This little nugget comes from a trip the wife and I took in 2009. iphones were out but not prevalent. The value of $4 in 2009 is $5.02 now, 2021. What does this picture have to do with Hawaii? Absolutely nothing. But it’s one of the few pictures I have of the wife and me. And when you read this story, you will learn that neither of us brought a camera, just our flip phones.
DECEMBER 8, 2009 I talk the wife into getting out of dodge and she is willing to go “someplace warm.” I head to a AAA travel agent with my 4 year old niece, Mikayla, in tow. Mikayla draws awesome pictures while I book a trip to the island of Kauai, AKA “some place warm.” I ask for a place that is very close to the beach. I brought our plane tickets home and Lisa, my wife, informs me that “Deanna” is not her middle name. I head back to AAA. Get tickets with Lisa’s actual middle name.
Five days later, we board a Boeing 757, United flight 41 at SFO and are headed for Lahue (pronounced La-who-e). Thirty minutes into the flight, the pilot says we have to turn around because “we have a little hydraulic problem, nothing serious” I listen to the cockpit with my fancy little headphones and the pilot tells air traffic control, “We have 181 souls on board” and then quickly switches the passenger listening channel to elevator music. United flight 41 lands amongst a cavalry of fire engines positioned all over the place. We get off the plane, and 1 hour and 20 minutes later, we get on another plane and take off, again.
We land. No fire engines. We get into a rented kick ass Mazda 6 midsize car (an upgrade!) that looks like it has been to Iraq and back. A short drive later, as I ooo and aaaa over all the beautiful scenery and Lisa is like, ya whatever, we arrive at our condo. The lady at the front desk says, “Aloha!” and gives us the keys and then says, “Mahalo”. We dump our stuff and head to the beach, and the sound, “aaaaahhhhhhhh” came out of my mouth. Then the words, “I’m hungry” followed. So we headed for the condo restaurant. There was one other table taken out of about 35 tables. The hostess says, “Aloha. Do you have a reservation?” Aahhhh “no.” We are seated, the waitress says, “Aloha”. When we leave the restaurant she says, “Mahalo”.
We finish dinner and we are tired. Our bodies think it’s 10:30pm and our plane almost crashed that morning. Also if any of you know us we go to bed pretty early. Ya, we’re old. We crawl into bed. WWEEERROOW. MMMMMMMRRRWWWW. HHHMMMMMMMM. No, those are not sounds of romance, but of cars driving by as the front door to our condo, the other side of the bedroom, is about 25 feet from the highway. We are so tired we finally fall asleep.
DECEMBER 14, 2009
0630 COCK-L-DOODLE-DOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!! Chickens roam EVERYWHERE! Which mean roosters. Everywhere. So nice of them to wake us up.
1000 hours Beach. Warm sea. Swimming. Snorkeling. Reading. Sun burn.
1600 hours Quick little drive in our kick ass, war tested Mazda 6. Visited “Spouting hole,” pretty neat. There was a sign in the parking lot that said, “Please do NOT feed the chickens or feral cats.” I would have taken a picture of the spouting hole and the sign if I had remembered to bring my camera to Hawaii. Did I mention that there are chickens running EVERYWHERE all over the island? Like seriously everywhere. Several times a day my lovely wife said, “Why did the chicken cross the road?” We hit the local store real. Bought some water, a bag of chips, cookies and a couple of beers for $34.56.
Christy takes a shower. Sees herself naked. Whoa- that is one hell of a sun burn.
1900 hours Dinner. At the local burger joint. Aloha. Again. The waitress says to me, “Don’t you need a kids menu?”
DECEMBER 15, 2009 0600. Roosters. I wake up and walk to the beach, get a $4 cup of plain ol’ coffee and watch the sun rise.
0900 Sun screen. Lots and lots of sun screen. Beach. Warm sea. Swimming. Snorkeling.
1400 Longer drive to the East. There are still chickens everywhere. There were several sections along the highway where there was a 50 mph, 45 mph and a 35 mph speed limit sign about 100 feet from each other. I guess they want you to slow down gradually. Stopped at a little market and bought a $6 bottle of water. The grocery clerk said, “Mahalo.”
1700 Got back to the condo, opened a beer. Aahhhh was said by all. And then ‘BANG BANG BANG, NNNEAARRRUUP, NNEEARRUP’. Again, no sounds of romance but of a bathroom sink, tub, shower, kitchen sink and several square feet of sheetrock being torn out of the condo below us. Went back to the registration desk. “ALOHA!” the lady said. “We need a different condo,” I said. We packed up our stuff and moved (another upgrade!)
Opened the door to our new pad, SWEET! Way better than the last place. Quiet, more comfortable, much better lighting. And NO hammering and sawing and smashing sounds.
DECEMBER 16, 2009
0900 Started the day trip and headed off to the Wimea canyon. The area where Jurassic park was filmed. The travel book said the views that will take your breathe away will be imprinted on your mind for as long as you live. Drove our kick ass, war torn, dented Mazda 6 up a long, windy, steep, 2 lane road for quite some time. Finally reached the lookout parking lot. Parked. Walked up the windy steep stairs and got to the look out point. The incredible view that we supposedly would never forget as long as we live was completely, 100% socked in with fog. We laughed. I really wished I had a camera for this one. I still laugh when I think of it.
All was not lost……..we kept driving and saw other incredible views where there was no fog. Did a little hiking. We hit that first lookout point on the way back and by then the fog was gone. Totally worth it.
1600 Beach. Swimming. Ooo busted out the boogie board. I look in my little beach bag for sun screen. No sun screen. Livin’ dangerously Lisa went for a run.
1800 Sat on the beach in my wet swim suit and watched the sunset.
DECEMBER 17, 2009
1000 Whoa. Did we sleep this late really? It really is 1200 noon back home! Walked to Starbucks with the wife. Chickens everywhere.
1300 Puka hot dog for lunch. Holy crap that was one good hot dog! Watched a juvenile chicken run all over the place with a piece of hot dog in its mouth while chickens everywhere chased him. Benny Hill music played in my head. Saw a Speed limit sign that said, “SPEED LIMIT 25 MPH enforced by laser” I envisioned being shot by a laser and burning a hole in my arm. I slowed down to 25 mph.
1230 Beach. Sun screen. Swimming. Snorkeling. More swimming. Being infected with the contagious laugher of the amazing, extra large, non-hawaiian, giant movie star sunglass-wearing women, playing in the waves laughing their butts off. These ladies were the very best. Didn’t care that skinny bikini wearing girls were all over the beach. The two of them and their super contagious laugh was something I will never forget.
1800 Me and the wife sat on the beach and watched the sunset.
DECEMBER 18, 2009
0800 woke up.
0830 Walked to Starbucks with the wife. Some lady wouldn’t leave Starbucks because, well, there were chickens out there. Decided we needed to leave the condo at 1100 hours to get to our plane on time.
0900 Beach. Snorkeling. swimming. Checking my watch.
At 10:25, I begin lots and lots of sighing. At 10:26, my sighing gets louder. At 10:30, I relentlessly drag my ass out of the water and head back to the condo.
1330 hours Airport bar. Super fantastic bartender lady gives me a free Jack Daniels and coke after my first Jack and 7.
1356 Lisa drags Christy out of the bar.
1421 We wait on the tarmac, on United flight 62, wondering when in the hell are we going to take off and why are we sitting here so long. The pilot finally says, “Aaaaaaaaaaa we are experiencing a bit of a delay. There is a ‘light’ we can’t get to turn off, similar to an “engine trouble light,” so we just need to pull out some circuit boards and then put them back. That should reset the ‘light’.” Here we go AGAIN.
1445 United flight 62 takes off and has an uneventful flight back to the mainland.
TRIP SUMMARY: Lots and lots of time was spent on the beach. We ate cheeseburgers, hot dogs and some sorely needed fruit. Overall we had a super great time. The weather was amazing. The ocean water was amazing. I still haven’t been able to figure out if everyone there really says “Aloha” and “Mahalo” or they are just doin’ the tourist thing.
ALOHA and Mahalo for reading this note.