Thought I should mark the end of a decade and a little, of work.
The Michael Shoemaker book now is in a gedcom. It can be searched, shared and expanded. Sunday night Adam came in to Mike's room to find the book closed.
1,000 pages and 43,143 people entered. Seeing the book completely closed he asked "Is it finally done?" Yes.
Now what do I do when I've got time. Well Andee's dress is almost finished and I think I'll make two more to put in the hope chest.
I've made a few phone calls and have started copying information that others have wanted out of this massive book but couldn't find.
I might even find more time to spend on my radio. I hear there are a few women's only nets for ham radio operators.
It does seem strange to be done. I wish dad were still here, he could have shone me how to share the information more effectively. Just a side note, findagrave.com, has the Glen Spey, Sullivan, New York Cemetery on it. Paul used to mow it. Several of the Gillespie clan are there and someone took a picture of his aunt Blanche's head stone. It was a great find. I love pictures of places that he talked about.

Life is just a great adventure, with a few thorns along the way.

Ok everyone has sunsets on Hawaii, this is a sunrise on our way to Makapuu point.

We figured since this was our last day in Hawaii we should do all we could.

Light house was built in 1909 and became automated in 1974 and the Coast Guard maintains it.

There is a 2 mile hike to the light house and you can see for miles.

Plenty of history around here. There are lots of what look like pill boxes that may have been used for lookout points. This is as far east as you can go on Oahu

Engine #85 100 years old.

After a 4 mile hike we drove to Ewa and found the Hawaiian Railway Society.

Kind of by accident, (it was marked in the GPS) and since we had time we went to find it.

After we arrived here, the place was pretty quiet, didn't look like there was anybody around so we started to take some pictures, when Tom comes out of the work shop, and asks us if we like trains? Umm... we politely said yes and he asked if we got here by accident, we told him we hadn't, we were looking for it.

He was excited to have visitors I guess, because we got the TOUR of the yard and the workshop, as well as a history of the railroad in Hawaii. The Engine above had only been there 3 days, and was a pretty big deal to get it there. It was in CA from 1955 until the early 70's when it was shipped back to Maui for repairs, and sat there for years until the historical society purchased it back and brought it back to Oahu. It will probably not be restored, but repaired and put on display.

If you get to Oahu and want to ride a train look up the Historical Society, and if you see Tom McCarthy say hello to him he is a really neat character.

Thanks Tom

Some people have red headed step children, well Hawaii has red headed birds,
Pretty cool looking

Our last meal in Waikiki, east end of town heading away from the beach, we found this place Burgers on the Edge! Wow we should have found them first! The burgers are great, and don't cost a ton of money.
A definite must, along with Puka Dogs in Waikiki.

New Year 2011

January 1 2011 family time at the Imperial Sand Dunes (known as Glamis)

New Years Eve was a chilly night and after what seemed like forever the sun came up and warmed up a little bit. so we could go riding in the dunes. We make the trip to Patton Valley and let the T-Rex cool down and made a few passes up Patton hill. The DS650 of Adam and Paul is pretty fast (dont tell anyone it is a 720 and worked over a little bit, Shhhhh).

After spanking a few of the faster bikes we went south into the big dunes to do some bowl riding.

We found some good flows into several of the bowls and found a couple of bigger bowls to race around in. Adam Dusty and Paul in the picture above were able to go pretty fast through this one.

Andy was able to get a Kawasaki T-Rex from Dragonfire to do a little R and D (wink, wink) in the dunes. The suspension works real well and soaks up the whoops like a champ, it took quite a bit to get it to bottom out, about 40 mph at the bottom of a bowl.

At the sanddrags.

Most evenings on the bigger weekends people gather together and line the sand highway and watch anyone who wants to drag race the length of the crowd, some where between 1/4 and a 1/2 mile long. This goes on until the sun sets, usually lasts a couple of hours.


During the Day the popular spot is at Patton hill where the time is spent bragging who is fastest and then racing up the hill to prove it. Ben wasn't the fastest but was able to make it up everytime on the 400EX

Here is a sample of how fast the cars are at the drags check out the crowd in the background