Notes to Self: A Vacation Post-Mortem

Given a choice, never take the red-eye again. Changing planes in HNL probably isn’t that bad a thing. Look at the directions for how to get to the hotel/condo you’re staying in before getting into the rental car. And check to see whether the rental car has a dome light before driving off. Because if

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Renting the Jeep Wrangler on Kauai

Pros: Strikes impressive pose against red-clay graveyard backdrops. Complete inability to effectively lock vehicle (you can’t lock the zippers and velcro that keep the top on) enforces devil-may-care attitude regarding stuff. Has an AUX jack for your iPod. “When you’re driving behind a Kia and the Kia makes it through the flooded road all right,

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Update from Suffer-Zone Kauai

Endured another couple days here on Kauai. Went up to the North Shore today and hiked up to Hanakapi’ai Falls. It’s sort of like you’re going on the big Na Pali hike, except that after two miles you chicken out and turn left (instead of doing the 11-in, 11-out of the full two-dayer). One of

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I Suck at Vacation

But am trying to make due. Been on Kauai since Wednesday. It’s different from Orange County. Hard to find POG for some reason. Haven’t found a plate lunch place yet. Still haven’t figured out how to relax. I should be *doing* something. Bought two Hawaiian shirts and a shell necklace yesterday, which I’m hoping will

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Hiking at Mt. Rainier Is Better than Hiking in Orange County

There, I said it. Here’s the most picturesque scene from my last hike in the OC: Not pictured: me nearly dying from dehydration in the vertical assault to reach this cherished view. No joke — all the classic symptoms (nausea, exhaustion). And not even this new laptop’s display can make the steep gully view down

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I Left My Truck Window Open for Three Days While Parked at John Wayne Airport

And nothing happened. At the risk of stating the obvious, John Wayne Airport is a safer place to park than the campus of Michigan State University. bkd

Fiji and Solomon Islands Trip Photos

In case you really, really dig looking at other people’s vacation photos, here are mine: https://www.bkdunn.com/photos/Fiji-SI/Fiji-SI.html You could also go to flickr and look up “briandunn02” and check out the same set of pics there. bkd

Notes Regarding Fijian Taxi Drivers

The driver from Ba, who took me from Ba to Navala and back, was by far my favorite (see video). VIDEO (Quicktime, 600K):  Taxi from Navala Some notes and observations related to Fijian cab drivers: If you offer to buy them a Coke, they’ll take you up on it. As far as I could tell,

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Alligator Creek, Sans Alligators

I’ll start with the video this time. It’s actually compressed. Then if you’re interested, you can get my amateur historical synopsis. VIDEO (Quicktime, 4.7MB): Alligator Creek [amateur historical synopsis] Essentially at the far western end of Red Beach is Alligator Creek, which is actually the Ilu River and is known to historians as the site

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Red Beach, July 4th, Guadalcanal

For some reason I thought it’d be great to see as many war sites as I could on the Fourth of July. I dunno — maybe that was a good idea. Red Beach on Guadalcanal was the Normandy of the Pacific — not in terms of battle ferocity, but in the sense that it was

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