A torrent of water

Niagara falls do not suffer from that shrinking of things you saw in childhood. The diminishment of the world as you get bigger, so it gets smaller, both physically and spiritually. They were larger than I remembered, more majestic. The kind of thing you see a hundred pictures of but still impresses with the freshness of a first time. There's a giant fall on the US side, which from the Canadian side you get a great full on view of and then an even more giant horseshoe fall on the Canadian side, which is like at the border line, on the point between the two.

A new thing we did this time was to take a boat at the foot of the falls. This was pretty spectacular. The boat doesn't go far/for long. They just drive in, turn around drive out. But you got close enough that the spray watered your face and leaked into your emergency poncho. Because of the turn around both sides of the boat got the closest best view—in fact everywhere on the boat had a good view. In between the falls was a massive sea gull rookery I never knew existed but was its own beauty. And at its top moment you were so close the steam blinded you and you tried to look up but there was only a limitless wall of steam.

We got to stay at the falls for 2 ½ hours which was still too short but probably enough. The rest of the tour we got to try icewine (too sweet) at a winery, went to the little town of Niagrara on the lake (cute town but we didn't get to see the lake :( I did put a maple leaf in my hair). It had all the worst excesses of a tour though, trying to upsell you, herding everyone on and off the bus to have identical experiences, etc. Still it came out about the same price as the train over so it seemed worth it.

We doubled down after that and went up the CN tower, where we had dinner at the top. There were many awesome views of Lake Ontario, as well as the city, and we could see the neighbourhood where we were staying. Looking down was one of the best bits as it's so high. I had also forgotten the glass floor area which was super scary, even as you watched children frolic all around you without harm. Still awesome.

That day was huge, and we kind of died out on either end of it, dinner at a french bistro the first night and flying out the next day to New York.

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.

There's a statue of Ghandi in Roma St parklands. A statue of Ghandi near the zoo on Waikiki. A statue of Ghandi at the wharf in San Francisco. I'm thinking of starting a collection.

People in motion

San Francisco is defined by the bay, which nearly encircles it, slate grey and cold. We stayed by the shore, the murky sand leading to a desolate sea. Fog encompassed the city when we arrived, but broke to tourist friendly sunny days by the next morning.

We flew in overnight (exhausting, glad I decided not to do it in december) and landed at our bayside home at 7 in the morning.

Space age lock combination which you scan with your palm and then punch in a code. I started a puzzle of san francisco.

We slept first off for about 6 hours, til noon. We then broke free for breakfast lunch at this really good surf cafe with vinyl wood benches. Then walked across golden gate park from the end to the rose garden. You can smell the pines here, but not as strong as home.

To the wharf where the 4^th of July crowds flowed. We walked through for a long time, just observing, and got cold and bought extra jumpers. I noticed the line for our boat was already down the pier, so we joined, and waited there about an hour.

We got a little 4 top to ourselves on the not too overcrowded boat. Took a loop under the Golden Gate bridge and around Alcatraz, to a playlist of songs with America in the title.

The fireworks: when the high ones went off they discoloured the fog in their tints. And then the explosions would drop out of the fog like rain. The lower ones showed up well and we got a great view being out on the bay where they shoot them off a barge. The finale, all in red white and blue, lit up the sky, under over and through the fog.

In the fog, the golden gate bridge disappears into it like a mountain into clouds.

We walked ages waiting for taxi prices to drop, and stumbled upon Lombard street. We climbed it in the night, through the moonlit hydrangias, watching the traffic lights climb the high hills.

The next day we slept in, and Melinda arrived. We took a bit of a tour of the city, rode a streetcar and went back to lombard street for pictures, and wandered to the wharf. We ordered pizza and got in a bit early.

On the 6^th we went to Muir woods, taking an uber over the golden gate to sausalito, then the shuttle from there. I came down crazy sick this day, but powered through with the help of pills.

Redwoods have textured bark, so corrugated you could put a palm span between the crevasses. They grow in what they call “family groups,” fairy circles of trees sprung from the same root system. The roots grow shallow and wide, and sometimes the central, oldest tree has died in the wildfire long ago.

We walked through. A cool thing about Ray is that he really loves trees, which is notable when he sees any but also through offhand comments which betray fairly deep knowledge. So we walked through, and took the ferry back to town.

Now we fly to Toronto for Niagara falls.  

Aloha Oe

Marilyn wanted to explore the island a bit so we went to Waimanalo (home of the keikis). I got to swim in the ocean twice and explore a tidal pool. And we got shave ice from a real truckshack.

At the forest park there were dogs on the beach and on a surf board, people played juke boxes on the sand. I was by this point pretty burned.

The bus took us back by the pele highway, so we got to see some inland on the windward side as well, with the lush jungle. Marilyn and Ray have been pretty impressed by the volcanic crater, from the view of Diamond Head out our window to wherever. They went to a luau that night and J and I had tacos at a shack as you do.

Our big Pearl Harbor day was next. We really did arrive at 7 am to get in the massive line, which moved fast and did the whole thing. Submarine (submarines be small yo we climbed right through, this one magically never had a death), museums (surprisingly evenhanded for a military museums, and some awesome prescient quotes from Yamamoto and the US general) memorial (I had a bunch of inappropriately hostile nonmemorially thoughts, like the way we leave the human bodies and oily pollutants alike just dumped down there where they sank, put a white bridge over the lot and act like that makes it ok), USS Missouri (cheerleading battleship yay our guns commentary a weird contrast to sombre memorial to loss of life on same battleship but thing itself was satisfyingly huge and full of brass knobs), and airplane hanger (which was chock full of rad fully restored planes from lots of eras and places just kind of lined up in giant hangers, a great finisher cause you could just say look a rad plane).

Then we stumbled on our bloody stumps to dinner which was weirdly cursed with everyone being booked out.

Last day we were pretty lazy, laundry, poolside, bit of a walk in the afternoon, dinner, caught plane.