I have to give highest marks for “niceness” to the woman who assisted us at the St. Louis Art Museum’s ticket counter when we showed up yesterday with our reciprocal membership cards from the Contemporary Museum in Honolulu. Sometimes we’ve found museum staff a bit reluctant to honor the reciprocal membershhips, which usually entitle us to free admission. But this woman went way beyond the normal levels of helpfulness to welcome us and show us the museum’s various exhibits and features. I only hope that folks on our end make visitors feel just as welcome.

Today it’s back to Hawaii. We’re leaving for the St. Louis airport about 6 a.m., in just over an hour, so it’s going to be a long day of flying and waiting.

Folks in Vancouver, B.C., were reading a lot about Hawaii yesterday. I first noticed the story about places where you can pick up a “loco moco” in Vancouver.

Favorite quote:

“Loco moco is not fancy. Nothing’s fancy in Hawaii,” he says of local Hawaiian cuisine, as opposed to restaurant and hotel fare.

I’m not sure that’s really the message local chefs are trying to convey, but another story made up for this slight with a more positive comments on Hawaii cuisine.

How did I miss this item? Thanks to Doug White at Poingraphy.com for catching the passing reference to a subpoena for comments sent to the Advertiser web site.

Also try out this tool for assessing urban living: Walkscore.com. Enter an address and it calculates a walkability score. Find out how well your neighborhood ranks in terms of walking rather than driving.

And a reader pointed me to the latest crisis: Britain is now facing a shortage of sperm donors, according to an AP report out of London.

And let me again recommend the blog of my old friend, Gene Stoltzfus, a thoughtful Mennonite peace activist. And I do mean activist. Gene provides very thoughtful commentaries, good for Sunday reflections.

Okay, we’re on our way home.

Tomorrow I’ll be posting from Kaaawa as usual.