Off the Beaten Track: Jules Older

This week, we are delighted to welcome back Jules Older, a travel writer and videographer who hangs out at http://julesolder.com. He opines about San Francisco restaurants and New Zealand life on the apps, San Francisco Restaurants and Auckland Insider. He films the world, in brief snatches at www.YouTube.com/julesolder. And he’s published his first ebook: SKIING THE EDGE: Humor, Humiliation, Holiness and Heart. What Big Teeth You Have! is a chapter in Jules Older’s new ebook, DEATH BY TARTAR SAUCE: A Brave Travel Writer Encounters Gargantuan Gators, Irksome Offspring, Murderous Mayonnaise & True Love. It’s available on all ebook platforms and at jules@julesolder.com.

What Big Teeth You Have!

by Jules Older

“Timing is everything,” I muttered, as I tried and failed to hide the Miami Herald from my wife’s sharp eyes.

“What does it say?” Effin asked, peering over my shoulder. “And what’s up with that gigantic alligator?” She shuddered.

“It’s not an alligator, it’s a crocodile. They're, uh, making a comeback.”

“Where?”

“In Florida.”

“Where in Florida?” She gave her loving husband a look of deep distrust. “Not by chance in the Florida Everglades?”

But the Everglades is just where the crocs were coming back. The Everglades also happened to be exactly where we were headed the next morning. At my insistence. Against her better judgment.

Timing is everything.

We drove in silence toward the Everglades. The road was straight; the surrounding foliage, wet and wild. I kept my eyes on the road; Effin scanned the swamp beside the road like an O’Hare air controller. “Relax, honey,” I said. “No sense worrying about crocs and gators before we even get to the Everglades.”

Never taking her eyes off the swamp, she answered, “I suppose that’s why they call this road Alligator Alley, Mr. Smart Guy.”

“You're overdoing this, Effin. The article in the Herald said they pose no threat to people as long as nobody pesters them.”

“Oh? Then tell me, Dr. Large Reptile Maven, just exactly what constitutes pestering to a 15-foot-long crocodile with a brain the size of a walnut? Tell me that, and I'll stop worrying.”

“In my opinion —”

“Yes, and I'd like your opinion on why these crocodiles pose no threat when crocodiles in Australia are EATING PEOPLE!”

Some husbands take their wives to Disneyworld, some to Gay Paree. In retrospect, it may have been insensitive, even unfeeling, to take mine to a mega-swamp infested with jumbo-sized, snaggle-toothed, carnivorous crocs.

Still, when we reached the Everglades, the first thing I did was march up to the park naturalist and demand, “What threat do these creatures pose to my wife and, incidentally, just in passing, to moi?”

He looked me right in the eye. “None at all, sir; none at all. They’re shy creatures, reclusive reptiles who want to be left alone. They never bother tourists.”

From behind me, Effin muttered, “Uh huh. And what about Australian tourists?”

The ranger smiled, as one might smile at a visitor from a distant planet who was confusing, say, Scandinavian women and Florida manatees. In a soothing voice, he answered, “You must be talking about the Indo-Pacific crocodile. They grow up to 25 feet long and apparently do take their fair share of human lunches. But the American crocodile is smaller and much less of a threat. We’ve never had a problem with crocodiles or alligators here in the Everglades.”

Well, that seemed to cheer her up. And sure enough, the next day, she unbolted the motel’s door and, clutching my arm like a python squeezing the life out of a piglet, allowed me to walk her down to the canal.

“I've got a great surprise for you, honey,” I said. “I've rented a canoe. Now you can photograph all those big tropical birds, up close and personal. Isn't that wonderful?”

OK, maybe I should have thought this out. Maybe I should have considered what else besides big tropical birds she might photograph up close and personal. But she was game — when I climbed into the stern of the aluminum canoe, Effin climbed into the bow. We both started paddling.

Barely half a mile later, she leaned as far back in her seat as the laws of physics would allow, and whispered, “Get me out of here!”

“What’s the matter?”

“It’s a g-giant alligator, and it’s swimming r-right across the r-river!”

“Where?”

Her voice rose to an octave that was only fully audible to bats. “R-r-right in front of me!”

Oops.

Sure enough, a dozen feet of black, glistening gator was swimming in deadly silence a dozen feet from the canoe. “Honey, remember what the ranger said. I don’t think it will hurt—”

“Get me out of here!”

While my bride sat rigid as a hayfork, I began to back-paddle with a vigor I didn’t know I possessed.

As I churned up vast quantities of canal water, I thought, What if the ranger’s wrong?

What if, to a gator, the very sight of us constitutes pestering?

Or worse, what if, to that walnut brain of his, people in a canoe look like a Mars Bar — crunchy on the outside, creamy on the inside?

I kept right on paddling.

Off The Beaten Track: Hawaii Revisited

Palm and ocean and happy kids

This week’s Off The Beaten Track post is by the intrepid Jules and Effin Older. Jules and Effin live at www.julesolder.com. Their apps are Auckland Insider and San Francisco Restaurants. The ebook/ski book is SKIING THE EDGE: Humor, Humiliation, Holiness and Heart. And the new kid’s book is Snowmobile: Bombardier's Dream Machine. Text by Jules Older and photos by Effin Older.

 

On our first trip to Hawaii, our twin daughters were two-and-a-half. On this trip, our grandson Max was two-and-a-half. Max’s mother, Willow, and her sister, Amber, were now 35. And his young sibling, BabyBrotherBen, just turned eight months.

On the first trip, we four — Effin and I and our twin daughters — stayed in a cottage at Puunalu on the (then) largely undiscovered north side of Oahu. This time we eight (add Willow’s husband Leroy and our dear friend Barbara) stayed in a slightly bigger cottage on the south side of Kauai.

Travel with Kids

In some ways travel with kids is harder today. If you intend to drive, you have to lug along awkward, heavy car seats. You have to make your way with kids and car seats and fold-down strollers and disposable diapers through airport security. On the plane, there's much less legroom and even less food.

On the other hand, these days you can rent a van, and you can rent or bring along a portable DVD to keep the kids amused.

Max did pretty well through the taxi to San Francisco, the airport wait, the five-hour flight to Honolulu, the Wiki Wiki bus to the other part of the airport, the two-hour wait for the next flight, the next flight, and half the mini-van ride to our cottage. We made a big deal of driving in a “brand new blue mini-van.”

When the rooster crows at the break of dawn

Hawaiian Meltdown

At precisely the halfway point between airport and cottage, Max went into meltdown. His lower lip quivered ominously. “I w-w-want to go h-h-home.”

“We are going home,” I said brightly. “We’re going to our Hawaii home.”

He wasn't buying. “Want to go to Max’s home. Want to go to MAX’S home!”

He added, more quietly but with some force, “In the blue mini-van.”

“Want to go to Max’s home” was to be his mantra for the next 48 hours. Literally, the next 48.

At 4 a.m., his mother sighed, “So do I, honey. So do I.”

Roseola Rising

Halfway through day three, the whining abruptly stopped. Max was suddenly happy in Hawaii.

That’s when BabyBrotherBen got hot. Hot and cranky. And running a temperature of 102. Followed by spots. Roseola.

Confronted with not one, but two crying nephews at the start of her Hawaiian vacation, Aunt Amber announced she was reducing her own future baby plan from two to one. Or maybe she’d just keep her cat.

As for the grandparents, it had been so long since we’d traveled with young kids, we had to make some adjustments of our own.

Max and his father, Leroy, get in some pool time

Grandparent Adjustment

For instance, I'd automatically brought along a hydration backpack for the hot-weather hikes I'd assumed we’d take. Negatory. No hikes.

Ditto, long bike rides. Ditto, any bike rides. It wasn't until day four that we got in half an hour’s snorkeling.

We, who were so accustomed to roaming free, suddenly rediscovered the TTYO — the tyranny of the two-year-old. You're on his schedule, not your own. You walk to the beach at his pace, not yours, and stop along the way to see the monk seal, to play on the playground, to run around the trees, to ogle the chickens.

Kauai Fowl

The chickens. Kauai is rich in free-ranging, queen-of-the-road, exotically colored chickens and their adorable young broods. And, for better and worse, their mates.

“When the rooster crows at the break of dawn…” was probably written on Kauai. The island roosters — and there are at least 740 of them under my window, alone — all crow at the break of dawn. And worse, much worse, before the break of dawn.

I still don’t know whether the four air-gun shots I heard on day two were real or merely wishful dreaming.

Exploring small creatures in the sand

Pleasures of Child-based Travel

In the end, we adapted. We lived at Max’s pace and simply gave up hiking and biking. And while I'd forgotten that giving-up part of travel with young kids, I'd also forgotten some of its great pleasures.

The feel of a warm baby’s stomach on your palm as he sits contentedly on your lap. The effect of a gecko on two-year-old eyes. The enforced slowing down when you walk at Max’s pace through jungle gyms and “jungles” that are home to geckos and other wild, exotic creatures. Hearing your pre-coffee walk around the cottage rewarded with, “Mommy, we walked through Max’s gate and we saw a gecko. It was green. It was very big. And I was very scared.”

We’ll bike another time. This is good enough.

Off The Beaten Track: Scum! Travel Writer Jules Older

Jules and Effin at the Golden Gate Bridge

Jules Older hangs out at http://julesolder.com. He opines about San Francisco restaurants and New Zealand life on the apps, San Francisco Restaurants and Auckland Insider. He films the world, in brief snatches, at www.YouTube.com/julesolder. And he’s published his first ebook: SKIING THE EDGE: Humor, Humiliation, Holiness and Heart. 

She answered my question with a volume and anger that almost made me drop my plate.

“ARE YOU KIDDING? IT’S ‘CAUSE WE’RE SCUM!” 



“That must be it. Otherwise, I can't for the life of me figure out why more writers don’t become travel writers.”



“Jules, what planet are you from? Travel writers are seen as the scum of the journalism world. We’re lowlifes. Sellouts. Losers, Jules, losers. We’re seen as losers!”



Plate firmly in hand, I pondered this news as I sipped the very nice New Zealand pinot noir and took another nibble of the dainty lamb chop the waitress had handed me. At this gathering for travel writers in the penthouse of a swanky San Francisco hotel, I'd just been invited to tour a few swanky Colorado hotels during ski season. 

“Hmmm,” I said. “Then let’s do everything we can to keep it that way.”

Photo by Effin Older

Scum? Losers? The truth is, travel writing is probably the greatest discovery I've made since I gave up honest work to become a writer, lo these many years ago. I remember the day, the moment, the conversation that opened the world of travel writing to me…and pretty much ruined my academic career. The sudden realization that there were folks out there traveling the world for free and getting paid for it drove me — well, drove me to do it.

And when I gave up academia, I traded in a reliable, regular and rather remunerative check for a drastic pay cut, a complete loss of benefits and zero ability to plan for the future beyond the next two weeks, if that. In short, I walked into the world that 99 out of 100 writers inhabit.

Ah, but not completely. For I had one other thing going for me (and when I say “I” and “me” I really mean “we” and “us:” my writer-photographer wife Effin jumped on this ship right beside me.) The name of the ship: the SS Travel Writer.

Travel writing is what allows us to live, however briefly, like princes of the realm on pauper’s wages. Travel writing lets us jet around like movie stars without the hangers-on, like billionaires without the lawyers. Travel writing has led us on a life of adventure.

And travel writing has introduced me to all kinds of folks I'd never have met on my own, some of whom I've stayed friends with decades later. Folks like…

Dancing kids on Oahu. Photo by Jules Older

…the Newfoundland guide who got us wilderness-lost on skis (and who, despite that, is still a buddy), the Tokyo woman who makes her living curling eyelashes, the Maori hunting guide turned wild-food forager. Then there's the English noble who owns a Caribbean island (hated him on sight), the Hawaiian artist turned academic, the San Francisco Italian restaurateur who turned out to be the cousin of the Vermont Italian restaurateur…




And then there are the moments. Kayaking with humpback whales in Newfoundland. Birding on an island preserve in New Zealand. Swimming with rays in the Virgin Islands. Exploring an ancient Hawaiian cave, a hidden Vermont pond, a struggling Florida town, the most gorgeous beach in the Caribbean. 

And the events. The Fringe Festival in Edinburgh, the Tennessee Williams Festival in New Orleans, the Shellfish Festival on Prince Edward Island, the gloriously musical Winter Festival in Newfoundland. Even the Maple Festival, the Apple Pie Festival and the Granite Festival in small Vermont towns.

If that’s the punishment for being the scum of writerhood, I say, bring on the scum! And could I have just one more of those delightful lamb chops, m’dear?