Hawaii January 18-26, 2019

Hawaii January 18-26, 2019

Friday:
So why does a snow storm come the day we are supposed to leave? Carol Fuzzy and I packed up earlier than planned to beat the 12 inches of predicted snowfall. We opted to stay at the Hilton near the airport that Friday night. As usual the weathermen over predicted...Chicago only got 3 inches. Fortunately our 8:30 am departure was not delayed.

Saturday:
I was able to fit in a quick 4 mile treadmill run before we hoped on our 6:20 shuttle to the airport. As much as I hate treadmills...sometimes they are necessary. When vacationing with a 6 year old and 79 year old you have to be on your toes ready to put out nescessary fires. There were a few this trip...thankfully none to big. I do have to say bringing grandma in a wheelchair is an added perk...we do get early boarding privileges and those up close handicap parking spots! Well, our trip to Denver went smoothly. Our departure out of Denver...not so smoothly. Initially it started as a hour delay, then 2, then 3, then the $10 food voucher, $20, $30...we ended up not leaving Denver till 7 hours past our intended departure!! Greta and I walked that Denver airport more than you can imagine!! When we finally arrived in Hawaii the people on the plane clapped and cheered. I was too tired at that moment to even blink. It was midnight Hawaii time and 4am Madison time. We rented our Chevrolet and headed to the Hapuna Beach Westin Resort. The nice gentleman behind the front desk greeted us with fresh passion juice and gave us lays to wear. Once we checked in to our place I believe lights were out in only a matter of a couple minutes.

Sunday:
This morning I ran North along the coastline towards our sister resort. I ran along the sandy beach and black volcanic rock. The trail I followed was called the Ala Kahakai Trail. Once back to our room we decided to do the hotels grab and go breakfast since we had not yet hit the grocery store. Afterwards we chilled by the pool while Greta met and swam with her first friend, Ellie from Canada. For lunch we grabbed sandwiches from the grab and go hotel deli and made our way to our Snorkel excursion at Kealakekua Bay, with the Captain Cook Monument. It supposedly is the best place to snorkel on the island. If you imagine the island like a clock it rests at 9pm. We were nearly late for our departure due to Jill's need to buy a last minute Sun hat for Carol and waterproof phone case for myself. Carol won the prize of oldest on our excursion. No worries...she found another grandma to chat with from Oregon State. Greta told silly jokes with her grand daughter and I listened to the orthopedic trauma stories of our captain. If you tell others your profession suddenly you here all their injuries. He did share with me how many locals pay extra for insurance to fly them to the main island via Med flight for necessary medical treatment...makes sense to me!! Our snorkeling only lasted an hour. We didn't see any turtles but we did see barracuda. We also saw a shark den. We had to dive down below to see the fin. As I did last snorkeling excursion I was out of the water early the waters were pretty chilly. Afterwards we had dinner at a restaurant in Kailua Kona and watched the sunset. Grandma Carol and Greta were exhausted so they sat in the car while I purchased our week's groceries. Groceries are not cheap here!

Monday:
Today I ran the same Shoreline Trail except went South. I discovered a turquoise blue tide pool. It was set in black volcanic rock. So picturesque. I kept running the trail...my next site was not as pretty. It was a deserted car totaled almost embedded in a tree stump. I had wondered how long it had been there. It made me feel little bit weird so I turned around and headed back to the resort. We had our breakfast out on our Lanna and then had fun doing group yoga Photo shots. We packed up the vehicle and headed for Pololu Lookout with a hike down to a black sand beach. We parked grandma right at the top of the lookout in her wheelchair with a good book in a shaded spot. She enjoyed chatting with all of the tourists.Greta and I made it our way down, she jumped the waves, then we had our picnic lunches on a log in the sand. Afterwards we stopped at a fruitstand that had ice cream, shaved ice, and wild horses. Next we drove to the town of Hawi. We stopped at a Kona coffee café shop. Grandma was amused by the sign on the wall that said "all kids to be supervised by adults otherwise they will be given espresso and a free kitty." I told grandma don't worry Greta is currently supervised by dad while faced timing him. :) Once back to our hotel we had dinner and then Greta and I rushed down to the beach for beach yoga photo shots. Afterwards we changed into our swimsuits, fueled up on some yummy guava bread, which actually is sugar bread with the last ingredient being guava flavor. By the way coated with butter. Once fueled we went and swam in the pool under the clear night sky with stars galore. We certainly crashed that night!!

Tuesday:
This morning my run had to be in the dark. I opted to go through the neighborhood near the sister hotel and ended on the golf cart path ways that can be shared by pedestrians. We fueled up and went down to the lobby to meet Sea paradise tours for our Waipio valley and waterfall day tour. Our tour guide was a hoot. I think he had diarrhea of the mouth. He was very entertaining. Well suited for his job. Our first stop was to the valley. We hopped into a 4 Wheel Drive vehicle and went down a steep descent into the valley of the Kings. I so wished that I was hiking this. Supposedly Lance Armstrong has the record for running up the fastest in eight minutes. I wonder if I could do that. Local Hawaiians live down there in homes build up from the ground to protect their property from potential weather conditions. They live off the land. Wild horses roamed the valley. The youngest person living down there was 21 the oldest 79. They grew taro, marijuana and filtered their own water from the streams. We then toured a gift shop at the top and had lunch. Greta was entertained by the many farel dogs roaming around. My lunch didn't agree with me so well. It claimed to be gluten-free yet my stomach was killing me. After lunch our tour guide did a Kukui nut demonstration where he burned a nut in a leaf. Supposedly the Kukui nut has many purposes and is medicinal. We hopped back in our vehicle and headed to A'kaka Falls where Greta and I did silly photos of her pretending to catch the water in her mouth. An Asian couple was very amused by it and attempted as well. Next we headed to a private waterfall. We had descended a very steep slope to get to it. Grandma decided to initially stay in the van. Greta and I were so excited, we got our suits on, jumped in the water, and hopped on our paddleboard's headed for the waterfall base. Another active couple also got on a paddleboard headed towards the base. The wife looked at me and said here comes your mom. She opted to walk down the hill all by herself. Boy was I glad she didn't trip and fall. Greta, The tour guide and one other man we're the only ones who decided to get in the water. Our tour guide Cliff jumped. Thank goodness he didn't injure himself I don't know what we would've done. After spending an hour there our tour guide did a chant by blowing into a seashell making this loud noise as a peaceful sign I guess something the Hawaiians do. We then hopped back in our mini bus and went to rainbow Falls. It was there that we discovered what the waterfall illusion is. We then went to Ok Farms. We smelled the many different leaves including curry allspice cinnamon macadamia nut all guessing what we were smelling. We tasted mini bananas, they're much sweeter than the full-size ones. Afterwards we headed back to our mini bus and headed back to our resort. We had dinner in and crashed.

Wednesday:
This morning my run went north on the usual running trail. After breakfast on the back porch we packed up our vehicle and headed to a less commercial lava cave near Hilo, Kaumana Cave. We waited for a group of tourists to come in with us. That way we had more lighting to see the rock. It was very dark and cold. We probably only walked in 100 feet. The cave actually went for several miles but we were both afraid that our cell phones lights would die. Across the street we hung from the BAYNAN trees branches. We then went to the Hilo farmers market. We got all the unique to Hawaii goodies like coconut, rambutan, purple sweet potatoes to supplement our picnic lunch. We chose Coconut Island for our picnic spot. There is a pedestrian bridge connecting Hilo to Coconut Island. After lunch Greta and I and dipped our toes in the ever so cold ocean. We then hit Walmart on our way back to our resort. I found myself two new swimsuits. We did dinner on the patio and then watched Greta perform synchronized swimming for us in our resort pool until bedtime.

Thursday:
This morning my run went north on my usual running trail. I did an out and back. We had breakfast on our back porch and then decided to do some local events at the resort. Greta got to feed the fish in the resort's fish pond. Then we dipped grandmas toes in the ocean. Greta and I wave jumped until the lifeguards changed the warning to red. We had been in the ocean, I was holding Greta's hand and the under tied picked up. She literally was angled horizontal towards the sea. We both were pretty scared. We had lunch in, then packed up and headed to Kona big Island bees. We listen to an hours worth of history about honey making and bee keeping. Our beekeeper was an interesting dude. He certainly was knowledgeable about the subject. What amused me was how in a lifetime, one bee only produces 1/4 tsp of honey, a bees lifespan is only 21 days, and kona is one of the country's largest queen bee producers. It was time for the honey tasting mate the dog even got a lick. We bought macadamia nut honey, cinnamon honey, and jalapeño honey. Next we went to McDonald's drive-through, I got a vanilla ice ice cream cone. We went back to our show and tell and had dinner on our patio. We got dressed up and did photos with the sunset in the background. We chilled in the room until lights went out.

Friday:
My final run of the week I went north along my usual running trail. Once back to the room my goal was to get us all packed up so we could then enjoy the rest of the day. We managed to pack up all but one drawer of underwear (more on that later) in 90 minutes. I wanted to get the most sun I could so we spent an hour at the poolside. We showered up, had lunch in the room and checked out of our resort. We drove to Waimea with plans to meet a professional road cyclist at Big Island Bikes. His shop is located on a cute ranch called Anna's ranch. It is commonly rented out for events given the beauty of the property. After stopping at the island's only natural foods store for last minute non-perishable Jill snacks (beet chips, grass fed beef jerky, and dried bananas) we got a phone message from the pro cyclist...his ride was going to be longer and he wasn't going to be able to meet us for our bike rentals. He did however suggest another mountain bike shop down the road closer to our intended bike route on Mana road. That way we didn't have to rent a bike rack plus grandma was able to sit at the neighboring Big Island Brewpub while we rode. Grandma met an actress from the movie silent night. She was from another country. They sat and chatted while the actress had her lunch. Grandma is so social. She was all giggly and excited to share that story when Greta and I finished our bike ride. Greta and I biked Mana Road with views of Mauna Kea Volcano. We saw horses, sheep, goats in the pastures. Afterwards we hit our final beach, Anaehoomalu Bay, in Waikoloa Village. It is known to be fairly calm as there were a lot of triathletes training in the waters. The sand was pepper colored. We then changed into our midwest clothing, long pants and long sleeve shirts and started heading south toward the Kailua Kona airport. We hoped to find one final scenic spot where we could stop and have a picnic dinner and get some photos of the sun at our backs. We were successful. We then rolled into the airport just as the sun went back down the horizon. Sitting waiting for our airplane my stomach started to grumble and not feel so hot. Maybe I ate too many of those sweet potatoes. About two hours into our flight I took a tums and that's when it started. I over the next six hours I puked 15 times. While in Denver I barely even remember what occurred there. I was so weak and tired. The same was true when we finally arrived at O'Hare. I stumbled to get our suitcases and get us to the bus. I even bought a blanket to curl up in the corner of an airport terminal to try to get some extra sleep. I guess you might say a vacation typically ends with me getting sick. Maybe it's the different environments I'm not used to or maybe it's that I go till I'm exhausted. Our trip was a success no major issues and we all had a great time. I wish I could say we were going to do Hawaii again, I certainly would love to. Maui would have to be my favorite island.

Oh...And to get back to that drawer of clothing I left behind… After three phone calls to the resort chatting with the housekeepers...fortunately they were able to box up my underwear, sports bras, running clothes, and new swimsuit and ship it to me in Stoughton Missouri. Just kidding I hope they sent it to Stoughton Wisconsin. We will see...it has an arrived yet…



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