Set Piece Adventure on Kauai

The traveler was active; he went strenuously in search of people, of adventure, of experience. The tourist is passive; he expects interesting things to happen to him. He goes "sight-seeing." –Daniel J. Boorstin

The previous day we had signed up for a number of excursions from the ship. We had signed up for three things without a huge amount of thought on my part and some of them were not as cool as I might have hoped from the price, but on this morning it was all ahead of me. One of the many restrictions that we had to work around was the fact that if Richie ate anywhere on the ship except the crew cafeteria, where I could not eat with him, he had to wear the Catholic School standard outfit: slacks (no jeans, no shorts), a shirt with a collar, shoes (no sandals), and also his name tag. In addition he could not eat in any of the restaurants onboard without special permission and they were deeply reluctant to give it. So he would change into this outfit just to eat and then wear something different and more comfortable when we went onshore.

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Eagles Soaring Over Crumbling Mountains

Perfect grace slipping in and out of sunlight. Golden brown and far too large to believe in the eagle came swooping between our trees. I cried out excitedly and pointed thinking I'd seen an owl at first and afraid I would be the only one to see it. But it circled around again and again coming closer to the picture windows. And then there it was, perched in a tree not far from the house. Every pass had made me doubt again what I was seeing, an owl? a hawk? But it became clear that it was an Eagle and I called out guesses. An immature Bald Eagle? No, there was a second one flying overhead and it didn't have the molted pattern. It spread its wings again to join its mate and I decided it must be a Golden Eagle.

I felt privileged to see such an animal in flight. Farewell lord of the air.