01-28-2007, 09:27 AM
No, Cindy, I think you were right the first time. Hawaii kills. I have been informally tracking this. We were in Kauai in December, and while we were there, or shortly thereafter or before: 1) a young man who was working on a cruise ship fell or jumped from the top of a waterfall, 2) a lawyer and her cousin slipped and fell 300 feet down while hiking above Opeakaa (sp?) Falls, 3) a man from Alabama drowned trying save a young boy at Lemiwai Beach, 4) A shark took a chunk out of someone, 5) A man in Pahoa drowned in the swimming pool, 6) two people were swept off the cliffs on Kaloli Point and one drowned.
And I am sure scores of people were stung by centipedes. These stings were not reported. They should be. I want stats.
That being said, a lady came THAT close to hitting me on the freeway yesterday in a very big SUV. I was going zero miles per hour in a left hand lane, getting ready to transition to another freeway. I could see the woman in my rear view mirror, talking on her cell phone, looking but not seeing the line of cars stopped in front of her. Thank heavens there was no one in the lane next to us. At the last second, she veered into the other lane, missing me by inches. She almost lost control and flipped her giant SUV. It was so close.
As for me, I don't wish to be stung by a centipede and I don't want to get sick in a hot pond, but I would rather be swept off a cliff by a wave in Hawaii then to die at the hands of an inattentive Southern Californian with a cell phone.
As you mention though, there is peril everywhere. If you just focus on that, you miss everything else. It is only when I am NOT in Hawaii that I focus on those other things. When I am there, I breathe more deeply, I relax, especially when I have just had a lilikoi margarita or something, and I marvel at the great beauty, the aloha, and the wonderful sense of being a world away from the mainland and its crassness and cacaphony.
And I am sure scores of people were stung by centipedes. These stings were not reported. They should be. I want stats.
That being said, a lady came THAT close to hitting me on the freeway yesterday in a very big SUV. I was going zero miles per hour in a left hand lane, getting ready to transition to another freeway. I could see the woman in my rear view mirror, talking on her cell phone, looking but not seeing the line of cars stopped in front of her. Thank heavens there was no one in the lane next to us. At the last second, she veered into the other lane, missing me by inches. She almost lost control and flipped her giant SUV. It was so close.
As for me, I don't wish to be stung by a centipede and I don't want to get sick in a hot pond, but I would rather be swept off a cliff by a wave in Hawaii then to die at the hands of an inattentive Southern Californian with a cell phone.
As you mention though, there is peril everywhere. If you just focus on that, you miss everything else. It is only when I am NOT in Hawaii that I focus on those other things. When I am there, I breathe more deeply, I relax, especially when I have just had a lilikoi margarita or something, and I marvel at the great beauty, the aloha, and the wonderful sense of being a world away from the mainland and its crassness and cacaphony.