[Rockhounds] A 2009 Odyssey

[Kitty & Bill Heacox]

Hi List,

Bill has sabbatical leave this semester and since January he’s been 
working on grant proposals and research, and we’ve both been planning 
two back-to-back vacation trips.

The first begins March 1st when we fly to Honolulu (and will see the 
Honolulu Opera’s production of “Carmen.” Gotta have a cultural jolt 
before we leave ;-) ). Then we fly to Hobart, Tasmania for about a week, 
and we’re getting help from Steve (List member, magnet at crocoite.com 
<mailto:magnet at crocoite.com> ) who is setting us up to see some 
collections, do some fossicking (rockhounding), and we’ll visit a Rock 
and Gem Show.

We fly to Melbourne and drive to Coober Pedy for lots of geological 
interest and opal mines. Drive to Adelaide and then fly to Perth. Drive 
to lots of geologically interesting places in Western Australia and meet 
a couple of rockhounds/dealers, including Glenn Archer of 
www.outbackmining.com <http://www.outbackmining.com/> .

Then we'll fly to Wellington, New Zealand to meet old friends from when 
we spent Bill’s last sabbatical in 1996, and check out rock shops we 
know there to see what’s new in the intervening 13 years.

Finally on April 12 (Easter) we board a repositioning cruise (finished 
with summer in the Southern Hemisphere, and heading for summer in the 
North; this makes the cruise much less expensive than a “regular” 
cruise). The ship stops at several South Pacific islands and ends in 
Honolulu, but stops at Hilo…our home town…on April 25 and we’ll debark.

We’ll spend a couple of weeks decompressing at home and then fly to 
Seattle in May for our second trip. We’ll buy a minivan (to replace our 
over 20-year-old Mitsubishi Montero) and some camping gear and go around 
visiting various family and friends in the Pacific Northwest. Maybe 
Ashland, Oregon for the Shakespeare festival (gotta have another culture 
dose), maybe drop by and hassle John & Julie in Santa, Idaho, maybe do 
the same at Port Angeles for John & Gloria Cornish. Go to the San Juan 
Islands and visit Obstruction Island which my parents owned (yep, they 
owned a whole 200 acre island back in the early 1950’s).

We’ll drive the Alcan Highway to Alaska to visit Bill’s younger brother, 
a professional photographer and writer (see www.kimheacox.com 
<http://www.kimheacox.com/> ). In July we’ll take the ferry in Skagway 
and get off five days later in Bellingham. We’ll pack up the camping 
gear (and rocks we’ve collected and bought!) and ship them and the van 
to Hilo. Fly home in time for Bill to resume teaching astronomy at 
University of Hawaii at Hilo.

This is probably the last big trip we’ll take. We’re 66 years old and 
Bill has an artificial hip and I have an artificial knee; we’re doing 
well now, but may have to be more circumspect in the future, both 
physically and financially!

So I’ll be off-duty as Admin Team member and List contributor until the 
end of July (which may be good news for some of you ;-) ). If any of you 
see that our itinerary runs somewhere near you and you’d like us to drop 
by, let me know. And if you are familiar with locations you think we’d 
like to see, please send suggestions.

Aloha nui loa, Kitty