Olympian skating superstar Apolo Ohno heads to Maui this week with the winners of the "Follow Apolo Ohno to Maui" sweepstakes conducted by Alaska Airlines earlier this year.

Ohno's arrival is scheduled for 10:45 a.m. on Thursday at Gate 33.

Lt. Gov. James Aiona and Maui Surf Groms, a youth group that hopes to make surfing an Olympic sport, will meet Ohno and the winners at Kahului Airport before the group begins its five-day vacation at the Grand Wailea Resort.

During their stay, sweepstake winners and their guests will join Ohno for a private luau.

Alaska Airlines' plane features a skating Ohno wearing a lei and encouraging travelers to "Follow Apolo to Hawaii."

NORTHERN INDIA

PHOTOGRAPHER TO SHARE SLIDES OF HIMALAYAN TRAVELS AT STATE LIBRARY

Photographer Chick Alsop's nose for adventure and cultural travel has taken him far off the trail. Take the remote Zanskar Valley in the Buddhist Himalayas of Northern India, where he worked as a volunteer English teacher in a monastery.

Alsop will share the experience in "A Sisterhood in the Himalaya," a travelogue slide presentation Thursday at the Hawaii State Library.

Life is harsh in the beautiful Zanskar Valley, an isolated and rugged valley cut off from the outside by mountainous terrain, snow and ice for seven months of the year. Yet Alsop found a community in which grace, humility and courage are a daily part of life, and have inspired a return visit.

The presentation also will feature the Dalai Lama's three days of teachings in Zanskar, a colorful and influential extravaganza attended by 30,000 pilgrims.

Alsop, a retired Aloha Airlines pilot, has conducted many photo exhibitions, articles and presentations of his travels. 6:30 p.m. Thursday, first-floor reading room, Hawaii State Library, 478 S. King Street. 586-3499.

VIRGINIA AND WASHINGTON, D.C.

HISTORICAL TOURS, EXHIBITS PLENTIFUL AS CIVIL WAR'S 150TH NEARS

As the nation gears up for the 150th anniversary of the Civil War (beginning in 2011), the place to go is Virginia, where there are more Civil War battlefields, museums and historic sites than any other state. At Pamplin Historical Park and The National Museum of the Civil War Soldier, visitors return to that defining era with the aid of guides in Civil War dress, battlefield and museum tours, a slave-life exhibit and visits to antebellum homes. www.pamplinpark.org.

And if you are heading to the nation's capital this summer, "The Civil War" is the subject of a major exhibition at the National Archives.

"Discovering the Civil War" uses letters, diaries, photos, maps, petitions, receipts and interactive screens to recreate the war. The exhibit is in two parts: "Beginnings" is through Sept. 6. "Consequences" is Nov. 10-April 17. At the Archives' O'Brien Gallery. www.archives.gov.

— Chris Oliver