are just the wrong size. I remembered the huge trees from my last visit, I did not remember how scenic the park is overall. Maybe it was just the time of the year with the spring in full bloom in lower elevations and still pretty good snow cover higher up. The General Sherman Tree is considered the largest tree in the world by volume. With 275 feet not the tallest, with 100 feet (!) circumference not the biggest around, with about 2,700 years not the oldest, but the one out of which you could make the most chopsticks.

We spent our last full day trading in Homer for a tandem. After being chased by cable cars up and down the hills of San Francisco and surprisingly finding almost legal parking, we rented a tandem from what must be the most efficient bike rental company in the country. Walking in the shop just with the idea that it would be fun to ride a tandem over the Golden Gate Bridge, a few minutes later we rolled out on a tandem with a plan and ferry tickets for the way back and even a rubber band around my leg to keep my pants out of the well oiled chains. ‘Blazing Saddles” is a very efficient and very fun place.

It’s seems to me that a tandem is a little harder to ride on flat ground and a little easier uphills. Or maybe Ronja just knows when uncle needs a little more help. Either way, we made it over the Golden, or actually Red Gate Bridge for a coffee/beer break in Sausalito before taking the ferry back. Fun Day in the city without really spending much time in the actual city.

You know that time is running out when Ronja and I stay at an RV park with a disc golf course and don’t get to play. But we had another sweet ending planned: Ronja and Sarah had bought a 4 pound jar of jelly belly beans at Costco when they came to Maui. We came full circle at the end of our trip together and did a tour at the Jelly Belly factory in Fairfield, CA. A kid in a candy store is nothing compared to Ronja in a candy factory. 

After dropping Ronja off for her flight home, I got to spend 2 days with Jerry & Mary at their California home in Sonoma County. I was mostly busy getting Homer in good shape for his next adventure, which is probably going to be with Bern & Jill. But I was able to sneak away for a few hours to visit the estate of Jack London. I did not know much about him, even though he supposedly is the most translated author in the world and the most successful author of his time. At the Jack London State Historical Park, I learnt all the things we don’t know about Jack London: Who his father might or might not be, that he might have died naturally, poisoned or by suicide and that his dream home, the “Wolf House” might have burnt down by accident or due to arson,… lots of mysteries about Jack London, but one thing is clear: He lived a full and interesting life that came to an end way too early.

The same can be said about my road trip with Ronja: Certainly full and interesting and certainly way too short. But I have learnt that there is one huge advantage of traveling without Sandra. We usually have a hard time seeing the silver lining of a road trip coming to an end. But now I saw a clear 'gold lining' since I got to come home to Sandra. 

I’ve only been home for a few hours, but if Sandra came asking, I could be ready for another road trip by tonight.

Aloha,

Chris & Ronja