On the other hand, this view from Mt Vernon is worth preserving

American NIMBYism runs deep

The Worm Moon, looking intense

Bloodshed in DC last night.

It was the middle of another heat dome week, but the morning was cool enough to require long sleeves. The grass — freshly cut, of course — was covered in dew. In less than 20 minutes one could see sitting on the front porch: several hummingbirds battling around a feeder, two deer grazing just off the gravel driveway, a wild turkey, a rabbit, several blue jays and cardinals; I half-expected Snow White to skip down the forest path and burst into song.

The Broadband internet in West Virginia is not great, but it’s not terrible either. Why are there only 2 million people in this state?

• Southwest Florida is better for a short family vacation than Maui, conditional on the family not owning a private jet.
• Florida sand is superior to Maryland and Delaware sand. For one, it doesn’t collapse as easily; second, it is much easier to clean; ⊕ Sure, volcanic sand sounds cool, but have you tried washing off the glossy black detritus? Not to mention it is much sharper.third, on Sanibel and Captiva islands it is mostly made of quartz and broken down shells and is there anything cooler than that?
• More bird diversity makes for happier humans and while D.C. has a respectable population of birds, it doesn’t come close to Florida with the ospreys and the fish hawks, brown pelicans and roseate spoonbills, white ibises and snowy egrets, sanderlings and sandpipers, ⊕ Although maybe a few too many common grackles. woodpeckers both pileated and downy, and not a robin in sight.
• Is it just me or is sunscreen really so much better now than it was 30 years ago? With UPF swimwear you need less of it anyway, and the little that you do need is easier to apply, lasts longer, and just works better than whatever smelly Coppertone slurry we used in the 90s.
• Beach towels are useless.
• Spending a week in a zip code with no Instacart, no DoorDash, no Uber or Lyft or ad hoc taxis of any kind was refreshing, but I wouldn’t recommend it long-term. Although there was still Amazon next-day delivery and plenty of UPS trucks, so not all was lost.
• Physical books continue being better than e-books; the calculation will change for me as soon as e-book readers solve quick note entry — emphasis on quick.
• Where are all the Nightingales is a great way to start the day, on or off the beach.

• Green, walkable, good coffee, plenty of people on the streets but not crowded. Who knew.
• The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza is very well put together, but it has a remarkable story going for it so it would have been hard to mess it up. Making the audio guide non-optional was a good choice. You can easily spend hours and hours in it: we spent 4.
• Dining was good for the price, but I wasn’t blown away by quality at the randomly selected BBQ places. DC’s Federalist Pig was better than anything we’ve had in Dallas, and the Kalua pork we had on Maui was by far the best.
• That last one may not have been a fair comparison, only having three days to check out the restaurant and spending one of three dinners trying out the impossible burger (which was OK, but I’ll take a well-made black bean burger over it any time).
• There is a proper 7-days-a-week farmers' market that would have reminded me of the one in my home town in Serbia if it weren’t so gentrified (as in, more artisanal coffee stands and hemp candles than produce).
• The hipster breakfast place in downtown Dallas has blue tile and plastic chairs instead of reclaimed wood and old school benches, but don’t let that fool you: they do serve cortados.
• Four stars, will come back.

I’m 12 and the family is taking a summer vacation in sunny Pomorie, Bulgaria. It’s on the Black Sea. The ~400-mile drive in my father’s VW Golf (Mk2) takes close to 12 hours, border check and an interlude in Sophia included. It feels longer: it’s a 3-door hatchback and I’m sharing the back seat with my brother and a suitcase. There are enough groceries in the trunk to last us a week.

We arrive in the early morning and look for a place to stay. Airbnb is 16 years away, but there are vacancy signs posted on private residences all around town. We find one that’s half-built: gray building blocks still visible on the outside and concrete stairs with no railings, but the rooms are actually quite nice and the apartment is self-contained. The owner-slash-proprietor is financing the finishing touches by renting it out. My father approves.

The weather is nice and the beach is crowded. I have a perpetual sunburn. We visit Burgas and Nessebar. Dad almost gets scammed out of all of our German marks by a street money changer. I get a photo taken with a yellow-white python around my neck. We eat at home and take evening strolls up and down what goes for a boardwalk in Pomorie. We ocasionally catch a glimpse of live music from accross a hedge. A few people climb a hillock to watch the concert. I try it once and climb right back down: do I want to spend the evening listening to a Boney M. tribute band?

The drive back through Bulgaria feels faster, but that’s because Dad is speeding. We get caught and the policeman pencils something in on a lemon-yellow card. The next time we stop for gas Dad tries to erase it. He succeeds but the card is now a paler yellow where the marking used to be. They notice this at the border and we stay an extra few hours until they let us through. But then we’re in Serbia and close to home and soon I’ll get back to playing Civilization II and Duke Nukem 3D and Quest for Glory IV so who cares what happened and how we got out of it?

It’s 2019 and I’m the Dad. The family is taking an early summer vacation in sunny Wailea. It’s on Maui. My wife and I take two new credit cards to get enough points to get three tickets for the four of us. A week before the trip we realize I can’t have a 35-pound toddler on me for two 5-hour flights and we buy the fourth ticket. The airline charges for food, so we stock up on snacks to bring on board; I have a Costco membership card in my wallet.

We are in a one-bedrom two-bathroom condo that is bigger than my family home in Serbia. A decorative bowl full of glass balls greets us in the hallway; a large ceramic vase is next to our bed. My wife glances at our jet-lagged toddler, then at me, and I spend the next half-hour lifting fragile items up on top of kitchen cabinets. I go to bed around midnight, which is 6am Eastern Time.

The condo sits next to a golf course and some tennis courts. I don’t play either. There are five beaches within 5 minutes’ driving distance. They are virtually empty save for one, which has a steady stream of snorklers and divers parading up and down. The Costco-chosen guidebook says it’s the best spot on Maui for snorkling lessons, but 18-month-olds can’t snorkle.

The older sibling collects seashells and runs away from waves and builds puddles for the younger one to jump on. She chats up the adults and can carry a conversation better than her dad. We all wear UPF shirts and go through five bottles of Coppertone. We visit Lahaina and Paia and Kihei. We eat at home and take evening strolls through beachside resorts. There are Luaus on every night. The one at the Marriott is there for all to see from a public walkway. It’s the one we attend one night — the pork is good. There is audience participation: children learn the hula, adults blow into a conch shell; one man proposes to his fiance while up on the stage, in front of all us people — it’s a bit corny.

We wake up at 3am and wake up the kids at 4 to drive up a mountain top to see the sunrise. It is 10°C and colder with wind chill, and the sunrise lasts for all of five minutes; the children are not impressed. The other 100 people looking at it seem quite happy. One man proposes to his fiance, on top of that inactive volcano, in front of all us people — it’s quite romantic.

We sign up for an 8-hour van ride up and down a rainforest highway. It takes 12 hours. We are sitting all the way in the back: the older one is sick but doesn’t vomit, the younger one doesn’t say anything but vomits twice. It’s mostly juice and water and doesn’t smell like acid at all so we wipe it up with tissues and wet wipes and don’t ask the driver to stop. The young couple in front of us asks for more air.

The last flight back is a red-eye and the younger one screams for the first hour of the last leg of the journey because i don’t let her play with the restroom faucet. The attendents are out serving drinks so we let her roll around in the back of the plane, head close to the emergency exit door which I eye nervously. They serve us apple juice which she drinks and falls asleep. The older one is excited: there is an Amazon delivery of one toy or another waiting for her back home. She is still tired enough to be sleeping when the plane catches turbulence — the last 3 hours are bumpy. I watch a movie and try to fall asleep.

• Top four South Maui beaches, best one first: Po’olenalena, Keawakapu (a close second), Wailea (only in the afternoons), Mokapu.
• Top guide book is Maui Revealed. NB: Hotel/lodging information is on their app ( Hawaii Revealed), and that part of the app is free.
• Top place for shopping is Paia, especially if you’re into that 21st century hippie aesthetic that’s popular with Instagram influencers these days (though mine being aware of it means it won’t be popular for much longer).
• There is a notable absence of panhandlers. If there are any homeless, they are indistinguishable from a certain type of tourist. Locals are indifferent to appreciative of your business, but they don’t go out of their way to get you to pay for stuff (which is unlike any other tropical/Mediterranean island I’ve been to, but then again I haven’t been to many).
• The sand sticks to anything and everything. There’s enough of it in the car that I’ll happily pay any extra cleaning fees the rental agency will surely charge.
• Prices at low and mid-scale restaurants are same or just slightly higher than D.C. This does not bode well for D.C.
• There are more veterinarian than human hospitals on Maui.
• The one general hospital on the island is Keiser’s Maui Memorial Medical Center. It looks like they have a heme/onc service with an infusion center, so don’t think I haven’t thought about it.
• Only two days left.

• I used to say Maryland was the best U.S. state. I’d like to change that to the best continental state. I don’t know about the rest of Hawai’i but Maui is spectacular. That 50th star should be gold.
• This is why: there are so many things to do on the island that many visitors get a FOMO-induced urge to do as much as possible. That leaves the wonderful beaches mostly empty during the weekdays, when the locals are working, and quite bearable (compared to the Montenegrin beaches of my youth) on weekends.
• There are at least five kid-friendly beaches within a 5-minute drive from our condo. One is a go-to for snorkeling, one if full of sea turtles for those who enjoy swimming around them (which should be everyone with a heart), one is looong, peaceful, with shallow water no waves, excellent shade, and also an occasional turtle (swimming with sea turtles naturally being better when you didn’t even expect to find them).
• “The road to Hana” would be a great find if you had some business to do in Hana, then stumbled into seeing a few waterfalls and making a pit stop at a black sand beach. It’s overrated otherwise, and the poor residents of Hana and central Maui have to deal with droves of slow-moving tourist vehicles looking for the next instagrammable moment.
• Hana highway is also the home to the best vegan ice cream I’ve ever had, so there’s that.
• No, I’m not vegan. Kalua pork is too good.
• Each new state I visit means I get to learn more about American exceptionalism. The story of Hawai’i’s annexation taught me that it’s OK for a private corporation to hold the ruler of an independent nation hostage in order to control the said nation’s resources, as long as the corporation is American and the nation is not European.
• Yes I’ll keep writing Hawai’i.
• It’s also OK to ban the native language and culture well into the 20th century. Safeway came to the islands well before the Hawaiian language was legal again.
• Having said that, there is now also a Walmart and — crucially — a Costco on Maui. Prices are the same or lower than in D.C. That is how you conquer a nation, Serbia.