Merry Christmas - 2015

No surprises here! We have lots of Hawaii photos in our Christmas picture.

This was the runner-up but in the end we switched to the one with the black background.

I upgraded my Corel Photo to version 7 this past year.  It didn't come with the photo project app that the original Corel did, and I had a moment when I thought the original app, which is still installed on my PC might not work and that I'd have to build a collage with the program itself, something that would involve layers and raster images.


I'm as good with photos as the next person but I wasn't looking forward to it since we wanted to get our collage sent out before Christmas.  Fortunately the old app continued to work.  I have a program on my photo that does photo collages, but it won't let you put so many photos together and the photos need to be on your phone.  In the name of keeping room on my phone I copy photos off everytime I sync.

We went to see the movie Heart of the Sea, Last weekend I drug husband off to see the movie "Brooklyn" with my book club, so this weekend we went to see a movie he wanted to see.  We went to the IMAX version.

Here I am with the magic glasses at the IMAX theater.

The story takes place on a whaling ship, which takes me back to a trip we took to Mystic CT.  We toured a whaling ship.  I think the movie took liberties in making the whaling ship look better than it looked when we toured it.  It has to have been a hellish way to earn a living being gone for years at time, living in tiny quarters.

The 3-D effects of the IMAX really made you feel like you were there when the men were at the top of the rigging.  I was reminded of Captain Cook's tall trees, planted wherever he stopped so he might have replacement masts if he came back around again.

The action in the movie, men on a whaler pursued and nearly killed by a great white whale, took place in the Southern Pacific.  They never made it to Hawaii, ending up closer to Chile, but I was reminded of the accountant of the missionaries as they traveled through the area on their way to Hawaii.

The movie didn't get a lot of critical acclaim, "Brooklyn" was a much more impressive movie, but the story of the whaling ship was interesting and we used a movie coupon someone had given us as a gift to see it, I thought it was entertaining enough.

The next movie I want to see is "The Big Short" which is supposed to be a comic account of Michael Lewis's book of the same name about the crash of 2007-2008.

Hawaii - Haiku

I promise this is the last Hawaii post! 

On our way to a bike tour that started in the town of Haiku we amused ourselves making up the poems, which have a 5-7-5 syllable pattern. 

Haiku

The Sun

Serpentine road winds through the hills in the morning

Bluewater five shine through the trees in the morning sun

A biker on the way to Haiku darting in and out of traffic

Morning rider darts

Moving quickly through traffic

In shining sunlight

The bus driver said, "no lawyers"

Can you hear me now

Name where your from mission 

No lawyers allowed

The trees smelled good. 

Eucalyptus Grove

Bikes whizzing through in this day in the shade

Stop and smell the trees

Lavender fields forever

Yellow Yarrow at the side

Warm fragrance in sun

Cook planted these pines wherever he landed so
if he came back he'd have replacement masts
for his ships.

Captain cook pine trees

Standing on a hill wAiting

Ships mast to refit

Admiral Nimitz house

Roof like a proud in the field

General at ease 

Haleakala

Stands high above the blue sea

Gazing at the stars

Linua in the clouds

Across the channel from Maui

Sunrise lights Maui

On the drive to the airport 

Passing kaanapoli 

Windmills are still

High clouds hide 

Passing Lahaina 

Hawaii Wrap-Up - Packing

We were gone a total of 17 days.  Most of the time we were in outdoorsy situations so it was mostly shorts, swimsuits and sun protection.
The end of the trip was Molly's wedding, which required slightly nicer but still casual dresses.  Our travel arrangements, flying on United, meant that I could check luggage.

We took our snorkels and beach towels, which turned out to be good because we weren't always places where they were provided, and ended up checking a third bag with our gear.

So, for 17 days in Hawaii:

• Two dresses for the wedding plus a sweater that I never wore.
• 2 pants
• 1 jean short
• 1 skort in a performance fabric
• 1 nylon athletic short
• 3 long-sleeved blouses (one was a sun shirt)
• Jean jacket
• multiple t-shirts
• 1 nightgown/robe
• 2 swimsuits/1 swim sun shirt
• flip-flops, aka slippers in Hawaiian slang
• water shoes that could go hiking
• canvas tennis shoes

Immediately upon arriving I realized I hadn't brought a swim cover-up/dress, so I bought a knit dress.
I had a caftan-type top in my suitcase originally but when I made a second pass through looking to minimize I took it out. On such a long trip I think focusing too much on minimizing didn't work in my favor.

Shoe-wise the one thing I wish I'd brought was a pair of water shoes that were more sock-like.  The water shoes I brought had a sturdy sole that was fine for hiking in wet areas, but clumsy in the water.  Many of the beaches were lava rock and I could have used a sock-like shoe with a rubber sole that was flexible enough to swim in.

 So, in no particular order;

H&M palm shirt & jean shorts.

Island of Hawaii

Hawaii

L.L. Bean sun shirt, swimsuit & skirty cover-up.

Lands End sun shirt, black gym shorts.

We spent hours at this beach so I was glad I had long sleeves.

This beach towel was from the B&B we were staying at, but it illustrates now much nicer a full-sized one is than the skimpy things most hotels make available.  It was worth it to have dragged our gear bag around to have better equipment.

Maui

 Black gym shorts & yet another L.L. Bean sun shirt.

We biked down the Volcano after this shot was taken so I had several layers on anticipating that it would be breezy on the bike, which it was.

Maui - Hana Bay

Comfy gym shirts, Moab t-shirt.
I love this shirt, on the back it says,

that feeling of confidence before you truly understand the situation.

Rehearsal dinner dress.

Bride Molly is in the background with the flower crown.

 White drawstring seersucker "dress"  from The Gap that turned out to be a great robe and/or nightgown.

 I wore this with a long white undershirt.  One warm nights, and there were many, only the long undershirt.

 Eddie Bauer performance fabric skort and sun shirt. This was my least worn outfit.

The waistband of the skort is weird and needs a belt and it just didn't fit right with my t-shirts.
.

 Jean jacket & Gap Cambridge pants at Volcano National Park.

We went to see the cauldron glow at night and it was breezy and rather cool.

 Volcano National Park in the A.M.

 It started out cool so I had striped T & shirt. As we walked into the moonscape of the lava lake it got really hot, but I was glad for the sun protection.

Long pants with this outfit.  Normally I'm a shorts person but the lava rock terrain is rough and I felt like pants where a better idea.

Hawaii

Volcano National park. Down by the ocean it was hot, so I ditched the striped shirt and just went with the sun shirt.

I had my hat off and you can tell from my skin color that I was getting some sun.

Oahu 

At the wedding, Here's a snarky shot of one of the guests who, in my opinion, had an excess of Kate Spade.

The dress with the floral skirt and striped top plus the striped bag struck me as a bit much.

Hawaii Wrap-Up - Where we stayed

I thought I'd throw out a few odds and ends of our trip, mostly to hold onto my thoughts about what I'd do differently, should there be a next time


As a couple our approach to this trip was to undertake a survey, getting a wide variety of locations into our plans. With a fairly long trip scheduled I booked lodging with one eye on the budget and one on what we'd do while we were at the location.  With a few exceptions the rooms ran around $200 a night.  To set things straight, I'm a Holiday Inn Express traveler and $200 a night is way more than I'd considering paying for lodging on the mainland anywhere but someplace like New York City.
 After many hours looking at places on Trip Adviser  I came to the conclusion that $200 was what we were going to have to pay to stay in the locations we wanted.

Island of Hawaii 

In general I felt like Hawaii had a wide variety of places to stay.  The island, like all of the Hawaiian islands, has a dry side and a wet side with beaches and developed resorts mostly on the dry side. We were mostly attracted to the nature-outdoor oriented things to do on the wet side of the island, so a long stay at a beachy resort wasn't our top priority.

We flew from Honolulu into the airport at Kailua-Kona.
We departed from the airport in Hilo.

Royal Kona Resort - 

This was our first stop and was on the dry side of the island near the airport at Kona. It had a nice location near an area with many restaurants and shops, not much of a beach, but had a pool. The room was big with a kitchen-bar, but not particularly modern. There was air-conditioning and an on-site restaurant /bar.

It was a nice place to stay our first night on the island even if we did wake up at 3 o'clock in the morning because of the jet lag.

The view from the bar our first night at the Royal Kona.  Our table was right at the breakers and we really felt like we had traveled to someplace a long way from home.

Waipio Rim B & B

Our seconds stop was this remote spot not far from the town of Honokaa on the wet side of the island.  A steep hike into the Waipio Valley takes you to a black sand beach with dramatic waves.

The B&B included a wonderful fruity breakfast and afternoon snack. The studio was nicely furnished.
There wasn't any air conditioning but it wasn't a problem as the rim catches an ocean breeze and it cooled off nicely at night.

The view from the deck made it hard to leave.

Volcano Teapot Cottage

A tea-themed cottage close to Volcano National Park was quaint beyond belief.  It was well appointed, included a washer/dryer, and sat in a location with a wet and cool  climate. It got a little chilly at night, we had the heater on for awhile in the morning.

The arid bleak expanses of the nearby Volcano National park made the cottage in the rain forest very pleasant.

We watched "The Descendants" with George Clooney here. I'd seen the movie before, but never when I was actually in Hawaii.

 Dolphin Bay Motel

Our third spot was this sixties style motel near the seedy but cool downtown area of Hilo. If Seattle were a smaller city in a remote outpost I think it would be like Hilo.  We ate at a couple of good restaurants and visited a big farmer's market that we enjoyed. .

It was warm and muggy here, no A/C, they had a good fan in the room.
If we return to see the green sand beach we will stay here. This was one of the least expensive places we stayed.

The Farmer's Market was fairly large and had a lot of great food.  I bought a small bottle of mango balsamic vinegar and plan on ordering more for presents this Christmas.

Island of Maui - 

We flew into and out of the Kahului Airport on Maui.

Maalea Bay -

The rental agent (we rented this through VRBO) was disorganized, never sent us a receipt, didn't use the VRBO system to take our payment or communicate with us.

The unit was fine, but the A/C on the one-hour timer in 90 degree weather made for an uncomfortable place to stay. It was OK with me until we stayed elsewhere on Maui and then I wasn't so crazy about what otherwise was a nice enough place.

Hana Bay Hale -

This photo shows me filling the bathtub, which did not have running water.

It appeared that this was once what would have been a nice B&B, but has since fallen under different management that just rents the studio out.

Despite the ocean side location it was warm and the unit had a bad fan.

In my opinion this place was overpriced.

The beaches around Hana once you got past the "Road to Hana" area were awesome.

Napilli Bay Resort -

Nice complex, about the same price as Hana Bay Hale but a way better value with running water in the bathroom, several pools, a small but protected beach.
It was warm here, no A/C, the until had a number of fans and louvered doors and it was comfortable at night.

Poor scheduling meant that we had a bike trip in the central part of the island scheduled the day we stayed at Nappili Bay.

Even though Maui isn't a large island we did way too much driving. 

Island of Oahu 

We saw only a small portion of Oahu because of the wedding.

Lanikai Cottage - 

small cottage close to Lanikai Beach.  It was very warm, the unit had A/C.

Compared the the wild Pacific coasts of Hawaii and Maui, the beach here was like a bathtub.

Thoughts for the next trip: 

We stayed 8 different places across our 17 days in the islands. Our good friends Dan and Jeanette have been to Hawaii and we had dinner with them a couple of times to hear about their experiences -it was a good excuse to get together- and at one point Jeannete said she thought that was  a lot of different places to stay.  Looking back I think she had a good point.

We could have varied the pace of our trip by staying longer in some locations, particularly on the Island of Maui.

If I had it to do over again I'd have kept the same itinerary on Hawaii, but booked into a mid-range resort like Napilli Surf on Maui. I'd move around more on Oahu.  Our wedding activities meant we never really got out of Honolulu, and there is a lot more to see.

Island of Oahu

It was hard to believe that our time on Maui was finished, but the day came to go to Oahu.
The wedding in Oahu was the whole reason we’d come to Hawaii, we were looking forward to seeing family and celebrating with them, but it was hard to leave Maui when it seemed like we’d finally found a place we liked.

Maui Airport

All the same, we were also looking forward to staying in Lanikai and enjoying what we’d heard was a wonderful beach.

We were happy enough to be rid of our banged-up car on Maui, and after a short flight landed on Oahu.

It didn't hurt that we couldn't check into our cottage until 4 pm, so we stopped at the Bishop to pass a little time after arriving on the island.  This turned out to have been a wonderful pick.  Not only did they have several floors of Polynesian history and model boats, they also had a planetarium and a show on the stars.  Husband was not too keen on the idea of sitting through a planetarium show, the line did have a lot of little kids in it, but once we got inside the AIR CONDITIONED theater, he changed his tune.

After the show we drove to our VRBO, a little cottage in Laniki.  Lucky for us – it had solar panels and the landlady noted that it wasn’t a problem to run the air conditioning because it was powered by the sun.  After several hot nights on Maui this was music to our ears!

   

It actually looked like this! 

We dropped our bags off, texted our cousins and hit the beach, which was unlike any beach we’d seen so far – calm, aqua green, not too deep. 

It reminded me of the beaches in Cancun.

The Missouri

See the Tomahawks?  Fist of the the Fleet.

The next day we went to Pearl Harbor with cousins Andy and Tom.  Their father, Dan’s uncle, was a Naval Officer, a trip to the memorial was all but mandatory.  We toured the battleship Missouri.

Dan was happy because the Missouri had once fired Cruise Missiles during the Reagan era. He   got his start in the IT business programming the cruise missile launch guidance system, and took several trips to San Diego to test the missile.

With an evening of wedding festivities ahead of us we missed the Arizona tour and headed back to the beach for some R&R. 

That evening we attended the Rehearsal Dinner at the Honolulu County Club.
Somehow we hadn’t gone to a Luau or had a Hawaiian themed dinner so the Poi, Poke, Pork dinner was a nice sampling of Hawaiian foods.  We were pleased to meet Brennan's parents and relatives. 

Molly and Brennan

The Holmes table

A rainbow came out just for them! 

Cheers

Molly's sister Sarah and baby Rex.

Saturday we devoted to the wedding.  I took a long walk around the Lanikai area, did a bit of gift shopping and tried to work off the accumulation of dinners.  We made it to the afternoon wedding, in an Episcopal church, with no air conditioning.  The Pastor, an Australian, had a wonderful voice.  Molly was surrounded by her sister and cousins and was a fairy tale bride.

Deborah, Brennan, Molly and Vernon.
Deborah, the groom's Mom is originally from Long Island.

The reception was at the Outrigger Canoe Club in Honolulu.  The club was less than memorable, we had a scrape on our car in the parking lot, and could barely get out of the lot without a dent.  Note to self: Valet Parking would have been worth it!

The reception.

Trying to catch the green flash as the sun went down.

The reception room had a terrific view and added to the festive event.  We met more of the groom’s family, learned about his life in Hawaii before meeting Molly.  The bride did a special hula for her groom. The sun sat on a buffet that turned into dancing . 

Before long the action moved to the dance floor.

Sunrise from the pillboxes

During our dinner we heard about a fabulous walk near our cottage along a ridge called the "pillboxes" because the ridge had a series of concrete structures built for defense.  We set our alarm and went up early to catch the sunrise.

Some earlier rises got up to the pillboxes ahead of us and staked out seats on the roof of the outlooks.   The view was terrific.

Later that day we walked up a nearby hill to the house where the bridal party was staying for brunch.  this was the view from their lofty place.  Our cottage was below, closer to the beach.

After 17 days it was time to go home.  We didn't leave until the afternoon so we drove around Oahu a little more, and finally bid Hawaii goodbye.  Until we meet again.