putting the j in jjosh

This banner is from Hawaii, one of last days there when Maxine directed us to this beach and reef on the South side of Oahu…it was gorgeous…because it was a wildlife refuge, before you were allowed in they made you watch a video about not walking on the reef or feeding the animals…sure enough, while there we saw tons (!) of people walking on the reef and feeding the animals. It was nuts! WHAT’S WRONG WITH THESE PEOPLE?!?!?! Do they really just not get it? How much heavier can the message get than to have to watch a MANDATORY video. Infuriating.

Maxine took the above pic, as well as this random sampling of other shots below…

Probably the best thing we did on the whole trip was when we went to the island of Kauai…it was smaller than Oahu, we stayed in a B&B two blocks from the beach, in the town of Hanalei — which is mentioned in Puff the Magic Dragon! "…and frolicked in the autumn mist, of a land called Hanalei…" That’s where we took the helicopter trip that blew all of our minds. This is the coast of the island, featuring a perilous hiking trail.

This was a painter named Alex that Maxine befriended. We ended up buying a pen and ink drawing from him, he was pretty interesting. Kauai was full of interesting and friendly characters.

It was completely weird that it would be sunny and warm with a slight breeze and everyone would be going "Hey, it feels like Christmas!" There’d be all these Santas and Christmas decorations going up, and you’d be in shorts. It messed with my head. The weirdest thing by far was that they’ve kept all the snow assocations with Christmas, so you’d also see all these snowmen and polar bears and snowflakes, even though there’s not a hint of cold anywhere. This one cracked me up every time, with Santa dressed for cold and on a polar bear, but between two flaming tikki torches.

The first morning after we arrived in Kauai we were pretty jet-lagged and ended up waking up before the sunrise. Maxine and I walked down to the beach and the moon was huge and bright, setting on the horizon. Magnificent. Katie had been telling me about how on every vacation she likes to get a fake-perspective photo, even though it’s goofy. So Maxine took this one of me, and it kind of takes my breath away. One of my favorite shots of the whole vacation.