12 years of Spencer...

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Hawaii

This year Scott had his North American Neuro-Ophthalmology Society meeting in Kona, Hawaii.  He presented a poster titled Neuro-Ophthalmologic Manifestations of a Hemizygous Patient with Autosomal Recessive Spastic Ataxia of Charlevoix-Saguenay.  It was a good meeting, but I won't dwell on the details of that.

We arrived on the Big Island late on Saturday night, after a full day of travel.

On Sunday, we got up to go to church.  Their meeting was different from our meetings in just one regard.  Everyone who speaks at the pulpit first says, "Brother and Sisters, Aloha!" and everyone in the congregation responds with an Aloha.

We made it back to the conference and Scott caught the rest of the meeting and Jen had a big nap.

Monday was another big day of conference meetings.
We met up with the other former Iowa fellows for dinner.

On Tuesday we had some time to hit the beach and the lagoon for some snorkeling.

This was a mixed black and white sand beach.

We ate a picnic on the beach before wading in.

Snorkels!

Plenty of tropical fish to find in the lagoon.

One of the highlights of the whole trip was swimming with this guy!

We even had time to catch the sunset.

Just as the sun goes down, a runner comes by and lights all the Tiki Torches and when he reaches the end, blows a signal on a large conch.

On Wednesday we had some time in the afternoon to visit a Hawaiian sacred place, a place of refuge, Puʻuhonua o Hōnaunau.

My Tiki face.

Hawaiian native game similar to checkers. Konane.  By the way, we learned that the Hawaiian alphabet only contains 13 letters, which really creates a certain recognizable sound.

 While we were at the place of refuge, we found a beautiful trail for a walk.

We came across this herd of goats while we were meandering.

While we were in the area, we made a trip to the LDS Kona, Hawaii temple, too.

On Thursday the conference came to a conclusion and we zipped out to the other side of the island for some lava action.

The lava field is somewhat remote.  We rented bikes to get as close as we could on this gravel road.  We chose these pedal assist E-bikes.  It was a blast cruising down the road on these things.

After we took the bikes as far as we could, we continued on on foot across the lava fields.  This was quite a hike, over uneven terrain.

After 90 minutes of hiking we made it to the active lava flow.  Very hot, glowing molten rock!

Coming back, it started to get dark and we realized we were hiking over molten lava down in the cracks.

No wonder it was so hot.

We came back in the dark.  These headlamps were invaluable.

On the way back there is just a faint, dim light way off in the distance to guide the way.  It sort of comes and goes depending on the lay of the land, but keep following those little glimmers that you get.  As you get closer the light gets stronger.

On Friday we toured Akaka falls and Botanical gardens and a vanilla bean farm

Before we went back to the airport, we made one more stop to look at petroglyphs.

It was amazing how many different climates there are on one relatively small island.

One last visit to the beach

Merry Christmas

Stephanie came to visit us on Christmas Eve.  We all went caroling together.  Nancy stole the show with her Grinch-esque reindeer antlers.

Sunday Morning, ready for church on Christmas Eve.

No, it isn't a white Christmas this year.  This was a few weeks ago, but looked so Christmasy, I wanted to share it now.

Check out this Christmas message that I really enjoyed.

Thanksgiving Weekend- mountain top cabin

We have a great family tradition for Thanksgiving.  It starts with what we call "Fakesgiving."  On the week prior to Thanksgiving, our family and my sisters get together and celebrate together with a somewhat non-traditional fall feast.  So, last Saturday, Nick, Katie, Lydia, George and Stephanie all came to visit.  We had a great time.

Then the second part of our family tradition is to make a trip out for the actual long holiday weekend.  We have taken overnight trips to Waynesboro or Norfolk or Luray or other Virginia destinations. 

This year was just slightly different.  We rented a cabin in Narrows, Virginia.  It was a really great weekend.

We headed out on Thanksgiving day.  While passing through Staunton we stopped at a local restaurant and enjoyed the Holiday buffet.  It was the closest thing we'll see to a traditional Thanksgiving dinner, which is just fine.  It was a fun meal.

We got to our cabin and checked in.

This place has got character.  First of all, you need to use a spare truck from the owner.  Only an off-road vehicle will make it up to this mountain top location.  The owner was super friendly and led us up to the cabin.  He was planning to do some hunting after he finished with us, so his buddy was carrying a rifle as we went up.  All part of the character.

Cabin and the truck

This cabin was just right for our group.  There were two bedrooms.  A queen bed in one and 4 bunks in the other.

Kids' bunks

Little window to look into the living room from Laurel's bunk

So, we had free range of the property all over the mountain.  Just stay off the side of the mountain with the gun range.  

We went for our first hike.

So, I think you get the idea, this place is set up for hunting.  This is a hunting blind.  The first, but not the only one we would encounter.

On a later hike out, we actually came across a hunter using this blind.  His name is Smokey.  He was friendly.  I can't imagine our presence helped his chances of catching anything.  We were very noisy hikers.  We weren't interested in coming across any of the wildlife.  Many bears on this mountain.

We came back to the cabin for dinner (frozen pizzas) and games.

Horse themed game in the cabin.  We brought some of our own games, too.  (Forbidden Desert!)

Then we settled down for movie night.  We watched the original Star Wars trilogy over the next three evenings.

The next day was a much bigger hike. 

We wanted to get all the way to the mountain summit.  However, we couldn't find a trail that goes up.  We later found out that the owner has never been that high.  The mountain is just too steep.  Nonetheless, Scott, Clark, Spencer and Grant tried to forge a path to the top.  We did quite a climb.  A lot of it required both hands on the ground, grabbing from one tree to the next.

We did not make it to the top.  It was quite a climb to make it as far as we did.  We came across a thick stand of rhododendrons and couldn't get through, so we called it close enough.  Coming down was hilarious.  The only thing to do was turn around, sit down and scoot through the leaves.

We went back to the cabin and met up with the girls.  They had hot chocolate ready for us.  Then we ranged back out for more exploring.  There were lots of paths to explore, we couldn't do them all.

After all that hiking, we were up for a big dinner.  Hot dogs and Pudgies cooked around the campfire.

This pie iron is a new edition to our camp gear.  I don't know how we lived without one.  It makes the most amazing sandwiches (pudgies).  We had grilled cheddar apple mustard sandwiches.  One minute in the fire and it comes out golden, melty and amazing.

Apparently there is wild cow on the mountain that makes an appearance sometimes.  We never saw him but had fun telling ghost-cow stories.  We waited outside to see the stars.  It was a clear sky and boy, did they come out.

Then we went back inside and popped some popcorn for The Empire Strikes back.

That was about it.  We had a restful night and then packed up to come home this morning.  Of course, we had to do some off roading to get back to our van.

We listened to some audio books on the ride, so it went by enjoyably.  Everything was in order when we came home.  We got all cleaned up and unpacked and even had a chance to fit in The Return of the Jedi.

Overall, a really family-fun, adventuresome trip. 

Happy Thanksgiving!