Kangaroos

Gus wanted to see kangaroos hopping and when I looked at these videos I thought everyone might want a giggle. For some reason they're is a little blurry.  Chris sent me a link to send them to him through an FTP program.  You might want to check it out.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Honolulu in February

It sure is nice here in Honolulu.  In case you haven't heard, our Tucson house has been without gas for more than 24 hours - and the end isn't in sight.  That means no heat, no clothes dryer, no stove.   Molly keeps sending temperature reports - 16.4 degrees on the kitchen porch Thursday morning.  We hear that Molly and Cactus are keeping each other warm.  we're not having so much trouble staying warm here.

Interesting cloud formation over the mountains, across the Ala Wai Canal.

Thursday's breakfast view from Duke's.

An interesting paint job.

Thursday night we went to a Hawaii - UCSB men's volleyball match.  Hawaii won in 4.  These guys get up pretty high, but the redhead's form landed him a 6-pack in the face later on.

Wish I could have gotten a picture of Hawaii's outside hitter, who's in the front row now - only 6'1", with a 44" vertical.  He had 19 kills and hit .436.

Even the setter has some hops.

Today we took a sail on a catamaran. It was terrific.

That's a dolphin's splash on the left side of the boat.

Lying on the netting, looking up at the sails.

Not too worse for the wear.

Scenes from Friday night's dinner.

Hope to see you soon.

Last Post from Australia

What a fantastic 3 + months we have had.  Sadly, this is the last Australia post.  Our hotel in Sydney is near Darling Harbour and Chinatown - took this picture of a cool street lamp from our hotel room.

For lunch we took a train to Circular Quay - not a bad view from the metro platform.

On to lunch - not a bad view fom there either.

While we were eating, this ship came in to dock right in front of us.

We've come full circle. I think this is where it all started in Australia.

We're headed to Honolulu tonight and arrive this morning.

G'day!

The Pleasure of Airline Travel - QANTAS Style

I can't resist posting about flying domestically in Australia.  After checking in and getting our boarding passes (sometimes with one ID and sometimes with no ID), we put our boarding passes (and IDs, if we had used them) away. Then we go through security with our shoes and jackets on, a couple of water bottles, some olive oil and sometimes a freezer gel pack keeping our wine cold - yes, all in carry-on bags.

At the gate, we're asked to enjoy the flight and handed complimentary headsets and newspapers.

As we board the plane, we're greeted by name and welcomed to the flight.

During the flight we are always given a meal (free, of course). On short flights it's only a sandwich, not a hot meal - but we're not complaining.  We're reminded to recycle, and advised how much recycling Qantas does in a year. Actually, this hot quiche was served on a 1 hour flight between Melbourne and Sydney.

And then, as we're leaving, the flight crew (all of them - pilot, first officer, stewards) line up to thank us for flying with them and wish us a pleasant day.

I almost forgot to mention that when we buy our tickets we are asked if we want to offset the emissions that we use by contributing to Qantas's carbon neutral fund (the amount is usually between $1 and $3 per person per flight).

And PLEASE check out the All Blacks' u tube video.  It's not just Qantas that makes flying fun!  In case you're wondering, the safety video is for real - we saw it flying to, and flying from Auckland.