3 November 2015

Dear All Travel Log Addressees,

The following reflections have been inspired by a recent trip to Hawaii, specifically the island of Maui to catch up with Barb’s three sisters and one sister-in-law who shall be referred to in the collective form as The Sisters throughout this piece.

• This was our 14^th trip to the US to visit family and the first that did not involve 30 hours of travel, a multitude of security queues and the ever changing TSA rules on what you must remove from your person or bags in order to move to the next level of the game.   This game is also designed to bring forth the grumpy old man within me, to insight Pele, the Hawaiian fire goddess to come forward.  Fortunately, like Pele there are no violent eruptions just small releases of steam.
• Apart from being the token male my role on this trip was not dissimilar to that of Morgan Freeman in Driving Miss Daisy.  From the moment we arrived I had become the designated driver.  Now whilst I enjoyed that job, gleaning accurate driving instructions from five different voices with a multitude of simultaneous conversations overlaying the instructions, whilst driving on the other side of the road was entertaining.  Regardless of our efforts we observed no road rage in Maui.
• I believe the role of driver was in recognition that I could never keep up with or contribute to the ten different, simultaneous conversations that were occurring in the back of the vehicle.
• We attended a Luau.  The Sisters were very pleased to receive leis as they entered the venue.  I had a string of black nuts hung around my neck.  I am told they are Kukui nuts.  So while The Sisters got flowers I got a string of nuts.  I wondered why this was and have come the conclusion its part of a game conducted by the waiting staff at the Luau.  The way the game works is the guy handing out the necklace of black nuts selects the guest with the daggiest, and most colourful Hawaiian shirt and he indicates his selection by awarding the necklace of nuts.  Now throughout the evening the waiting staff move amongst the guests checking out the other Hawaiian shirts.  They then award points for whether the guy who had awarded the necklace had picked the worst shirt.  Each night this process continues and at the end of the season the votes are tallied and the person with the most points wins the money. So I am assuming I got the black nuts because of my outstandingly colourful shirt!
• When it comes to travel there are all sorts of new high tech gadgets designed to make your travel easier.  We have high wicking, quick drying, SPF50 clothes that protect us from the sun, they breathe in high humidity and yet keep us warm in the cold.  There are sandals with super comfortable heals and grips designed to take us to the slopes of Everest. And there are more, however all these new fangled items pale into insignificance when compared to a disabled parking permit, the ultimate travel accessory.  US parking spaces are large by world standards but disabled spaces are huge and they are at the front door to resorts and places of interest.  We did have some mobility issues in the group including the very recent installation of a titanium knee so the parking permit was very much appreciated.  My challenge now is how to get a disabled parking permit that will be recognised in all countries.  Imagine, like an international driving licence, having an international parking permit.
• In the UK you will see cars from Germany and France.  In NSW you will see cars from Victoria, Queensland or even WA.  Yet in Hawaii you will see only cars with Hawaiian rego plates.  I can only conclude, and this might be a long shot that people don’t drive to Hawaii!
• Hawaii and in particular the island of Oahu has a very unique homeless problem.  It seems some homeless people in North America have decided homelessness in Hawaii is a much better option than on the mainland.  I would have to say the choice between winter in Alberta or Waikiki is really no choice.  Whole families are arriving without jobs, money, or shelter or even knowing anyone in Hawaii.  One story involved the estranged wife in Florida who bought her ne’er-do-well ex-husband a one way ticket to Honolulu.  It’s the Hawaiian version of illegal immigrants and the proposed solution – you wouldn’t believe it, the local politicians want to house them on an island and off the streets of Honolulu.  It’s amazing how wherever you go the preferred solutions seem to be the same.  (reference to Australian treatment of illegal boat arrivals)
• We enjoyed a morning snorkelling in the Molokini crater.  The crater is an extinct volcano just off the coast of Maui.  The snorkelling was great fun but after about one hour in the water a subtle change occurred.   No it wasn’t the tide or the arrival of sharks or something similar.  After about an hour about nine more snorkelling tour boats had arrived and suddenly the balance had changed- there were more looking at the fish than there were fish to look at.  Maybe that’s an exaggeration but there were an awful lot of people in that crater.
• In Australia we introduced the cane toad to eat a beetle that lived in the sugar cane where the toad couldn’t venture.  The toad has gone on to become a huge ecological disaster.  In Hawaii they introduced the mongoose to control rats and mice in the sugar cane.  The rats and mice were nocturnal and the mongooses were active in the daytime.  Result, the mongoose ate all the ground based native birds in Hawaii; same story in New Zealand with weasels.   The end result Maui is infested with Indian Myna birds and native birds are long gone.  The other wild animals on Maui are goats, pigs and deer – yep none native to the islands.  A familiar story maybe?
• Definition of remote in Hawaii – your cell phone doesn’t work.  Car rental companies don’t like their cars on the south side of Maui because there is no cell phone access – where would that put most car rental companies in Australia?   The road had a section of dirt (500 metres) and was narrow in a couple of places (better than most roads in Scotland) and yet this was remote wilderness.  I guess it all depends on the local context.
• In contrast Honolulu with only 347,000 people enjoys freeways of six lanes in each direction.  It’s like LA in the middle of the Pacific.
• Final comment and a bit of consultant speak.  (Consultant speak in italics.)   To make the seven days work to everyone’s satisfaction I won the job of facilitating a planning session.  The planning identified the desired outcomes that were common to all participants and those specific to the few.  We agree a way forward and importantly, and almost uniquely when compared to organisational business plans, we stuck with it and made no changes.   This ensured the shared goal was achieved, namely to have a good time whilst allowing for lots of variation from sunset dinners at sea, to helicopter rides and snorkelling tours all according to the preferences of the individual team members.  All done without the use of PowerPoint.  In future reunions I am sure we will unpack this trip in order to better define what team dynamics came into play that facilitated the success of this coming together of The Sisters.

All travel has been suspended for the upcoming summer and fire season.  There will be a No 11 in the series I just don’t know when or what the subject of No 11 might be.  As always if you don’t want these emails cluttering up your inbox just drop me a note.

Yours in perpetual confusion when it comes to the TSA