I Love You, California!

Will and I live in Saint Louis Heights, Honolulu. It's a neighborhood situated within a mountain range. Just to the West of us is a valley called Manoa, part of which we overlook from our home. Nestled all the way in the back of Manoa Valley is Manoa Falls, Oahu's tallest waterfall. It's about a mile trek back into the valley, and though it's right in the city it feels like a world away. Jurassic Park and Lost have even been filmed back here! Despite living about 5 minutes away from the falls, we'd still never made the journey all the way back, so now that Will was finally home and I was healthy again we went adventuring! Walking through the valley. Crossing the stream. Entering the bamboo forest. We made it to the falls! You can kind of see the falls in the background. About to walk through the tunnel tree on our way back. yikes! Low clearance! We came home for lunch, did a little work around the house for the day, went

*Guest post by Will* Arrived in Brizzy on the 17 th , stayed overnight and went first thing in the morning to get the phytosanitary certificate for my seeds, so that I could carry them in my luggage to Hawaii. This certificate is necessary for importation into the US, and is given by the Australian equivalent of the USDA after a very detailed inspection where they examine random samples of seeds to ensure there are not insects or microbiota that could become problematic if introduced in another ecosystem. Fortunately the inspection went well. Quite fortunate indeed, because it turns out that while the Aussie inspector looked at a sample from the total lot of seeds, the American inspector that examined the seeds upon my arrival looked at every single one of over 2,000 seeds under a microscope to ensure there were no potentially invasive bugs or fungus! And so ended a wonderful adventure: me with a hard won bag of tree seeds, and a couple of fun pictures, memories, a

*Guest post by Will* Time to depart Mauritius for Brisbane. I was required to return to Brizzy for a day to obtain a phytosanitary certificate for all the seeds I collected in Australia. During a layover at the Perth airport in the middle of a complete day’s worth of travel, I learned about the quokka, certainly one of the most independently enthusiastic and photogenic of animals that I’m aware of. The Mauritians are quite infatuated with the Dod as imagery Quite infatuated Search google image for "quokka" if you'd like picture of sheer animal joy Hell yeah Seriously, hell yeah. This was a lot of work, to put it mildly

*Guest post by Will* Having seen all of Mauritius that I needed to see in order to accomplish my work goals, I took this day to explore the island on my own. I visited Casela, a wildlife park with a bit more animal accessibility than is allowed in our litigious homeland. At Casela I got the chance to view: ·       local monkeys getting mischievous in their enclosure ·       dozens of exotic bird species ·       roaming peacocks ·       giant tortoises (including one who couldn’t get unstuck from a corner) ·       tigers ·       lions ·       ostrich ·       and some farm-type animals such as goats and rabbits Most notable: I got to go in an enclosure and pet adult and juvenile lions! Following Casela, I took the opportunity and my rental car to explore Port Louis, the largest/capital city in/on Mauritius. I strolled for the most part, and happened upon several shops pedaling a local craft: miniature replicas of European oce

*Guest post by Will* Another Mauritian morning, another island-infused British-style breakfast before connecting with Vinah. Today we toured the far northern reaches of the island, again inspecting and viewing many thousands of pongamia trees. The number of pongamia trees on this island is genuinely remarkable. As we did yesterday, we mixed in short stops at some notable local spots: ·        Extinct volcano caldera ·       Historical locations in small villages ·       The famous Notre Dame Auxiliatrice church on the north shore of the island ·       A Tamil Hindu temple complex where the resident holy man chanted a prayer specially designed to bring success to TerViva and me ·       The Bois Cheri tea plantation ·       Most notably: an exceptionally large Hindu religious complex, including a 108 foot tall statue of Shiva, fishing cats, itchy monkeys and snoozing pups At the religious site there were many statues depictin