I returned to Kansas yesterday after 11 days in the Pacific islands-where I worked and/or traveled every day. I made a couple of stops at the Majuro International Airport in the capitol of the Republic of Marshall Islands. no fine dining in the Kwajalein mess hall (but, Caroline Mayhew, there was chocolate milk every meal!). I walked and rode a bike around the atoll, encountered a forest full of butterflies, purchased local crafts in Ebeye (a crowded Marshallese town), walked a causeway between islands to a more rural village with one of numerous basketball goals I saw (this one reminded me of Dr. Naismiths peach basket with a rim cut from the top of a bucket), and snorkeled in the lagoon. Kwajalein was a WW II battle site, with remains of Japanese bunkers and machine gun nests. It is a new perspective on the Pacific War to bike a couple of hundred yards and learn that it took a day of fighting for the Americans to gain that ground, to visit the site where 9 American marine captives had been beheaded, and to read the story of soldiers rushing a bunker while standing beside the remains of the bunker. On Thursday I experienced near record rain-10.75 inches in one day. I also made my Republic of Marshall Islands music debut, playing harmonica in the Protestant service and singing the offertory. In Hawaii it was sky watching eclipses and rainbows and buying a new supply of Aloha shirts in Honolulu Chinatown.
Posted on: Fri, 18 Apr 2014 16:49:45 +0000
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