Diaries I Read:
Well, I�m sorry to say that I�m back from Hawaii. It was a wonderful, relaxing, gorgeous vacation and I wish I was still there. But alas, it�s back to real life for me.
I�ve found that reading about other people�s vacations can sometimes be boring, so I�ll try to avoid boring you with the details. Here we go.
Chickens! Chickens everywhere! I know, they don�t seem like a tropical bird, but the island is literally overrun with chickens. Outside our hotel room. On the side of the road. At the beach. Outside the restaurants. Dumb roosters waking me up in the morning. Cute mama hens taking care of their chickies.
The beaches! Beautiful, long, white sand beaches all over the island. We could basically pull off any random side road and follow it toward the sea, and there would be a gorgeous beach right there. And we did. We found lots of quiet beaches where we were the only ones there.
Swing Beach. That�s not really the name, so don�t go looking for it on your map. That�s what B and I named it because of the really cool homemade swing hanging from this tree on the shore. We took lots of pictures of me swinging on the swing. This was a desolate, beautiful beach we found on the first day we were there. Other than a few native Hawaiians walking their dogs every now and then, we had Swing Beach all to ourselves.
Surfing! I took a lesson first, and I actually stood up and surfed! I crashed a couple of times too, but it wasn�t as hard as I thought it would be. The hardest part is swimming out against the waves. I tried it on my own later in the week, and it was a bit harder without an instructor to tell you when to go and when to stand up, but I still caught a couple of waves. That second day I got major surfboard rash on my forearms and stomach. Not fun.
The tree tunnel on the way to Poipu (the most beautiful beach in the world by some accounts). Not much else to say about this. It was just pretty.
This one. No, we didn�t go to church while we were there. We just saw this one on the side of the road and thought it was cute.
Actually, I had lots of great drinks there, but this is the only one I took a picture of. Isn�t it pretty? Too bad each drink cost $8. Actually, I think the drink I enjoyed the most was the beer I had after my surfing lesson. Or the pina colada I had while lounging in the swimming pool.
Every day we slept in til we felt good and ready to get up, had breakfast in our room (we had a little kitchenette), then put on our bathing suits and headed out for the day. Some days we had activities planned, and others we just drove around until we found a beach we wanted to go to or a site we wanted to see.
In addition to my surfing lessons, our planned activities included a speed boat/snorkeling trip along the NaPali coast, where we saw dolphins and went in and out of caves and under waterfalls; a zipline adventure, where we were put into harnesses and �zipped� along cables 1,000 feet in the air above the trees, streams, and valleys; and a trip to the fern grotto, this tropical forest place with a cave where ferns grow out of the rocks. Here�s a picture from the Fern Grotto. Beautiful.
All in all, it was a perfect vacation. B and I had the time we needed to unwind, decompress, and enjoy being with each other. I feel a little more ready to face the world again.
Working at home - Wednesday, Nov. 17, 2004
Toronto - Tuesday, Nov. 16, 2004
On the way to Toronto... - Tuesday, Nov. 09, 2004
A Good Day - Monday, Nov. 08, 2004
Another letter - Thursday, Nov. 04, 2004