2004 July Hawaiian Tour

My next big travel adventure with my friend Barbie was ten years after our Kodiak, Alaska trip. Barbie had experienced many personal traumas in 2003. She lost her father to dementia. Her husband had lots of medical issues, and she was experiencing difficulties with her grandson, David, whom she and her husband Tom had raised. Barbie said that was the year she had to go on high-blood pressure medicine. Barbie decided she needed a vacation and wanted to go to Hawaii. She called me and asked if I could go with her since her husband didn’t want to travel. I was teaching at Cuyahoga Falls High School, so said it would have to be in the summer, and I hesitated and said, “Really I didn’t think I could afford a big trip to Hawaii right now.”

“No problem,” Barbie said, “I’ll pay for your tour.” I was overwhelmed, but not surprised at my friend’s generosity. I hated to be a moocher, but hey, when would I ever get the chance to go to Hawaii again? I accepted her offer.

Barbie used AAA Travel Tuscarawas to book our “Splendors of the Hawaiian Islands” tour for July 8 through July 21, 2004, with Cosmos Tours. In anticipation, Barbie made me a Hawaiian fleece, tied quilt all in blues and I started shopping for a suitable bathing suit. To me Hawaii meant too much exposed skin, hot weather, and sandy beaches, not really my cup of tea, but I would sacrifice my insecurities about my body image for a trip to Hawaii with Barbie. July arrived and we flew out of the Columbus Airport.

I don’t remember much about the flights except the ups and downs – Columbus to Denver – Denver to Los Angeles – and finally Los Angeles to Honolulu. I remember feeling tired until I looked out the window on our approach to our first Hawaiian island, Oahu. The water below was so different from our great lakes and Atlantic Ocean water. No shades of grays or greens mixed with blues or browns. No, the Pacific Ocean by Hawaii showed off its purest hues of blues. The ocean was not one solid color, it was a rainbow of blues. There would never be enough names for these blues in a box of Crayola crayons. The water was crystal clear, showing no signs of pollution. I was now excited - truly we were landing in a paradise.

Barbie and I got off the plane and walked into the airport feeling anxious and lost. Where do we go next? Where is our luggage? A tall girl, possibly a native Hawaiian, approached us and introduced herself as Dana. She was wearing a long blue dress decorated with large fern leaves, and her dark hair was pulled back, held in place with white flowers. Dana stood a head taller than Barbie and me as she placed two fragrant flower leis around our necks. We started peppering Dana with questions about what and where to go to find our luggage and hotel. Dana laughed and said, “Relax, you are in Hawaii now. Hang Loose!” She made a sign with her hand – thumb up, other fingers tucked in and the pinkie in the air. She moved her wrist back and forth. We tried to imitate this sign and ended up laughing hysterically. We quickly learned that the hang-loose feeling in Hawaii was an island attitude. No hurry, no worry. The laughter brought relief and knew this trip was going to turn out to be fine, just what Barbie needed. I didn’t realize at first just how true this would be.

With Dana’s guidance, Barbie and I settled into our room in the Ohana East Hotel right in downtown Honolulu and within walking distance to Waikiki Beach. The next morning was an informational breakfast where we met our tour director and the other people on the tour. I was surprised to learn that there were fifty people from all over the world in this group. There was a couple from England, a lady from Puerto Rico, a group from Australia and of course others like us from the states. Everyone was happy and chatty as we ate breakfast and went over our itinerary. We had a busy two weeks ahead of us. We liked the fact that there was plenty of free time on the tour or you could pick optional activities, which cost extra money. We didn’t pick too many of these extra tours except for a helicopter ride over the rain forest and snorkeling at Turtle Bay.  

Later that day Barbie and left the hotel to explore Waikiki Beach and do some shopping in the International Market place. On one side of the street, tall white buildings were outlined against the blue sky, on the other side, the white sandy beach held colorful surf boards standing in a row waiting for the waves. It wasn’t too hot, like I thought it might be. We found out that the temperatures on the islands were moderate 70’s and 80’s and there was always a nice breeze. Walking along I spotted an outdoor beverage booth and started the day with a tall fruity drink which was delicious but turned out to be a bad idea. Not too long after that, I had to quickly find a bathroom in a fancy beach hotel, while Barbie had to run back to our room for some fresh clothes for me. I was embarrassed, but Barbie didn’t make a big deal of it and said, “It’s fine, you just over-fruited,” and she was right. I took my trusty Imodium and survived the rest of the trip with no more problems.

The next morning Barbie and I were on our own again. We thought it would be fun to do some shopping, we did a lot of that on the trip. At an outdoor market, we bought ourselves matching Hawaiian muumuus, except Barbie’s was red and mine was blue.  We returned with our purchases to our hotel room and then decided to walk along the beach. We didn’t come across any “private beaches” signs, so just kept walking along the beaches of the Pacific Ocean. What we didn’t know at the time was that Hawaii has no “private” beaches. They belong to everyone to enjoy. I wish the United States would do that. The best coastal beaches in the U.S. are blocked off for the wealthy. As we walked along, Barbie spotted a sign that said, “Outrigger Catamaran tours.” She liked the idea of going out on a boat, but I was skeptical. “Oh, come on,” she said, “it will be fun.” I conceded and we bought tickets for the next tour leaving within an hour.

A catamaran is a sailing vessel which has two front hulls to make it more stable in the water. I felt safe when I saw this. We boarded our sturdy sailing vessel and settled into some bench-like seats. Our shirtless young captain greeted us. He wore a white bandana on his head and blue and white knee length pants which created a sharp contrast to his dark tan chest. He looked like he belonged to the sky and water. The view was great and so was the view of the blue ocean and blue sky with wispy, white clouds.

 We were ready to sail. It was warm, so Barbie and I shed our bathing suit coverups and just enjoyed the taste of sun on our pale northern skin. The wind whipped through my hair, but somehow, despite the wind, my hair looked perfect in the pictures. Amazing! I was happy with my “Hawaiian perm;” my hair never looked better. We sipped on a couple of Mai Tais as we sailed out around Diamond Head. It was like a scene cut out of Hawaii Five-O. The combination of Hawaiian sun, wind, and fantastic views were something I had never experienced in Ohio. Usually I was worried about safety, but I never gave a second thought about not wearing a life jacket, even when we leaned against the ropes on the side of catamaran, our only barrier between us and the ocean, and sipped alcohol. We were having the time of our lives.

The catamaran adventure ended as all good things must end. But we knew that this was just the beginning of our Hawaiian tour. We had a lot more to experience before this trip was over - Three more islands to fly to and miles of roads to cover. We were off to a good start. 

 

Someone's at the Door

 This story was written by my niece, Heather Mikulski. I included it on my blog because it is a "travel" story with Barbie, only told from a different point of view. Thank you, Heather for sharing your story and allowing it to be used on my blog.

Barbie and Aunt Gladys

Someone's at the Door by Heather Mikulski

At the end of 2017, I moved to Barcelona, Spain, for a new job and a new adventure. I was super excited about the opportunity and my family was too. As you can imagine, Barcelona is a popular destination, and it wasn’t long before I had my first visitors! In the spring of 2018, Aunt Gladys, my dad’s sister, and her friend Barb came to visit. They were both in their 70’s but age didn’t slow them down. They were excited and ready for the adventure. 

Barcelona is a city that is full of people, culture, amazing food, history, and life! Something is always going on and I wanted my visitors to experience it all. Even when I was working, my aunt and her friend were out and about, exploring all the wonders of the city. As great as it is, the city can also be very busy. I can remember my aunt telling me that “it seems like at every pedestrian crossing the light was always green, so we never had a minute to stop and catch our breath. We were always on the move; "getting our steps in”. I decided that maybe my aunt and her friend might like to get out of the bustling city, see a new place, and have a little leisure time. This gave me the idea to take a small trip. I did my research and decided that it would be a surprise for my visitors. 

We took a long weekend trip to a little coastal town in Costa Brava called Tossa de Mar. It was the first time visiting this beautiful medieval town for all three of us and we were excited. After a short hour and a half bus ride, we arrived in the little village of just over 5,000 inhabitants. There were many narrow and windy streets packed with local boutique shops and restaurants.

We were in search of our hotel, Hotel Diana, and we put our trust into google maps to guide the way. With luck, we arrived at the hotel and were able to check into our room, which was one of the rooms on the top floor with a private terrace overlooking the sea. The room was perfect, a good size, centrally located, quiet and it had three beds…well almost. Two single beds and a sofa bed.

The first night I took the sofa bed, wanting to make sure my guests were comfortable. It was okay…not that it wasn’t comfortable, but being 5’8”, I was just too tall for this Spanish designed sofa bed. My feet hung off the bottom of the bed from my calves down! Between my tossing and turning and my roommates getting up and down in the middle of the night for the bathroom, it was a pretty sleepless night. My aunt Gladys, being super nice, said to me the next day that she would take the sofa bed that night. I was thankful and relieved. 

After a day of exploring, walking the streets to the medieval part of the town, and enjoying the fresh seaside air, as well as plenty of local Spanish food, we were all exhausted. I was excited for bed. That day the temperature was warm and partly cloudy, but the night was cooler with fresh air coming in off the sea. We decided that we would open our terrace door this night to let the fresh air into our room. Before long, we were all sleeping soundly, including me, in a bed that was just the right size.

Unbeknownst to me, during night my aunt’s friend, Barb, woke up to use the bathroom and decided that she wasn’t really tired, so she was going to sit on the terrace in moon light and listen to the rolling waves of the sea. A short while later, Aunt Gladys also woke up to use the bathroom and before coming back to bed she thought to herself that it was a little chilly in the room, so she quietly closed the terrace door, crawled back in bed, and went to sleep. Given that it was dark in the room, and she didn’t turn on the lights, she was unaware that she had inadvertently locked her friend Barb outside on the terrace. You see, in Spain, the terrace doors do not have handles on the outside, only on the inside. It is impossible to open the door from the outside.

Barb had heard the door close, but she didn’t think anything of it because she wasn’t ready to come back to bed yet and thought she could open the door when she was ready. Just like Gladys, she didn’t realize that the door could only be opened from the inside. It wasn’t until a couple hours later that it had started to rain and naturally, Barb wanted to come back inside. She searched for the door handle and realized that she was locked out. So, she started knocking lightly on the glass door trying to get her friend’s attention but not so loud as to wake me. I was still sleeping at this point and had no idea what was going on. Apparently, Aunt Gladys was woken up by the knocking, but she didn’t know where it was coming from. 

The next thing I know, I was woken up by Aunt Gladys. She was standing over top of me telling me “Get up; someone is knocking on the door. Someone is trying to get in.” In my grumpy and sleepy voice, I told her “Then go open the door!” She said, “No, you do it,” and next thing you know I am opening the main door to our room, and of course, no one is there. 

I asked her where her friend Barb was and that’s when we turned on the light and found her bed empty. At this moment, I realized that Barb was locked outside on the terrace and Aunt Gladys quickly ran over and opened the door. The laughing the ensued from the downright hilarious situation was contagious, but I wasn’t having anything to do with it. I was tired and grumpy, and all I wanted to do was to go back to sleep. 

I said, “we all need to go back to bed.” We quickly got re-settled, closed the terrace door, now that everyone was inside, and crawled back in our beds. As I am trying to get back to sleep, my two roommates couldn’t contain their laughter and little giggles could be heard on both sides of the room. I thought to myself, I am never getting any sleep. After a while they settled down, and just when I was about to drift off, Aunt Gladys suddenly said, “It’s hot in here.” 

                                                View from our hotel room

Heather and Aunt Gladys on the balcony

Barb and Heather on the balcony

Heather and the view of the old castle ruins from the balcony of Hotel Diana

Inside Hotel Diana

View from outside Hotel Diana

 

1994 Kodiak, Alaska Hike

 

                                                              Gladie and Barbie

Barbie and I caught the Continental flight at 6:30 a.m. on Friday, July 29, 1994. We were on the way to Kodiak Island to visit her son Bruce and his wife Dana and their two kids. Bruce was in the Coast Guard and stationed on the island. Our trip took at least twelve hours and included four flights – Cleveland to Denver, Denver to Seattle, Seattle to Anchorage, and a one-hour flight on a small plane from Anchorage to Kodiak Island. Barbie had triple-A plan the itinerary through Jensen Travel and it cost $850 round trip. When we landed on Kodiak, Dana, Barbie’s daughter-in-law, was there to meet us in the airport that hardly seemed big enough to be an airport – a stuffed grizzly bear loomed over us as we walked through the small waiting area. Alyssa and Tommy, Barbie’s grandkids, ran up to give us hugs, but her son Bruce was still out on the ship. He would be back in Kodiak on Sunday.   

     We were tired and excited as Dana loaded us into her car and drove to their house on the Coast Guard base. I had my large VHS video recorder and aimed it out the car window to record the Alaska scenery as we drove along the one main road on the island. This recording turned out to be totally boring, trees and brush rushing through the picture, and I learned never to do that again. It’s hard to remember what we did the first night, but I suppose we went to bed early on the pull-out sofa bed that Barbie and I shared. It was still light outside because in the summer it was daylight till well past midnight.

    Due to the difference in time zones, Barbie and I were up early and sipping coffee in the little kitchen. Everyone else was sleeping in on a Saturday. The small Kodiak newspaper was sitting on the counter, and I picked it up to read the front page. “Hey, Barbie, look at this! There is a hike to a lake today with the Kodiak Audubon Society. Listen to this: ‘After crossing a salmon stream at the end of Anton Larson Bay, participants will cross a salt marsh and hike up through the high grass to this hidden lake.’ Doesn’t that sound exciting? We should go!”

    Barbie took the paper, read the article and added, “Look, there’s a phone number to call.” She picked up the phone in the kitchen and dialed the number. I heard her talking and writing down information. She hung up the receiver. “The guy in charge of the hike is going to pick us up at 8:30 so let’s get ready.”

    I put on jeans, a T-shirt, and my bright yellow Kent State windbreaker jacket and of course my hiking boots. I had bought these rugged, thick-soled boots just for this trip and it was my first chance to wear them. Barbie put on jeans, a sweatshirt with a picture of a sheltie dog, after all she bred and trained shelties, and grabbed a light jacket. We packed some snack bars, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and bottles of water into a “Tweedy-bird” knapsack that belonged to her granddaughter. Then we sipped on our coffee and waited for our ride into the unknown Alaska wilderness. I was ready with my new hiking boots. I don’t remember if we left Dana a note. She claims we didn’t and had just disappeared that first morning. No search party was sent out, so I guess she figured we couldn’t get too far away on the small Island.

    Hans Tschersich picked us up at 8:30. He was a little older than us, bald on top with a graying beard, but he looked fit in his shorts and a T-shirt. I liked Hans right away. He was from Germany and spoke with the familiar German accent that reminded me of Max, our exchange student who lived with us in 1989. It was a foggy morning and Hans explained that others may not show up for the hike because of the fog. I said that it was going to lift, and it turned out, I was right. But still it was just the three of us, Hans, Barbie and me, going on the hike to the hidden lake.

    After about a twenty-minute ride, Hans parked the car by the side of a dirt road. We got out and followed him onto a path. The foggy air didn’t dampen our spirits. Barbie and I were ready for this hike. We followed Hans across flat land, the salt marsh then and came to a wide, but shallow stream. Not certain what to do, we stopped. Hans kept going and waded across the stream and called to us to follow him. Barbie and I looked at each other. I took off my socks and boots, held them high and waded across. Barbie took off her tennis shoes and socks and followed me. The cold water was up to our knees, and we cringed but laughed as we made our way over to Hans waiting on the other side. We sat down and put our shoes and boots back on. 

    As we continued walking, Hans explained that he was a doctor on the island and had moved to Kodiak about five years ago. He liked it here and didn’t want to return to Germany. A steep incline loomed straight ahead, and I was dismayed to discover that the path led up the side of what looked like a green mountain. The article was accurate, there was tall grass all around us as we followed the path upward. Barbie and I stopped to rest often, looking around and taking pictures. I was using a throw-away panoramic camera.  Hans was way ahead of us and often disappeared from our sight and then reappeared to check on our progress. Once when Hans reappeared Barbie asked, “We only have one hill to climb, right Hans?”

    Hans answered, “Ya, we only have one hill to climb.” 

    The day grew more luminous as the fog lifted. The length of time we spent hiking up the hill was infinite, an hour or two is a guess. Reaching the top of our incline, Hans reappeared and led us further along. Then, just as he had promised, a hidden alpine lake came into view, a clear mirror of water reflecting the blue cloud studded sky and green hills all around. The sun was shining on our faces as we stood and admired the majestic hidden lake.

    Hans decided to go swimming and I shivered at the thought. Barbie and I sat down on a grassy spot by Cascade Lake and pulled out our peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. All we could see was Han’s head sticking out of the water in the distance. We watched to make sure he didn’t disappear. After all, he was our guide. We didn’t want to lose him.  Hans came out, dried off, and sat by us. He brought out his lunch and shared it with us.

    It was time to hike back down. This should be easier I thought. Hans had a little video camera with him and filmed Barbie and I as we waved to the camera and started our descent back down to the salt marsh and salmon stream below. Hans filmed us as we crossed back over the salmon stream, laughing joyously as Barbie splashed me with the clear Alaskan water. Hans was busy recording the salmon swimming upstream. They reminded me of wind-up toys as they wiggled side to side with all their might. What a joy to watch.

                                   Looking back down to where we started at the salt marshes

    Our spirits mingled with the land of Kodiak during the hike. Our feet had traversed this ancient island that had originally been inhabited by Alutiiq natives for over 7,000 years. We had traversed through a salt marsh, over a salmon stream and up an old bear trail on the side of a small mountain - fortunately not encountering any bears. We had reached the shores of an alpine lake. Our lives were enriched from this adventure.

            A look back at the old bear trail we took up the "mountain" (aka tall hill) that we climbed

    Hans drove us back to the Coast Guard base. Dana was glad to see us, and we had lots to tell her. Alyssa was glad to get her Tweedy bird knapsack back in one piece. The story of our hike doesn’t end here. Unbeknownst to us, when Hans had disappeared ahead of us, he was secretly recording our progress on the hike. That evening Hans came over and presented us with a VHS tape that he had made. It was and still is amazing for that time period in 1994. Hans added Enya music to the video and caught the joy on our faces as we crossed the salmon stream and discovered Kodiak Island firsthand. We were thrilled. Barbie sent Hans a bottle of wine from Amish country when we got home.

    We will never forget this amazing day on Kodiak Island and so thankful to be able to revisit this memory.

    The tape from Hans was not lost. I kept it for years and later transferred it to a digital format and placed it on YouTube where you can watch it now. The link is below. 

https://youtu.be/TpJ6qXWFhTU

Before We Traveled

 

Barbie's Graduation Picture

“Traveling leaves you speechless, then turns you into a storyteller.” ~ EBN Battuta

 “Hey, Kid, do you want to go to Alaska?” This question came up during a phone call from my best and oldest friend, Barbie. It was the year 1994.

Without even thinking about it, I answered, “Are you serious? Yes, of course, that would be great. When?”

 “Good. I’ll call triple A and get our plane tickets. I want to go and visit Bruce and Dana on Kodiak Island in June. Tom doesn’t want to go so I figured that I would ask you if you can get off work for a week. I knew you would want to go.”

 Oh my gosh! We were going to Alaska. Although I didn’t know it in 1994, this was the beginning of my many travels with Barbie. For the next twenty years, we continued to share adventures by land, air, and sea until the covid 19 pandemic put an end to our travel fun. I want to tell the stories about our adventures, but before I begin, the reader needs to understand my deep connection to Barbie and the story of our friendship that has remained unbroken throughout the years.

 In the 1940s and 1950s, Barbie and I grew up in Bedford, Ohio where we lived on the same small street. She was an only child and lived with her mom who had diabetes, and with her dad, who was a bartender. They lived in an upstairs apartment in a two-story home right next to the railroad tracks. Barbie’s whole house shook when the steam locomotives rumbled by on the tracks. Barbie was three years older than me, closer to my sister Betty’s age, but for some reason decided to befriend me instead of Betty. She said that she liked me better and I became her little sister. Still to this day, I don’t know why I was so lucky.

 Barbie was, and still is, energetic, a real “go-getter.” She participated in many school activities like Girl Scouts and Rainbow girls. She loved animals and had a little dog named Mert, a skinny terrier that she dressed in a coat and little rubber doll boots in the winter before taking it for a walk. Barbie was perky with short blonde curls and an unending supply of laughter. She had a slim waist that curved into two wide hips. Later she said these hips were perfect for when she had her twins. She could rest one on each hip. But I’m getting a little ahead of the story.

 During the summers off school, I liked to sleep in, read a book or do nothing – the opposite of Barbie. She would come up to my room and shake me awake. “Come on! Get up, sleepyhead!” she coaxed as she dragged the covers off me. “We’re going for a hike. It’s a beautiful day.” I moaned and groaned but always crawled out of bed and went with Barbie. I didn’t want to miss out on whatever adventure she had planned. Often, we walked along the railroad tracks picking wild strawberries, hiked in the Bedford Glens, and dug clay out of the creek banks. We jumped rope, double-Dutch in the middle of the street. We played games like hopscotch, badminton, and jacks. Barbie introduced me to a multitude of active skills. If I understood the concept of admiration at that age, I might have said I admired Barbie. As a kid, I only knew that I wanted to be around her.

 When I was about five or six, Barbie taught me how to ride a bike. She started me out on her tiny two-wheeler bicycle with no training wheels. I was wobbling along just getting my balance when a car came around the corner on our street and almost ran me over. That scared me, so Barbie tried another tactic. She took me to the top of a hill on a paved street and told me that if I rode down the hill the bike wouldn’t fall over, and I would be able to ride a bike – very easy. I believed her, took a deep breath, and pushed off down the hill, or maybe Barbie pushed me off. But she was right, I didn’t fall over, and then I could ride a bike.

 When I was in ninth grade, Barbie and I both went to Bedford High School. She was a senior and ready to graduate that year, while I was a mere freshman in my first year in high school. We walked together to school each morning and had to pass a gas station where two young men watched us sashay by each day. One morning, one of the guys wolf whistled as we passed the station. Barbie stuck her nose in the air and ignored them, but I looked to see which guy whistled. That day at school Barbie passed me a note and wrote how she thought the one guy was so good looking. 

Now remember I was a fourteen-year-old teen, so did not put a great deal of thought into what I did with that note. For whatever strange reason, after school, I decided to go to the gas station and sell the note to the guy who whistled at Barbie. He paid me fifty cents. That note led to him asking Barbie for a date and the fifty cents led to me buying two butterscotch sundaes.

 Barbie continued dating the gas station guy, who turned out to be Tom Richards from West Virginia. On Barbie’s graduation day, she surprised me with the news that she and Tom had run off to West Virginia and gotten married, by changing the date on her birth certificate. They didn’t want her parents to know until she turned eighteen. After her graduation things changed, Barbie’s dad left her mom for another woman. Barbie’s mom then went to live in southern Ohio by her mom, Barbie’s grandmother.  At the same time, Barbie left our neighborhood to go and live her life with Tom as a married woman. What happened to that note, you wonder? Well, Tom kept it in his wallet till the day he died. By then it was worn thin and barely legible. After all, they were married for over fifty years.

Our lives moved forward, and I grew up. Barbie and I always kept in touch with each other. Barbie had four kids in two years. A two-year-old daughter, Little Barb, and a one-year-old son, Mitch, were waiting when she came home from the hospital with fraternal twins, a boy, Bruce, and a girl, Amy. They were living in Aurora when Barbie decided to take her kids and move south to Uhrichsville to live by her mom and grandmother because it was cheaper to live down there. Did I mention how independent Barbie was? She told Tom he could come live there too if he wanted to, so he did. Tom got a job working on the railroad. They now lived ninety miles away from me.

 Meanwhile, I married at age nineteen and tried to keep up with Barbie by having four kids, two girls and two boys, but it took me five years instead of three. The fact was, I could never keep up with Barbie, not even today. My life followed a different path. Instead of staying married, I divorced my husband and started a new chapter in my life. None of that mattered to our friendship. Throughout the years we continued to stay in touch. Barbie continued to teach me new things and still wouldn’t let me sleep in. I can’t imagine what my childhood, or my adult life, would have been like without her, less exciting for sure, as my life was never boring alongside Barbie.

Back to the year1996, when Barbie and I were planning our trip to Kodiak, Alaska to visit her son, Bruce and her daughter-in-law, Dana. They had fraternal twins too, Tommy and Alyssa. Bruce was in the Coast Guard which was the reason they were living in Kodiak. I was super excited about taking a trip to Alaska, especially with Barbie. I knew we would have a good time and wasn’t wrong. So began “trip one” of my travels with Barbie.