Emmeline B. Wells (February 29, 1828 — April 25, 1921) was the fifth General Relief Society President from 1910 until her death, the chief editor of the Woman’s Exponent newspaper from 1877-1914, a poet, an early advocate for women’s rights, and a mother of five daughters.
Explore the links below to learn more about the life and accomplishments of this great and formidable lady:
A Helpful Guide to the People of the Northwest may be a local advertising campaign, but it’s a very clever one. I’m a Blackberry Hunter (#73) and Patches Pal (#82) and used to work for Recumbent Bike Commuter (#15), while The Gimlet uses a supply of blue tarps (#60) to keep his scouts dry. How many neighbors do you recognize?
The Gimlet is away on a business trip over Valentine’s Day, but with Hawaii in our recent past (so recent that I haven’t finished writing the travelogue posts), and dates to see two Jane Austen stage plays (Sense and Sensibility and Persuasion) in our near future, it’s hard to complain about his absence this weekend. Very easy to tease him mercilessly about it, to be sure, but hard to genuinely complain. After all, when you’ve been married as long as we have, holidays make up only a small part of life; there are more important things to worry about, et cetera.
So on the morning of the 13th, this tall box appears on the back porch. I’m not expecting any large packages, so at first I assume it must be for a neighbor. But no! Anticipating his absence, The Gimlet ordered three dozen red roses — making this the first time he’s ordered flowers for Valentine’s Day — and even more impressive, this is the first time he’s managed to keep a secret!
After nearly eighteen years of marriage, The Gimlet can still completely surprise me. And that’s pretty neat.
Rather than try to catch a glimpse of everything on Oahu, Team Gimlet chose a few attractions and gave ourselves plenty of time to enjoy them. In Honolulu we spent an afternoon at the Bishop Museum exploring Hawaiian history and culture, and spent some time at the Aloha Tower Marketplace, seeing the sights and feeding the fish in the harbor. We also drove up to the Nuuanu Pali lookout where we admired the views and did our best to keep from being blown off the cliff by the strong wind.
By far, the highlight of our time on Oahu was the Polynesian Cultural Center (PCC), which the senior members of Team Gimlet enjoyed so much that we took advantage of the three day pass with admission and visited twice.
The Polynesian Cultural Center is located in the tiny town of Laie on Oahu’s North Shore, about an hour’s drive away from Honolulu (but be prepared for more than an hour, depending on traffic conditions).
The PCC opens at noon, so we took our time driving there, stopping at North Shore beaches to watch the surfing, pointing at familiar sights from LOST (we even saw a few cryptic signs pointing to unidentified filming sites in progress), and walking around the grounds of the LDS temple and BYU-Hawaii. At one beach we saw a Boy Scout troop had set up their tents, a much different style of winter camping than what the Gimlet is used to.
It’s a little difficult to explain the enormity of a PCC visit: Large-scale productions like the Rainbows of Paradise canoes, the luaus, and the evening pageant coexist with smaller cultural demonstrations and shows in the eight island villages, as well as many opportunities to meet one-on-one with representatives from the different Polynesian nations. We chatted with the members of the Fiji village, and when we found we had a canoe tour all to ourselves, we spent the time getting to know our friendly guide.
We opted to splurge on an upgrade to the Ali’i Luau before the evening show, and were very glad we did. The reception, entertainment, and food were first-rate, making the day especially memorable, and were a great way to finish our Hawaiian vacation.
All too soon it was time to pack up and return to a dark, 30° Seattle January. Unfortunately we have no photos to commemorate the event, but on the last few days of our stay, our most senior team member donned a short sleeved shirt! He was also heard to say, “I could get used to a place like this.”
We had a wonderful ten days in Hawaii. One of our guidebooks recommended spending one week per island as a bare minimum, and we could have easily added a few days to each island’s itinerary. We saw many other family groups on vacation, and would love to have an extended family vacation here some day.
Our senior team member took one last GPS reading from the highway on the Kohala Coast before the short drive south to the Kona airport.
The north Kohala coast is naturally quite arid and rocky; the resorts have brought in the palm trees, flowers, and other greenery to create a paradise for the tourists. The Pu’ukohola Heiau National Historic Site provides an authentic look at the history of this region of the Big Island, with a massive stone heiau (temple) built by the order of King Kamehameha the Great from 1790-91 and a submerged heiau dedicated to the shark gods. We weren’t able to visit the site on this trip, but we had seen it several years ago with Thing One.
We had rented an SUV on the Big Island in order to make the challenging drive up to Mauna Kea’s summit, and since we had no high adventure in mind for Oahu, we thought we could rent a sedan instead. The auntie at the rental car kiosk noticed the senior members of Team Gimlet, and when she learned that The Gimlet was taking his in-laws on a Hawaiian vacation, she was so impressed with this dutiful son-in-law that she gave him a complimentary upgrade to a minivan. (“They deserve to ride in comfort!” she said emphatically.) It was much more comfortable!
We had originally intended to stay in one of the resorts on Waikiki Beach to show the contrast between the laid-back Big Island and the bustling tourist mecca, but changed our plans to try out a pair of timeshare properties some distance out of town at Ko Olina.
While the manmade beaches were postcard-perfect tranquil and the property was lovely (the senior members of Team Gimlet especially enjoyed the walking paths along the shoreline), at the time we went much of the area was under construction, so the experience was marred by construction noise and traffic. We also would have liked to have been much closer to the attractions in Honolulu; everything we wanted to see and do was a lengthy drive from Ko Olina.
However, on a positive note, we became addicted to the fried banana pies from the nearby McDonalds and dearly wish our local franchise would include a little aloha on their menu. Even our most senior team member was willing to pass through the golden arches for a taste of deep fried tropical paradise.
Now that we were in a new location, it was time for a GPS reading from Ko Olina.
Note that underneath the ever-present utility vest, the heavy sweater, thick flannel shirt, and thermals have given way to a lighter-weight (but still long-sleeved) shirt. Could it be that this balmy January weather is really here to stay?
After a few days on the windward side of the Big Island, it was time to visit the beaches on the leeward side. Team Gimlet would spend the next few days at the Waikoloa Beach Marriott on Anaehoomalu Beach on the Kohala Coast.
The hotel restaurant was lovely, but with views like these from our rooms, room service won out most of the time. While some of Team Gimlet were content to sit in the sunshine on the beach, or occasionally take a dip in the bathtub-warm water, The Gimlet enjoyed snorkeling, where he saw several kinds of fish and swam with a sea turtle. Meanwhile, our senior team member continued to warn us that it was still January, and wore his trusty sweaters and thick flannel shirts in case of an abrupt temperature plunge.
Originally a place of refuge for lawbreakers seeking sanctuary, this lovely park still has a spirit of peace and renewal. Several green sea turtles were basking around the beach, and tiny tidepools were full of little fish and other sea creatures. We followed the self-guided walking tour through the park, exploring the royal and ceremonial structures at our leisure.
We could have easily spent another few days on the Big Island, both visiting other regions of the island we weren’t able to see on this trip, and relaxing on the beautiful, warm beaches.
When we were planning this vacation, our senior team member asked his doctor if it would be safe for him to go to the summit of Mauna Kea. His doctor’s response? “Life is for living!” And having survived his afternoon lava hike, he was eager to give Mauna Kea a try.
The Saddle Road is the way to get to the mountain – about an hour’s drive from Hilo or about two hours from Kona. For driving up the mountain, a 4-wheel drive is essential: most of the road is paved, but there are some lengthy stretches of gravel, and the entire eight mile drive from the visitor station to the summit is very steep, narrow, and full of switchbacks. The guidebooks strongly recommend spending at least half an hour at the visitor information station, located at 9,200 feet, to adjust to the altitude. A longer stay is recommended if possible; there are several films and short walks around the station to help pass the time. We stayed about 45 minutes, sipping hot chocolate and watching the movies, until the sunset tour vans began to arrive.
On the drive up, we saw a few of the rare silversword plants, but no invisible cows … that’s why they’re called invisible …
Best road sign ever
The higher we climbed, the rocky landscape became covered with quite a bit of snow. At one turnout in the road, a small truck was parked and two guys were shoveling snow into the pickup bed to take it back home.
We'll get there when we get there
When we arrived at the summit, there were a few other scattered visitors, but we pretty much had it all to ourselves, which was nice.
The most memorable GPS waypoint of the entire trip
The Gimlet, proving himself as stubborn as our senior team member in his own way, insisted on wearing a short-sleeved aloha shirt at the snowcapped summit, because “We’re in Hawaii!”
We left the mountain before sunset, because we weren’t sure we could find the narrow, steep road in the dark.
We spent another 45 minutes or so at the visitor station to settle our high altitude wooziness before continuing along the Saddle Road through rolling Waimea pasture land to the Kohala coast.
If we return to Mauna Kea, we would bring lunch with us to eat at the visitor information station, thus providing more time to acclimate, and visit early enough in the afternoon so we could tour the observatories which offer tours. A guided sunset and stargazing tour would be fun, too. The video below shows the spectacular night sky as seen from Mauna Kea.
After a good night’s sleep and breakfast, Team Gimlet spent one day exploring Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, home to Mauna Loa and Kilauea volcanoes.
When Mark Twain visited Kilauea in 1866, he described the caldera as “a scene of wild beauty”:
“Through the glasses, the little fountains scattered about looked very beautiful. They boiled, and coughed, and spluttered, and discharged sprays of stringy red fire … We had circles and serpents and streaks of lightning all twined and wreathed and tied together … and it was with a feeling of placid exultation that we reflected that many years had elapsed since any visitor had seen such a splendid display …” (Roughing It In the Sandwich Islands, ch. 11)
The caldera hasn’t erupted since 1982, so these days one must be content with dodging the relentless flow of fellow tourists which erupts from the buses circling the park.
Our first stop was the park headquarters and visitor center, where we watched a short film about volcanic eruptions and safety. We remembered a story about the senior Gimlet-in-law’s uncle: (more…)
Emmeline B. Wells (February 29, 1828 — April 25, 1921) was the fifth General Relief Society President from 1910 until her death, the chief editor of the Woman’s Exponent newspaper from 1877-1914, a poet, an early advocate for women’s rights, and a mother of five daughters.
Our first stop was the park headquarters and visitor center, where we watched a short film about volcanic eruptions and safety. We remembered a story about the senior Gimlet-in-law’s uncle: 
