Wok N Roll with us...Bob and Teri Along with Atlas and Kalani

Tuesday, March 31, 2015

Island of Oahu, Hawaii, March 2015

Off to Hawaii, Oahu first. Main goal,,,, visit Craig and Barb, Teri's wonderful brother and wife. Visits with them are always so special as they are too. We talk, we eat, we laugh and they always think up something new to experience.

New experiences in Oahu this trip started with a visit to the Hawaii Plantation Village. Between 1852 and 1947 an estimated 400,000 laborers came to work the sugar plantations in Hawaii. Included were individuals from Japan, China, Puerto Rico, Korea, Portugal, and the Philippines. Eventually catalog brides would arrive and families would develop within the plantation community. The village today includes both restorations and replicas of buildings and provides a good vision into a time when the sugar plantations dominated the Hawaiian economy and culture. In the early days, each plantation worker was given a Bango (meaning number in Japanese). The Bango was a metal tag with a number that would identify not only the individual but also his ethnic origin, Individuals were paid based upon where they came from. Filipinos were paid approx. $10/month while Chinese were paid approx. $15/month. The Bango was used to pay for all of the worker's needs and also used to collect their pay. The plantation became a self-contained community with shopping, worship and medical facilities all in one place. The village we toured had houses from different eras and also different ethic parts of the Plantation. Also included was a general store, temple, barber shop, bath house and medical facilities for the workers.

Our next new Oahu adventure was the Pacific Aviation Museum, located on Ford Island. We began our Docent led tour at the authentic Japanese Zero. Our docent gave us a good image of how the day was just prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor, He explained how people were going about their normal affairs. Included in the museum is a light civilian plane with pilot and son that was in the air and shot when the attack happened. We were shown how a Japanese Zero crashed on the island of Ni ihau and that the natives welcomed and cared for the pilot, not yet realizing that this pilot had just attacked Hawaii. There was a good selection of aircraft in the museum and the docent was terrific. One of the hangers we visited you could still see the bullet holes from when the attack occurred.

Waimea Falls Park is so beautiful and one of our favorite places on Oahu. We love the abundance in both quantity and variety of flowers there and the waterfall is always peaceful. This was a return visit for us, but a place we always try to see when on Oahu.

Craig and Barb have really made Oahu a special place for us. We shared, talked philosophy, visited the Tiki bar and a great Irish Pub with a live Irish band. Oahu is truly a place where we feel the magic.

Next, the Big Island of Hawaii.

Single Worker's Dorm
Hawaiian Plantation Village
Oahu

Chinese Society Building 1909
Hawaiian Plantation Village
Oahu

Portuguese Forno
Hawaiian Plantation Village
Oahu

Tofu Ya
Soy Beans had to be imported
Hawaiian Plantation Village
Oahu

Community Store
Hawaiian Plantation Village
Oahu

Bowling Ball Tree
Hawaiian Plantation Village
Oahu

Daily Visitor to Craig and Barb's Backyard
We so enjoyed watching these guys every morning
while we visited and drank our morning coffee
Oahu

Flowers in Craig and Barb's Backyard
Oahu

Japanese Zero
Pacific Aviation Museum
Oahu

Bullet Hole remnants from attack on Pearl Harbor
Pacific Aviation Museum
Oahu

Pacific Aviation Museum
Oahu

Waimea Falls Park, Oahu

Wednesday, March 25, 2015

Mesa, AZ December 2014 - April 2015 Post 2

We spent five months with Mesa, AZ being our base and the time just flew by. Bob rode his bike with friends most days and Teri did various classes including exercise, water volley ball, stained glass and jewelry making. Teri especially got into doing various stained glass projects and also some glass fusion. We both played Pickle ball and also enjoyed Country Line Dancing. We were so busy our blog has really suffered. We will share a few highlights with pictures and we will try to get things caught up soon.

Sunrise and sunsets in Arizona are beautiful and we were treated to many. Hiking with the hiking club took us to many new places with lots of desert flora to take in. We were busy everyday at the park and at times we almost looked forward to the weekends being a bit slower. While staying here we took off from here on various adventures.

One such adventure, we attended the 55th Escapade RV Rally. This is a five day rally focused on the RV way of life. The event was attended by about 2000 people from all over the country and Canada. The rally included five days packed with meeting new friends, listening to informative speakers and enjoying evening entertainment including talented comedians and also a mentalist. Following the Escapade we joined an Escapees 'HOP' (Head Out Program) that toured Mescal Movie set and Tombstone, Arizona.

The Mescal Movie set was a treat to see as it is seldom open to the public. Several Westerns and TV shows have been filmed here including: Quick and the Dead; Oklahoma, McClintock; The Young Riders; Tombstone; Little House on the Prairie; and Jose Wales. Our tour guide was Frank Brown who was a very fun 'Old Timer'. Frank was great and to better experience this wonderful guide, please read the following:Interview with Frank Brown

Next up was Tombstone, AZ. The Bird Cage Theatre opened in Tombstone, AZ on December 25, 1881 and got its name from the 14 cages suspended from the ceiling that had drapes that could be pulled around while prostitutes entertained their clients. The theatre operated continuously 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, never closing for eight years. In 1882 the New York Times reported the Bird Cage to be 'the wildest, wickedest night spot between Basin street and the Barbary Coast.' Within the walls of this Bird Cage Theatre individuals such as Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday and Johnny Ringo drank and gambled. Over 140 bullet holes are embedded in the walls and over 26 lives were taken within.

Also while in Tombstone we attended an reenactment of the OK Coral shoot out as well as visited the actual gunfight location. More on that famous gunfight can be read at: OK Coral Shootout History

Before leaving Mesa, March was packed with many activities.

Visits and dinners with new friends Bill and Shirley.
Bill and Sharon Brown (good friends from Palmdale, CA) came from CA and joined us for a cookout and a wonderful afternoon visit. We so look forward to when we meet up with them again.
Teri made a second trip to Santa Barbara to visit with her Mom who is in Hospice Care.
We made a trip together to Oahu to visit Teri's brother and wife, the Big Island and then Teri went to Molokai for a week to visit with her good friend Barbara Osha. (Hawaii we will post separately).
Upon returning from Hawaii Teri flew up to Bellingham, WA for 3 days to visit with childhood friend Carolyn Hunt and her parents, Jim and Arline, who are very notably Teri's second family. They are so special to Teri. Teri spent many vacations with them growing up and having these days with them was so special. While there Teri also got to try her hand at clamming again, which was fun. Teri flew back to Mesa, AZ out of Seattle where she got to share a wonderful visit and dinner with our youngest son, Garrett. Back in Mesa, AZ and we are preparing to get back to traveling the country once again.

Stained Glass Table by Teri

Stained Glass Window Hanging by Teri

Fused Glass Plate by Teri

Arizona Sunrise from our 5th Wheel

Hiking with the Hiking Club in Mesa, AZ

One just has to love the name of our hike

Mescal Movie Set

Bird Cage Theatre
Tombstone, AZ

Tombstone, AZ

OK Coral Reenactment
Tombstone, AZ

Tombstone, AZ

Clamming treasures
from visit with Carolyn

Teri with Second Family (Carolyn, Jim and Arline)

Garrett (our youngest son)

Thursday, January 1, 2015

Mesa, AZ December 2014 - April 2015 Post 1 (with Cabo San Lucas trip)

We are in Mesa, AZ until the end of April 2015. We arrived here a couple of weeks before heading to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico for a week.

Our first 2 weeks here in Mesa, AZ we did Pickle Ball classes, country line dancing instruction, various exercise classes, the hiking club hikes, happy hours, the onsite gym, Bunco, Poker and Teri learned how to do Stained glass as well as crafted a couple of jewelry watches. Teri is planning on making a stained glass table while here.....stay tuned.

We also had dear friends of ours, Karen and Geoff, join us for a few days before we headed off to Cabo San Lucas, MX for a week and they headed off to Florida for the winter. We so love Karen and Geoff and Teri's buddy Bentley too (their beautiful Schnauzer human). It was special to get to visit and share a few dinners with them.

On our way to Cabo, we did a one day layover in Los Angeles. We took this time to drive up to Santa Barbara, CA where we had a wonderful lunch and visit with Teri's Mom and a beautifully cooked diner prepared by Paul (Teri's son) and Casey Paul's girlfriend. It was a wonderful way to start our trip.

We headed to Cabo in hopes of diving with the Hammer Head Sharks. While we missed seeing the Hammerheads, we did experience several other unexpected treats, making for a wonderful trip. While in Cabo the weather was perfect. We enjoyed our daily walks along the marina, we enjoyed the local food, went scuba diving 3 different days, and went on a special road trip to La Paz, Mexico.

While much repair is yet to be done, Cabo is doing a good job at rebuilding after the Category 4 hurricane Odile that hit just 3 months prior to our trip. Hurricane_Odile While here we walked the marina daily. The marina was well decorated for the holidays with Christmas trees and Santas. Along the marina are many restaurants, stores and locals trying to push their tours and wares. The common sounds on our evening walks included, hey amigo, want to go fishing. Or hey amigo want to buy a cigar. When we say common, you could not walk the marina without hearing those particular questions multiple times in the same evening. In fact, so much so that Bob started to stop Americans and ask them, hey Amigo, want to go fishing and it always got a huge laugh. As the week went on we made friends with these locals and they would joke with us (after asking their question once again if we wanted to go fishing or wanted a cigar) about if we were still going scuba diving. Of particular fun, was Teri's Green Man (picture below). Every night when we passed him, while he was supposed to be a frozen statue, Teri would salute him and he would salute back. It became our nightly ritual to search him out (he was always in a different location) while we were there. On our last night, Teri went up and told him how much fun he had brought to our week and thanked him and explained we were leaving. He smiled a huge smile, said thanks and shook Teri's hand. We said goodbye and will always smile when we see our picture of our special green man. Each day we would also stop to see the dance of the fliers. It is an ancient cultural dance that was done to end a severe drought that involved men flying to the ground from the top of a 30 meter pole. More details on the dance and tradition can be found at Danza_de_los_Voladores

Our various scuba diving outings were good and warm enough that we only used skins and a vest. We were treated to many fish as well as swimming with the sea lions. On one dive day, on our way out to the dive site we spotted a whale. The boated was stopped and the engine turned off. We were all asked if we wanted to snorkel out to where the whale was. Well yes we all said!!! Wow what a treat! While the whale and her baby were fairly deep down, we could still see them and even got a short video with Teri's new Go Pro camera. Check out the video Humped Back Whale Video On another dive day we saw whales in the distance while on the boat. And, on an evening dinner cruise that we took, we spotted whales once again. Wow, all unexpected and a special treat for sure.

On our last day, we took a 2 hour road trip to La Paz, Mexico. We stopped for a wonderful breakfast on the way to La Paz in a town named Todos Santos. Breakfast here was at the Hotel California. As our tour van arrived, imagine that, on the CD player of our van played the Eagles hit, Hotel California. Our Van tour guide tried to pass our stop off as the 'real' hotel California, made famous by the Eagles. The real story, however, can be found here: Hotel California, Todos Santos, Mexico The breakfast was excellent, including beautiful homemade breads, and the hotel was charming.

The city of La Paz is a beautiful coastal city, on the Sea of Cortez. It is located almost due North of Cabo San Lucas. We were so impressed by the city's beauty and charm. The highlight for this road trip, however, was going out to snorkel with the whale sharks. Wow, averaging 20 tons each, they are beautiful yet gentle giants. The day we went out, the water was very rough, causing some on our tour to decline on getting into the water. But we jumped right in and wow how neat it was. The captain counted 16 of these wonderful giants out there with us. We would swim to one, until it left our view and then look for the next one. It was a very incredible thing to get to experience. Of biggest note are their HUGE mouths, that approaches 5 feet in diameter. They open it wide to take in huge amounts of plankton and while they have no interest in swimmers/divers, one could not help but realize that a person's body would easily fit within that huge mouth. Check out the video that Teri shot of these beautiful creatures:
Swimming with the Whale Sharks Video

There is no question, our day trip to La Paz will always be treasured. We finished this day tour with lunch at the El Bismarksito, a wonderful seafood restaurant in La Paz. It was the best food we had on our entire trip.

We got back to our Arizona home in time for Christmas. We shared a wonderful Christmas dinner at the RV park with 10 new friends. The next day we celebrated Bob's birthday when we went out to see the movie Interstellar (very good) and also enjoyed a great lunch at Joe's Farm grill, which serves up some great food much originating from their own working farm. Worth the short read. JoesFarmGrill

To all our followers, we hope the New Year brings good things your way!

Cabo San Lucas
Some of the Damage Remaining
from Hurricane Odile

Cabo San Lucas, Mexico
Marina decorated for the holidays

Cabo San Lucas, Mexico
Bob's great catch...
....Not...
just a great and fun photo opportunity.

Cabo San Lucas, Mexico
Teri's Friend, the man in green

Cabo San Lucas, Mexico
Dance of the Flyers
(Danza De Los Voladores)

Cabo San Lucas, Mexico
Lover's Beach on the Sea of Cortez Side
Divorce Beach on the Pacific Side
(where the riptides and undertows can be very dangerous)
Both are seen in this picture.