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Maui is my favorite place in the world. When we were contemplating a trip to Hawai’i, Laralee and I agreed we had to go to Maui again. And of course the most magical part of the island is the Road to Hana, which is fifty miles of narrow roads, crazy winding turns, and the most amazing scenery anywhere.

Our first stop was the bamboo forest partway up the road. We stopped at the right mile marker and climbed out of the car. The kids were confused: “Are you sure this is the right place?” There’s no trailhead, in fact nothing at all to indicate there’s something to see. But when you look at the thick bamboo trees alongside the road, you’ll see a narrow dark hole that goes steeply down from the pavement. We stepped inside.

The trees are incredibly thick, making the forest dark.

The trail is steep, muddy, and not very well-defined. But we made our way down to a stream. The last time we’d visited, we could rock-hop across the stream to get to a series of waterfalls. However, it had been raining earlier in the day, so there was significantly more water. The stream was wide and deep, and we had to wade:

Fortunately we’d planned ahead and were all wearing swimsuits. (As it happened, we spent more than half our time in Hawai’i wearing swimsuits all day.) We crossed the stream and Alex found a place to achieve inner peace before we continued.

We found the first waterfall deep in the jungle, admired it for a bit, and then moved on to our real target, a second waterfall emptying into a big pool.

Of course we took advantage of a rope swing near the falls.

The kids posed by a different waterfall:

This is definitely one of my favorite hikes anywhere. The kids were thrilled, and asked if we’d be hiking through any more bamboo on our trip.

Yep.

For the second time, Laralee and I went to the Hawai’ian Islands. And this time we brought our kids.

Our internet service was pretty spotty during the course of our trip, so rather than a day-by-day travelogue, I’m going to step through each of the places we visited. Get ready for a dozen or so posts…

Last week we headed up to Montana to check out our new house. We’re staying in Colorado for the rest of the summer, but we figured we should at least see our new place before moving up there in September.

Tara and her kids showed up a little after we did, and a few days later Thom, Katie, and Sefton stopped in as well. It was fun to have a big group there; the house is really good for hosting groups. Together we all explored the house and tried to figure out how things worked (so many light switches!). Katie even found a secret closet-within-a-closet. The utility room has a bewildering array of switches, control panels, and valves. It was definitely an adventure.

The house looks amazing when you first arrive:

Across the courtyard is the guest house, also known as The Party Room:

And yes, we have a turret. Everyone needs a turret.

Zaque actually slept in the attic, which is at the top of the turret above the spiral staircase. The carpet in there is deep purple (no kidding).

The cherry orchard was really cool. It’s harvest time, so Laralee and I picked a bunch of them for sharing. They were delicious.

As we wandered around figuring things out and thinking about where our furniture would go and sort of dreading the impending process of moving, I wondered if all this is crazy. We’re moving a thousand miles, away from a place and friends we know and love, to an area we know very little about, and trading our city life for a much more rural one. Is this a mid-life crisis? Maybe. But as I sat on the front porch and watched the sunset over the lake, I was reminded why we’re doing this.

It’s breathtakingly beautiful. Sure, it’ll be a different lifestyle, but we’ll figure it out and make friends and, most importantly, we’ll do it together.

While we were visiting Missouri, Mom pulled out the old Apple IIe from my childhood. I think we bought that in the early 1980’s, and after plugging in a few parts, it actually booted up!

Thom and I fiddled with some of the disks (yes, the original 5 1/4″ floppies) and managed to bring up a few classic games like Black Magic (Thom’s favorite). Here he is playing Dig Dug:

One of my favorite games was Lode Runner:

Unfortunately we couldn’t get the game to start– we could only run the demo mode. It was strange, but I suppose after 35 years or so, it was more surprising that it even partially worked.

It’s a credit to Apple (and to Mom!) that after all these years, the computer still worked. Check out the sweet core memory chips, at 8kB apiece for a total of 64kB:

But– lucky us– we had an expansion card called the “80-column card” which doubled the ram to 128kB and allowed the system to display 80 columns of text instead of the default 40. That was really important when doing word processing, and of course for games.

I think Mom is going to give away the computer, or maybe sell it on eBay one of these days (yes, there’s still a market for 1980-era Apple IIe’s out there). It was fun to be reminded of all those hours spent on the computer when I was a teenager. That old Apple put me on the path to a successful software career a decade later!

Driving home from Boulder last night, I was treated to a beautiful sunset over the mountains.

At dinner the other night, we were talking about super powers that would be kind of pointless to have. Zaque and Alex came up with a bunch that were hilarious. Some of the better examples:

• The ability to fly, but only while naked
• The ability to move things with your mind, but only if they’re within arm’s reach
• The ability to make your socks wet
• The ability to sneeze your favorite fountain drink
• The ability to walk through walls, but only the drywall (not the studs)
• The ability to be invisible, but only while screaming at the top of your lungs
• The ability to move moles around your skin (not get rid of them, just move them)
• The ability to de-carbonate soda
• The ability to make bread soggy

Yeah, these are the sorts of things my boys do. I guess the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, as they say.

Rock shops are so cool.

Our family spent around an hour in this one store alone. Of course they’re all terrifically expensive, but it’s still amazing to look at them…

While in downtown Breckenridge, we spotted a velociraptor.

Zaque mocked it:

I dared it:

Laralee tamed it:

And Kyra? Well, Kyra just ran from it.

I saw this in a window at a tourist shop in Breck a few weeks ago:

So very, very true.

This is the kind of stuff people look at and say, “Wow, that’s so inspiring! The artist really captured the essence of (insert some random object or emotion).”

But when I look at it, I feel pretty much like Kyra.