Marmalade Daydreams

Larchmont, NY -> West Warwick, RI -> West Dover, VT -> Carlisle, MA -> Bar Harbor, ME -> Albany, NY -> Larchmont, NY

Hike out from East Lake to Road’s End, Kings Canyon National Park

Distance from Brooklyn, NY to Honolulu, HI

Bike ride from my new home (!) to UH campus

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Like the thunderstorm, these past few weeks have harbored short periods of great beauty and excitement interspersed with longer periods of great anticipation, a certain electricity in the air heightening the wonder of us mortals regarding the intentions of the gods. I sit in the early morning on the slope of an ancient volcanic crater overlooking a rainy jungle valley beset with high-rise condos, completely awash in the overpowering perfume of ripening mangoes, which we've collected from the front lawn and heaped on the tiny counters of this little cottage.

Indeed, I am in my new home; rather, I am currently staying with the most gracious of hosts, a friend from my Hamilton daze, sleeping on his lanai (covered porch) until the end of the month when the cottage next door opens. These cottages (ohana), I was told, were traditionally built for the grandparents when the Hawaiian family grew too large for everyone to live in the main house. Due to the housing bubble and huge rent increases, it's increasingly common for families to rent out the ohana to low-income tenants (like grad students). So, if everything works out, in a couple of weeks, I'll have a nice two bedroom cottage next door to my friend with great views of the city and the mountains. Also, I can not fully explain how delicious are the mangoes from the tree out front -- clearly the sweetest and creamiest I've ever enjoyed -- and we just scoop them up from off the lawn. You could say that life is good.

But let me back it up a couple of weeks. As you might remember, my family took a trip to Acadia, the Northeast's only National Park, renowned for its granite cliffs dropping into foggy bays, its islands covered in spruce forests, their trees' dark branches draped in old man's beard. The geology of the area is stunning, and I went on an excellent day hike up the shoreline from Sandy Beach to Thunder Hole and Otter Cliffs, up Goreham Mountain and the Beehive (a series of cliffs made climbable without technical gear by iron railings set into the steep granite walls), down to a picturesque pond and finally up to the summit of Champlain Mountain, where I came closer to a golden eagle than I ever have before, close enough to see the curve of his beak and the claws of his talons -- a chilling experience. To cut the chill, my family ate and drank very well this week -- it's an interesting National Park experience to get your wilderness fix during the day and, that very afternoon or evening, patronize excellent restaurants serving locally-brewed beers. I recommend it.

After an evening of being wined and dined in Albany, where I congratulated my dear friends Lou & Tiffany on their recent engagement (what a ring!), I returned to Larchmont, my childhood home, to sort through my earthly possessions, put all cool-weather clothing in the attic, double-stack the bookshelves with the bulk of my extensive library, and bear continual abuse from my parents about the sheer quantity of things that I am storing at their house (thanks Mom & Dad!). A last night of carousal with Brooklyn friends at The Gate, my beloved beer-geek destination with biker bartenders, and, with two bags stuffed to the gills, I boarded a plane to San Francisco, where one of my closest friends was to meet me for a long drive into the mountains where another friend awaited us at Road's End, a trailhead. Unfortunately, due to weather conditions and the unhelpful customer service of AirTran, I ended up sleeping that night in the Atlanta airport. Please, never fly AirTran -- it's worth the extra fifty bucks...

The tedium of delay notwithstanding, our four days in the tremendous beauty of Kings Canyon National Park were unsullied by the airline's incompetance -- sure, we had to hike in to our first campsite after sunset, but I personally enjoy the experience of navigating an unfamiliar wood in the gloaming by alpenglow and starlight. We hiked up Bubbs Creek, among the ferns and giant redwoods that grew on the floor of this stunning granite canyon, whose peaks formed stately grey domes and spires and whose walls, thousands of feet high, were painted with the drips of minerals leached out from the mountains' interiors. We camped for two nights at East Lake, one of the most peaceful and beautiful spots I've had the pleasure of staying in this life, and we had a grand time climbing about the talus and fallen logs, broken memories of cataclysms past, scattered with sub-alpine forests and meadows. We saw a whole lot of wildlife -- Zach came face-to-face with a mature black bear; later we all saw a yearling cub who was scavenging in the site we'd chosen for lunch. Another lunch spot was invaded by a rattlesnake; a second rattler found a home under Jesse's pack while we'd stopped for water. We saw a mule deer with her spotted fawn (when I first saw the doe's head, poked out from the tall grass with her long, pointed ears, I thought, "My lord! That's the biggest rabbit I've ever seen!"), as well as numerous and varied lizards, rodents, and birds. It was a great backpacking trip all around.

After a couple of nights in San Francisco, including an authentic home-cooked Indian meal (thanks for the leftovers Ms. Sitaraman!) and a stint at Toronado, a bar in the Lower Haight somewhat like The Gate, Zach drove me to the airport to begin my new Hawaiian life. I sat next to a very interesting character, a man in his seventies, afflicted by Parkinson's, who's worked in Recreation his whole life, summers at a camp in Yosemite, the rest of the year in the SF Parks Department. The connections he still has with kids that he's watched grow up year after year are enviable, and he continues to mentor youth through the YMCA, though his affliction keeps him from snowboarding with them as he'd like to. An incredibly interesting, inspirational man, he assured me to do something that I enjoy. I hope I can spend the next couple of years following that advice. Anyhow, to return to my island vacation that will somehow transition to my return to academia, I'm supposed to go attend a hula festival, so I must awaken my host. Later today we have plans to hike to the Manoa Falls, and then up a mountain from which we can view them. It's been raining all morning, so I assume they'll be fairly stunning. Pictures coming soon, but you can see what I've got so far from the link to my flickr page on the left side of the top of this page.