Correspondence from Owen Hamilton to his sister June Meyer and brother-in-law Morgan Meyer (June E. Hooe Hamilton Meyer, 1919-2010 (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/81471045/june-e_hooe-meyer) and (Morgan G. Meyer, 1916-2000 (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/43119273/morgan-g.-meyer). He's just back from his trip to Hawaii and hopes they don't compare letters with his mother's as they will be alike. It's the best thing he's done since he passed through Evansville last April. He wanted to call but could not. He's sorry to hear that June fell and hopes she's not hurt bad. He charges Morgan with watching her closely until after he becomes an uncle. The ice and snow they describe sounds pretty good, although he did see a little snow in Hawaii. He begins the travelogue. He flew on a C-47 to Hilo, about 190 miles from Honolulu. If you look at a map you can see he flew over nearly all the islands. The plane was at an elevation of 6000 ft., just high enough that you could see a great deal of the ocean. He was surprised at how close together the islands look from the air, and you could even see some in their entirety. As he approached Hawaii they saw Mauna Loa, the tallest mountain there, and it had snow on top. Snow in Hawaii is hard to imagine in downtown Honolulu! The plane landed in Hilo, the 2nd largest city on the island, about the size of Princeton, IN, and they took a bus into the city. He spent the first day in Hilo doing nothing but eating, sleeping, and watching a show. The food is good and they have great steaks. A favorite food is the banana split, and he's eaten his share. The next day he began a 2.5 day tour of the island that the special services offer to soldiers and this was the best part of the trip as he got to see the entire island instead of just hitting the high lights. There were 9 of then in a station wagon, just like in civilian life, and the driver was a native who would stop anywhere they wanted to take pictures. They stopped at Rainbow Falls and then at Akaka Falls, which is 420 feet and really beautiful. It is back in the mountains and they saw this from the plane. The Onomea Arch is a natural feature in the rock, and then it was on to a cattle ranch. This sounds kind of funny, but it is the second largest ranch in the world. This reminded him a lot of Texas, an area he'd like to see again. This took up most of the day, although they did pass some coffee fields. These were the first coffee plants he'd seen and he was surprised at how it grows. It grows on a bush and the coffee beans are inside a red berry that looks like a cherry. That night he stayed in a mountain hotel in Kona, on the opposite side of the island from Hilo. It was beautiful. His room overlooked the Pacific, about 1000 feet down. In the evening he went to a USO show--they don't see many soldiers there and so they really treat them well. The evening ended with a big T-bone steak for $.75. They started out bright and early the next morning to see that side of the island and first went to one of the oldest churches on the island, which has a chapel to the Virgin Mary made entirely of coral. Then they went to the palace built for the first king, Kamehameha, and saw pictures of the early kings, etc. It seems the early Hawaiians were giants and some of the women weighed as much as 425 lbs. That would have been no place for him. They next saw the coffee mills and the process it goes through before it gets to the consumer. It reminded him of pictures he'd seen of South America, where they lay the beans out to dry. They stopped at Captain Cook's Monument--he's the Englishman who discovered the islands, and the piece of land on which the monument stands is the only British owned land on American soil. They went to a fishing village and the city of refuge; the later is the place where criminals went to serve their sentences. They saw the Little Grass Shack at Kealakekua. The song ""I want to go back to my little grass shack in Kealakekua, Hawaii"" was written about it, or vice versa. In the afternoon they drove through the lava fields--terribly barren, with nothing growing. There is nothing but miles of wasteland where the lava flowed. That evening he went to Kilauea Military Camp up in the mountains and stayed the last 2 nights there. It is hard to believe but it was so cold there he slept under 5 blankets! The tour ended the next morning seeing the steam cracks and Kilauea Crater. The steam cracks are just steam coming out of a hole in the ground, but the crater was impressive. It's about a mile in diameter and the side some 400 ft. tall. He then went back to the camp and thinks he could spend the rest of his time in the army there. It's a rest camp for soldiers and so the Army does everything to make it look different than other camps. There are even different colored spreads on the beds and pictures on the walls. Funny what just a little paint and color will do for a place. They have any kind of sport you would want and more food than you could eat. They had a hula floor show the first night--imagine that in any other camp. The beauty of all this is that it cost only $1/day. He could go on and on, but by now they've either gotten tired and stopped reading, or fallen over in a faint at a letter this long from him. This was the first interesting thing he's done that he could really talk about. The last day he flew back to Oahu; the trip from the rest camp only cost $.10 and the whole trip $35. This would cost a tourist a fortune and he saw everything they would see. This shows what a wonderful job the Army is doing to please the soldiers, and the entire plane trip was free. When he got back he had to go out on a field problem night, but it was great to live like a human being again. They wll have to frame this letter as he'll never again produce such a long one, and should the Japanese knock the plane carrying it out of the sky, they will have him to contend with. He hopes they had a good holiday and hopes that the next one will be spend together. As for him, he's ""fighting one hell of a war in the Hawaiian islands and [is] going to receive the Oak Leaf Cluster on [his] Good Conduct Ribbon for [his] flight to Hawaii. [In a postscript he adds] Maybe the Distinguished Flying Cross--who knows?