Hawaiian Highlights

What a WONDERFUL vacation! I had high hopes for this vacation thanks to last year's amazing adventures, and it did not disappoint. Well, there were a few disappointments (more on that shortly), but overall, there can be no frustration when one is enjoying the sun thousands of miles away from a job of any sort. AHHHHHH.


I'll start with a list of disappointments, since I want to end on the happy notes:

• No lava. Our first weekend was spent in Hilo, near Volcanoes National Park. We were told about an AMAZING hike you can take at dusk to see flowing lava and bursting lava bubbles against the night sky. The lava flow shifted ten days before we got to the island and it is currently only visible from a helicopter. BOO.
• No SuperBowl. Some football game ruined my Sunday. If you must, look at the box score and see how one team was better than the other team in basically EVERY stat (significantly, in some cases) except TURNOVERS. Okay, moving on...........
• No manta rays. We went on the Manta Ray Night Dive, but saw no manta rays. Our originally scheduled date for the dive was cancelled due to a significant swell that came in, which also ended up effecting the dive we went on the next night. The boat was being tossed by waves and a few of us tossed our cookies. While it was pretty cool to be snorkeling at night, the experience was marred by the sea-sickness and lack of manta sightings. Maybe next time.

NOW. On to the HIGHLIGHTS:

• Not winter. I missed a little over a week of THAT season (great post, Becca). Sunny and eighty degrees everyday is SO wonderful and refreshing. My cheeks are freckled, my skin is light brown (not pasty white), and I felt a wonderful breeze that didn't give me frostbite. Loved every second of it. Every. second. The sun even seemed to heal my football wounds. A little bit.
• Cliffs. They are beautiful, and I jumped off of them. The southern most part of Hawaii is the southern most part of the United States (and is aptly named South Point). South Point has 35-40ft cliffs that locals jump off of into the most phenomenally clear water and then climb up through caves under the cliffs. I stood at the edge of the cliff and thought about it for more than five minutes, but I jumped, and I am SO glad I did (other than the enema part of it). Thanks to a local, I made the climb back up the cliff (and I couldn't have done it without him). Thanks to my sister, it's all on video.
• Filthy Chacos. We did some exploring around Volcanoes National Park, which dirtied my Chacos a bit, but the real filth came from our AMAZING hike into the Waipi'o Valley. We were told that the hike was not for the faint of heart, which was NO JOKE. There was better than a 25% grade for over 1 mile (and unless you've done the hike, I can't explain how difficult that is). In the valley was the most amazing black sand beach surrounded by outrageous cliffs that made me feel like I was in the show Lost. Being on that beach was one of my favorite parts of the trip.
• Whales. At South Point, the whales were about 25-30 yards from us - flapping their tails and spouting like crazy. It was so awesome! When we were on our way to the manta ray dive, we saw a FULL BREACH (like you see on TV shows or in pictures). Even the captain of our boat stopped to get out his camera and was VERY excited.
• Waves. Thanks to the swell, the waves were HUGE, and we had one very fun afternoon of getting owned by them while we tried to body surf. There were some pretty amazing surfers at the black sand beach, too. Very fun to watch them. I also loved sitting on the beach in the early mornings and listening to the waves while I read. So calming.
• Waterfalls. It has been pretty dry on the Big Island recently, so the waterfalls weren't as dramatic as they looked on any postcards, but that allowed us the opportunity to climb the rocks right out to the edge of some waterfalls. At one point, there were four of us sitting at the top of about a 100ft waterfall drop (don't worry, Mom. We were safe.). The view was awesome.
• Kindle. It's probably stupid to say that my new Kindle was one of my favorite things about Hawaii, but it totally was! I was able to read seven books (two that I had started some of before we left) while I was gone, and I only brought two actual books with me! The Kindle was definitely handy-dandy and convenient to travel with, so I'm totally sold. I'm also totally sold on doing nothing but laying by the pool and reading all day. So wonderful.
• Food. Our rule on vacation is to not eat anywhere you can eat while you are at home. We pretty much stuck to our rule, other than our need to grab a speedy McDonald's lunch one day (which didn't bug me at all!). We always do cheap and easy breakfast and lunch in our rooms (HI, I LOVE PB&J) and then we go out and have a nice or fun dinner. We didn't have a single meal that disappointed, and we happened upon some really fun local places. I never even had "order regret", which is practically a miracle for me!
• Laughing. Lots and lots of laughing. Of course you "had to be there" for some of the laughs, but one of my favorite sayings from the week was: Laying at the pool I turned over and said "oh MAN, I am so dizzy!!" (I was dizzy all week, maybe from my cliff jump on day one) and what my friends thought I said was "oh MAN, I am so BUSY!!" which was funny because it was 2pm and the only thing I had done so far that day was read and sit at the pool.

I'm thankful for a restful and fun week, because the week I just had at home playing catch-up was ANYTHING but restful and fun (well, I did hang out with a few different groups of friends this week, and that was fun). I can't believe I will be on another overseas flight in 14 days. FOURTEEN DAYS! Better load up my Kindle......

P.S. The dog survived his surgeries, our flight issue got figured out so that our travel went very smoothly, and I did not come home to a toilet-water-flooded home, so everything from this post turned out fine in the end. Except for that stupid football game........