As our Hawaiian vacation begins to wind down--meaning that we may be near the end of these insufferable posts about how much fun I'm having here in paradise--I want to take a few moments to write about my wife. Just after we arrived in Hawaii, we went to dinner with Laura's friends, Frank and Jon, on the Big Island. Since they were putting us up for four nights (remember: fish and guests begin to smell after three days), we took them to dinner at the Fairmont Hotel (where I missed getting a picture of the most fantastic sunset of my entire life, due to not having my camera in hand). One of her friends, Jon, was employed by the hotel. As we toured the "property" I fell. Now, I study Judo and fall a lot, but when I fall it's almost always on purpose. Falling headlong off a marble staircase isn't in my usual acrobatic repertoire, and I was quite lucky to walk away unhurt. Okay. Fell down some stairs, missed a photo op of a magnificent sunset. However, the food was great and we saw Green Sea Turtles on the beach, so all in all, quite a night.

The next day, as Frank took us on a thrill ride over the Saddle Road, I, as I am wont to do, shouted "Stop!" (so that I could take a picture of a cute flower, or some moss, or something). We all hopped out, into the misty mountain environs and I set out to find my moss shot. About a minute later, somewhere behind me, I heard Laura scream. I turned around to see her flat on her back with Frank stooped over her asking if she were all right. I ran back, only to find she had fallen backwards off some a'a lava. She had scraped her arms, legs, and back on some really nasty lava, and she spent the remainder of the drive over the mountain dabbing at the worst scratches using the tissues she had in her purse.

In Hilo, we got her all patched up and moved on. She and I have spent the remainder of the trip repeating the punchline "I'm very surefooted!" each time we step off a curb or slip on a trail out on the lava fields.

Yesterday, she fell again as we were trying to negotiate a nasty bluff on the way to see a rare red sand beach on the road to Hana. We didn't have on proper shoes for such a climb, of course, but that never stops us. She scraped her knee and her foot and landed in such a way that her right knee (the one she shattered in 2003 in a similar fall) took most of the punishment. I thought for a moment we were in serious trouble, but amazingly she got to her feet and returned to the car and waited patiently while I checked out the tide pools and returned with some cute little pieces of coral.

Two hours later we were in Haleakala National Park and, like the fools we are, set out--in the rain--on a steep trail to see another of the hundred or so waterfalls one sees on the road to Hana. Footing was treacherous walking uphill, but coming down was a whole 'nother kind of scary. In the steep places, I, in my hiking boots, would walk in front of her and help her down at the exceedingly steep places. As we made our way down, all I could thing was (1) this was a stupid idea, and (2) my wife is a real trooper! We got back down the trail without (serious) incident, and made it back to base camp just around dark.

Laura is a trooper--that's the point of this post. When I met her, she was doing the seemingly impossible--raising two children on her own and working at a very difficult job pleasing Texas Comptroller Bob Bullock and his merry band of outlaws, scalawags, and other ne'er-do-wells (assistant Comptrollers, they were called), by managing their front office communication system. Although she called me her knight in shining armor, as a knight I was a real fixer-upper. She was doing just fine when I came on the scene, and she's never slowed down since. I could list many examples of her determination, her stamina, her drive. For example, in addition to here 60 hour weeks at a major computer manufacturer based in Round Rock, Texas, Laura also volunteers for a large worldwide telecom user group, planning and directing large user group meetings each year. She raised three children, two of whom are Eagle Scouts and the other a graduate of Texas A&M University. As a "Scouter" Laura was Troop Committee Chair and Council Advancement Chair, eventually earning the "Silver Beaver Award" (a naughty-sounding award, when earned by a woman, to be sure) which meant, basically, that she worked harder than anyone they could find, year after year, for an organization that pays adults with patches and little beads.

Today, injured, she will make the drive with me to the top of Haleakala and I doubt she will even complain about the pulled muscle in her thigh or the nasty cut on her knee.

A couple of things to notice about the picture of her. First, check out the band-aids on both calves. This is the day after her fall on Saddle Road, as we are traversing some nasty-ass lava fields, having just walked a mile to see some silly Hawaiian petroglyphs. Second, this is, in a way, a perfect metaphor for our marriage. She leads the way, while I hang back smelling the roses, wandering off the trail, and snapping pictures of her.

When the Mimosas bloom in Austin--somewhere around May 19--we will have been married 25 years. During those years,  she changed my life, turned my life around, in fact. She took a fallen knight, stood him up, polished his armor, and set him up on his horse. As annoyed as I can sometimes get with her, I know that there is no one else with whom I would have preferred to spend the last 25 years. In other words, I would fall for her all over again.