Vacationing on the Big Island

Greenland, that’s a new one on me.

I am used to being told ‘off’ – and have had numerous destinations suggested, but never Greenland.
But that’s where I should move, according to one reader.

When I was a few years younger my father would regularly tell me ‘go to your room’, which was not too hard to take: that’s where all my ‘albums’ were. Exile to ‘Yaroom’ usually consisted of a few hours listening to music with those great old ear-muff style headphones on: the kind that not only produced great sound, but blocked out the rest of the world.
I’ve also had many people tell me to ‘get out of their face’, which I always took to mean out of their heads, or out of their sight: though lately I’ve reassessed that, as people tell me I am a close talker.
Maybe I actually was ‘in their face’.
‘Take a hike’ is one of my personal favorites: there is a certain civility to that expression. The speaker is suggesting, I believe, that after some vigorous exercise I may reconsider my position.
The next time I have the chance to take a long hike I promise that I will use that opportunity to fully consider the merits of re-locating to Greenland.

‘Take a Flying Leap’ is another wonderfully description travel recommendation Twenty years or so ago, when hang-gliding was all the rage, there were thousands of people who took that advice seriously. I am not by nature a timid soul, and if the opportunity had presented itself, I might also have taken ‘wing’ – were it not for the lesson provided by my neighbor Dan.
Dan actually took hang-gliding lessons, somewhere in the mountains of Vermont, I think. He got as far as lesson 3 of 5, where they have you literally take ‘a flying leap’. In lesson three you are supposed to jog down a small hill with the glider on your back, hopping up and down like the Wright Brothers early experiments at Kitty Hawk. But Dan got a little more air than he or the instructor expected: in fact his glider caught a good gust of wind and swooped up about 25 feet in the air, then plummeted to earth like a stone. I didn’t actually see it happen, but I heard Dan tell the story as he sat on his couch with his right leg extended and resting on a pillow. His exposed knee, as I remember it, was as big as a basketball.
Despite Dan’s painful experience ‘The Flying Leap’ does at least offer the hope of survival, even of flight, whereas ‘Go Jump In a Lake’, ‘Take a Long Walk off a Short Pier’, ‘Get Lost’ and others of its kind seem to offer no hope at.

My mother tried hard to be constructive when she was frustrated with me. She wasn’t content just to have me leave her sight, but would suggest that during my absence I seek out assistance. ‘Tell It to the Marines’, she’d say, pointing toward the door. At the time though, this advice confused me, as my father was a ‘lifer’ in the Air Force, and for most of my youth we lived on air bases where Marines were hard to find.
I wonder though, if there are any Marines on Greenland?
My father was once stationed on Greenland, and was issued this fantastic coat with a hood that totally encased your head in wolverine fur (or so I imagined). Years later, when he was stationed at the Pentagon, I would often ‘borrow’ that coat when the temperature got below 40 where we lived in Maryland (which was a deep freeze there) and whatever fur that collar was made of, it would drive the local dogs crazy.
You know, now that I think of it, the only way to get to Greenland these days is to take a flying leap, and if you jump in a lake there, chances are that you will have a very hard landing –on ice.
If you take a hike in Greenland you need the usual outdoor gear, plus an expensive sled and a team of dogs. And with all of the effort you have to give to avoiding polar bears and cracks in the ice, there would be very little time left for pondering the great questions of our time.

No, I’ve decided, I am not going to Greenland.
Sorry to disappoint.
But to show my readers I’m not a bad guy, I am going to meet them half way: I am going to go directly to my room and put on my headphones. I’ve got this great new CD of Inuit Love Songs that I can’t wait to listen to.

One man’s exile is another man’s dream vacation.

Fly Paper

Americans are great at names –names that bring to mind all sorts of futuristic, utopian images and advancements. And it seems it really doesn’t matter how large the gap is, between the name and reality.
Take the Sagamore ‘Fly-Over’, for example.

My day job takes me over the Sagamore Bridge several times a week, but despite all the construction going on, the old Escort’s wheel’s haven’t come close to leaving the ground.
In my humble opinion it’s more a ‘Swerve Around’ than a Fly-Over.
Maybe that’s a good thing though. From what I have seen, drivers headed to the Cape are having a lot of trouble with the new swerving over. If their vehicles actually went airborne there’s no telling how bad it could get.
Part of the problem is that they have yet to take the rotary out of the equation –which I thought was suppose to be the whole point. But whatever they are doing traffic is already much worse than before.
Before they began the construction, drivers knew what to expect and could mentally prepare for the rotary for a few hundred yards: as they neared the bridge, drivers would go slower and slower and finally, at the edge of the rotary, they’d come to a complete stop.
Many then had a very difficult time starting up again, and merging in to the rotary traffic. On weekends and holidays traffic often wouldn’t move at all but –on the positive side, with nobody going anyplace accidents were few and far between.

With the new construction however, you don’t have the time to ponder what lies ahead. You’re doing the limit (about 75) when suddenly you run into construction, then encounter a few odd international signs, then the big swerve over, and right after that you run smack-dab in to the rotary.
I’m not showing off my extensive vocabulary here: smack-dab is exactly the right term. Cars slow, swerve, merge and then –smack-dab the car ahead of them, and smack-dab the cars to their right and left.

Smack-dab, smack-dab, smack-dab, screeunch!

Maybe they call it a fly-over because every Friday night the choppers are flying over the scene.
“This is Chip Chapstick high over Three in LiveFiveChopperOne reporting that there’s been another accident at the Sagamore Smack-Dab that has traffic backed up to Portland, Maine”.

I think they should have left well enough alone.
The rotary was working just fine thank you.
For hotel owners the existence of the rotary meant that tourists wouldn’t risk being late and losing their reservations and so would confirm ahead of time.
For permanent residents of the Cape the rotary meant that only so many of those so called ‘summer people’ could actually make it over the bridge every day. And that doesn’t even count the number of people who avoided the Cape altogether because they couldn’t deal with the rotary in the first place.
Let’s be honest: it’s a well known fact that rotary’s scare people in to taking alternative routes. A local member of the Thatched Roof Party has told me on super secret double background that the government is secretly exploring the possibility of using traffic rotaries in southern border states to reduce the amount of illegal immigrants.
Sooner or later though, the ‘Fly-Over’will be completed. They have to finish: the construction company has already spent the money from this job on their next big project – finishing Route 44.
When they do finish though, don’t expect any tangible improvements: because of the elimination of the rotary and all the publicity about this ‘Fly Over’ I predict that even more people are going to drive to the Cape, just to experience the thrill.
Instead of choosing the Cape for their vacation because of its quaint charms and beautiful beaches, they’ll choose to come just to experience the amazing ‘Fly-Over’.
And then Cape businesses will get on board, and begin promoting the Cape like it’s an amusement park.

“This summer”, a dramatic new ad campaign will begin, “don’t just drive to your vacation. FLY-OVER!”

Soon thereafter traffic trying to get to the Cape will become unbearable again, necessitating the creation of more rotaries to scare folks away, followed shortly by more Swerve-Overs to slow them down, more Smack-Dabs for the sake of the local auto body repair shops, and a dramatic increase in Helicopter traffic.
In fact government employment statistics predict that there will be a dramatic need for traffic copter pilots and copter personalities in the next decade, especially on the Cape.
When that happens I am going to bite the bullet and dish out the cash for a tunnel pass. It’s either that or stay on this side of the bridge and amuse myself by watching the tourists taking off and landing.