Hawaii

Feb. 10 - Day 1
We arrived in Oahu late on the 9th and therefore slept in on our first full day in Hawaii.  We had no specific plans so we walked to get some breakfast.  Due to a power outage at our intended breakfast place we went to a place close by.  We spent a lot of time walking along the beach and relaxing.  In the afternoon we hopped on a city bus and took the long ride out to the Polynesian Cultural Center for a luau.  It was nice to try some Hawaiian food and see some hula.  The show after dinner was really awesome...juggling fire and crazy traditional dances.  You weren't allowed to take pictured during the main show.

Me at Waikiki Beach

Part of the show during our Luau

Feb. 11 - Day 2
On the second day we were picked up before 6 for a circle tour.  We started at Pearl Harbor and were there for a few hours.  Afterwards we loaded up in a small bus and spent the day driving all over the island.  Our driver was hilarious and we made many unscheduled stops.  Our first stop was the Dole Plantation where we actually ran into our pastor and his wife as well as another couple that we know from church!  We knew they were there on a cruise but we didn't expect to see them.  We stopped at many beaches during the day along the North Shore where they have incredible waves.  We had pineapple shortbread cookies, Dole Whip (ice cream), apple bananas, fresh coconut, and stopped for shave ice.  We ended the day at Cheeseburger Waikiki.

Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor

Dennis by the kamikaze sub missile

On the North Shore

Eating our Shave Ice

Feb 12 - Day 3
On the third day we snorkeled at Honomanu Bay which is a fairly famous nature preserve with a reef.  We spent most of the day here.  We snorkeled and saw some pretty cool fish.  We also saw a sea turtle!  The snorkeling was more challenging that I remember from doing it in Cancun.  It was fairly challenging for me to avoid the reefs without feeling like I was trapped if a sea monster would happen to appear.  :)  Anyway, the sun also decided to hide in the clouds for most of the time we were there so it was a little bit chillier than I would have liked.  That evening we had dinner at Duke's.  It was very tasty and we basically dined right on the ocean.  The did kinda forget to give us a table so we had to wait longer than we would have liked but they gave us a free appetizer to make up for it!  We only had our cell phone camera this day.

Feb 13 - Day 4
We were picked up at our hotel at 3:30 a.m.  Yeah, that is early.  Our flight to the Big Island was at 5:00.  We got our rental car and stopped to get some breakfast.  It was so humid I think the glass was sweating more water than it was holding.  After breakfast we headed for the volcano.  We drove up to the visitors center and then continued up to see the crater and the steam vents.  Then we traveled around to take in some of the other hiking trails.  We went though a lava tube which is basically a tube left big enough to walk in that at one time lava flowed through.  Dennis hiked into a part of a crater while I waited in the car.  Then we drove to another point and hiked up to a lookout where we could see the active volcano.  You can really only see active lava flows at night when they are glowing or if you take a helicopter ride.  The areas we were seeing would have been glowing at night.  The landscape here is just incredible and barren and black and rocky.  It is crazy and not the easiest hiking but it was fun.  We finished the day with a drive across the island to catch our flight to Maui.  We were on a turbo prop - 9 seater plan for our flight to Maui.  It was an adventure in itself.

Crater with steam from the lava

Dennis pretending to be lava in the lava tube

hard landscape - we hiked over this

On top of a lava turd.

Feb 14 - Day 5
We did very little on this day.  We spent most of the day walking around and doing some shopping in Paia.  We tried to go to some other shopping areas but weren't really successful.  We wanted to lay low because we were tired from the day before and we didn't really want to get caught in a crowd with it being Valentines Day.  We went to the store to get some groceries.  I made spaghetti for dinner and it was horrible.  We had tried to get groceries at Walmart but they were either out of or didn't have several things we needed.  They only had ground turkey not beef for one and then they didn't have any tomato sauce.  The whole shelf of Hunts was bare and no off brand either.  I settled on a jar of walmart brand spaghetti sauce that looked fairly plain and then just tried to spice it up like my normal sauce.  It was sooo sweet.  I shouldn't have added any sugar and it ended up having chunks of tomato and onion etc in it.  Needless to say Dennis told me he imagined that the spaghetti on Elf tasted similar...I ate plain noodles.

Feb 15 - Day 6
On day six we went to Haleakala National Park.  Again there are craters and a cinder cones and amazing scenery.  The main thing that I remember though is how windy it was.  Like really really windy.  It was hard to stand outside and look at anything because it was so stinking windy.  It goes up to 10,000 feet which means that it is fairly cold and did I mention it was windy.  After spending some time here we drove the Highway to Hana.  It was pretty amazing.  Basically this road that weaves along the coast and is very, very narrow and most of it is gravel.  But the views are off of cliffs and whatnot out onto the ocean.  There are also waterfalls and just gorgeous scenery.  There are many cattle ranchers around too - crazy to see a cow grazing on the edge of a cliff overlooking the ocean.

Haleakala National Park

On the Highway to Hana

Beautiful waterfall

Feb 16 - Day 7
On day seven we went whale watching.  We took a catamaran tour though Trilogy Tours and it was awesome.  We saw plenty of whales.  Many were mommy's with their babies.  I learned that while the picture of a while diving with its tail up is beautiful it also means the whale is diving down deeper and probably won't surface again.  That means you have to find a new whale to stalk.  We saw several pretty close and some off in the distance slapping their tails to communicate with other whales.  At one point they put a hydrophone down in the water so we could listen to the whales.  They kind of sound like underwater cows or something which is partially why their babies are called calves.  I would never have thought they made so much noise.


Feb 17 - Day 8
Our last day in Maui I wanted to spend at the beach because we hadn't really done a whole lot of laying on the beach.  We found a beach fairly close to our condo and went there in the morning.  The waves were pretty big for us inexperienced swimmers so we were just going to lay on the beach and dip our toes in.  The waves kept coming quite high so we had a hard time finding a play to put our towels...Then the wind started.  It was actually kinda painful.  Basically, we laid around and got sand blasted.  We did go play in the big waves for a while which was lots of fun.  All in all laying around on the beach always seems to be more fun in the movies than in reality.  Oh well.  In the evening we booked a sunset dinner cruise.  It was alright.  We did see a whale and the food was good.  We left a little late and we weren't lined up real well to see the sunset but it was pretty good.

This was technically from the day before but oh well.

Feb 18 - Day 9
Our last day in Hawaii.  We had a flight around 1 from Maui to Oahu but our flight to L.A. didn't leave until 10 p.m.  So we hopped on a bus and headed to Hilo Hatties to shop and back to Wikiki to walk around awhile.  Had dinner and headed back for the airport and an uneventful trip home to see Georgie!

A few other 'highlights".  The Gecko that came in our condo.  The giant centipede that made a home in our condo.  Dennis trying to throw the egg out of the mongoose.  Seeing 14 sea turtles on the shore.  Watching a surfer break his board.  I'm sure there were more but it is late and this post is long enough.

Gecko in our condo

Centipede in our condo...ewww

Sea Turtles

Egg...on our overhang...