Waking up again in Oahu, I met my son for brunch at the Sheraton Waikiki.  I was there last about 14 years ago with my young children and my aging parents, and for the first time about 39 years ago with my parents on a business trip.  I remember the dining room because between the large glass panels that separate the outside from the inside, there is nothing… only space.  No screen doors.  House sparrows come and go, and there are no flies.  It made such an impact on me when I was young, that concept of bringing the outside inside and the absolute freedom of having no bug or weather problem, that I’d always remembered that room but didn’t realize where on the several islands we visited it was until yesterday.  The buffet caters to international tastes, so there is a Japanese area with miso soup, seaweed, tofu, pickled cucumber and plums, and many other goodies.   There is a salad area, a cheese area, an area with assorted breads and freshly made pastries, the hot foods sections, fresh fruit and yogurts, and cereals.  Throughout all this is the taste of the isles: fresh pineapple and papaya (it doesn’t taste as incredible anywhere else in the world), coconut syrup for the taro flour french toast, loco moco (egg on Spam on rice covered with brown gravy), guava juice, passionfruit pastries.  There is no way to just eat a little, and no way to eat everything you’d like to.

Afterwards we walked along the beach back to the Moana, then drove out to the Manoa Falls rainforest, not far away.  As soon as we got out of the car it began to pour.  We purchased cheap rainjackets and mosquito wipes (don’t come to Hawaii without mosquito repellant!) and took the long, slippery, muddy and breathtakingly gorgeous hike up to the falls and back.  The Manoa Arboretum is above and we walked around their pathways enjoying the incredible flowers.  There are side trails up to the falls, and many pathways around the arboretum that we didn’t have time to hike.  My son had to work at 5, so very muddy, we headed back towards town.  We stopped at a Chinese restaurant and ate, then after leaving my son, I returned to my hotel.  I was lucky enough to speak to my daughter for a long time, reply to many wonderful well-wishers on Facebook and a few emails as well.  Then I dressed in one of my new Hawaiian dresses and walked with the crowds up and down the street, watching street performers doing magic tricks, balancing basketballs, pretending to be silver or gold statues, and playing electric violin to the radio.  It was just the kind of day I’d hoped for.  I spent it with one of my children doing something fun and adventurous, had great food, great exercise and a new start on life as I begin my next 50.  Saturday, the 22nd I fly home.

As the time is three hours ahead of San Diego time, and being an early riser anyway, I’m up at 5 am with the dawn chorus.  I’m able to walk out onto the beach in the dark, do my yoga stretches in the sand, swim a little in the man-made coves which create safe swimming areas away from the riptides, and watch the sun brighten the day.  On Wed. we drove to the North side of the island, to Waimea Falls botanical park.  An incredible collection of plants arranged in gardens representing the flora of different islands.  It was very humid but lovely.  We ate the now-warmed leftovers from dinner at the Cheesecake Factory in the car down the road at Shark Cove.  There are incredible tidepools there.  We waded, taking care not to slip on the craggy lava rock.  I collected an impressive array of mosquito bites, but I”m always happy to contribute to local sustainability.  Then we drove around the Eastern perimeter of the island, which is where the Hawaiians live.  Incredible, majestic scenery.  The mountains have real presence.  When it looked as if we were going to drive around a curve directly into the mountain, there was the Wilson tunnel.  Then we popped out to the other side with a completely different view, and on back to Waikiki.  In the interest of time I’ll post the photos gallery style below.

This will be the last of my Cornwall travel experiences: Land’s End.  At the very south-west tip of Cornwall is Land’s End.  When you stand at the clifftop of Land’s End and face west, the next main body of land is the east coast of the United States.

It was astoundingly beautiful, with cliffs full of history, danger and excitement.  We stayed at the Land’s End Hotel (http://www.landsendhotel.co.uk/) which perches at the edge of the cliff.

The dining room windows and our room window faced the ocean and the setting sun.

From the hotel you could see a small group of rocks and a lighthouse.

I watched both the moon and the sun set every day we were there.

On good days you can see the outline of the Isles of Scilly, which we regretfully didn’t have a chance to visit.  Although we still were buffeted about by the remaining winds of the hurricane the weather was beautiful.

In Cornwall they say that if there are clouds on the horizon it is going to rain, and if there aren’t then its raining already.  We had some predictable showers, most notably in the morning, but nothing to complain about.  And the sea… oh, the sea!  We spent our last morning there walking the cliff paths between rock and heath, which even in September were quilts of purple and yellow flowers.

The rock breaks into large chunks rather than crumbling away, which creates massive natural sculptures on which you can imagine giants of legend sitting, chin on fist, mesmerized by the waves.

The relentlessly pounding surf formed caves which made the waters  home to smugglers.

The giant rock cliffs formed enormous tombstones for the countless sailors of countless ships, all foundered on the hidden stones by wild tides, since man first took to the sea.

The cliff pathway followed the edge without restraints or hand-holds of any kind, and it led all the way to the historic southernmost town of Mousehole (pronounced MOWzzle).

Although the wind kept the number of birds low, there still were the pelagic inhabitants using the cliffs for protection and warming themselves in the sun.

A RSPB (Royal Society for the Protection of Birds) center sat in the hotel complex on the cliff from where my daughter sighted a peregrine falcon.

The area around Land’s End is mostly empty, with a few farms and another historic hotel The First and Last (depends on which way you are going!) which boasts of a smuggler’s tunnel to the sea and the horrible end of the woman who turned them in to the Crown.

There are people who travel from Land’s End up to the farthest point on mainland Britain, John O’Groats, and call themselves End-to-Enders.  Many do it for charity; some walk or bike.  When we visited Scotland several years ago we took the ferry from John O’Groats to the Orkney Islands, so we’ve been at each end, just not in direct line. This Cornwall coastline is the most dramatic I’ve ever seen.

I left part of my heart in Cornwall; something in the heartiness of the people and creatures that live there, braced against the wind and weather, calls to me.

I could have spent days like the giants, staring out at the roiling waves, watching the next storm blow in.

As long as I could be inside nice and cozy when it hit!  I want to thank my daughter for the use of many of these photographs, and for being such a good traveling companion and navigator.