Articles by mgedwards

Tortured by Barney

Dear Reader, I don’t have much time to write today, because we’re getting ready to leave Hawai’i tomorrow.  Consequently, I thought I would share a random, drive-by thought with you.  Could you imagine being incessantly subjected to the voice of Barney, 24/7?  All hours of the day, non-stop?  I was sitting with my son this morning watching children’s television.  We initially watched "Barney & Friends" featuring Barney the Dinosaur.  In my humble opinion, Barney’s voice has to be one of the most annoying voices of all time, ranking right up there with Jar Jar Binks of Star Wars fame.  What do children see or hear in this purple anthropomorphic Tyrannosaurus Rex dinosaur that they enjoy so much?  I would rather be subjected to The Wiggles for an entire week than Barney for five minutes.  I even read that Barney’s voice has been used as a method of torture "lite" (whatever that means) in Guantanamo Bay’s prisons.  Enough said.
 
I couldn’t help but wonder who does the voiceover for Barney, so I did a little investigating via Wikipedia.  According to Wikipedia, Bob West provided the voice of Barney until 2002, when he was replaced by Dean Wendt.  I wondered, how can these guys live with themselves?  How do the ones they love put up with hearing their voices when they sound so much like Barney the Dinosaur?  While I realize that these actors do voiceovers of Barney and contort their voices to become the verbal manifestation of that annoying pain in the Jurassic, I can’t help but think that their real voices must not be much different from Barney’s (like Pee Wee Herman, aka Paul Reubens).  Do they realize how much how much pain their voices elicit in the name of entertaining children?  It’s a Faustian bargain, I tell you.

The “wow” factor

I have an unscientific way to measure satisfaction with a travel destination that I call the "wow" factor.  What’s the "wow" factor?  It’s how many times you say "wow" during a given trip at a given location.  Kaua’i Island thus far has elicited more "wow"’s from us than any other destination we have been to since we traveled to Egypt in early 2002.  The island is absolutely fabulous, and we haven’t even seen the two most famous natural attractions, Waimea Canyon and the Na Pali Coast.  We’ll see those tomorrow and Saturday.  Today we headed north up the coast to Princeville and the end of Highway 56.  The scenery was breathtaking.  While I am still partial to the Big Island, I am growing more and more impressed with this island.  It is well deserving of the name "The Garden Island."  I will post some photos in the next few days.  Suffice it to say, I/we said "wow" at least a couple dozen times in the span of two hours.  The lush foliage and dramatic landscape is quite a sight to behold. 
 
We may yet develop "Yet another" syndrome, a condition where you are no longer impressed with what was once impressive.  For example, in Egypt, we developed "yet another 5,000 artifact" syndrome, and on Maui Island, we fell victim to "yet another pretty waterfall" syndrome.  I doubt we will experience this feeling on Kaua’i Island.  We won’t be here long enough, and the scenery yet to come is legendary for being some of the most beautiful and dramatic in the world.  Just watch "Jurassic Park" or "King Kong" for a peak of what is to come.

Kaua’i is cool

Dear Reader, we arrived in Kaua’i Island this morning and will stay for three days.  We really appreciate my brother and sister-in-law putting up with us for the past week while we lounged around their house and neighborhood.  Kaua’i is meant to feel more like a vacation.  We’re staying at the Aloha Beach Resort in Kaap’a, a town north of Lihue, Kaua’i’s largest city.  Tomorrow we plan to drive along the north shore of the island, and on Friday we will drive south to Port Allen and take a catamaran cruise along the Na Pali (western) Coast of the island.  Some of the best scenery on Kaua’i Island is located along the Na Pali Coast, and it’s inaccessible by car.  I really wanted to visit Ni’ihau Island, the forbidden island off the west coast of Kaua’i, but we won’t have time to take a cruise there on this trip.  On Saturday, we will end our trip to Kaua’i by visiting Waimea Canyon, the most famous attraction on the island.  
 
We haven’t seen much of the island, but my initial impression is that it feels more rural and secluded than O’ahu, Maui, or the Big Island.  It’s also much cooler here in eastern Kaua’i than on O’ahu, perhaps because this is the windward (rainy) side of the island, and the island features the wettest spot on earth.  It certainly is lush, but believe it or not, my Hawai’ian shirts and sandals just aren’t warm enough to keep me warm.  Excuse me while I leave this breezy outdoor lounge and head to my warm room!