I can’t believe it’s finally here, and it also feels like Oahu was a whole different trip. What an amazingly beautiful and happy time this has been. I couldn’t have asked for anything better. The aloha here and the blessings we’ve received as we’ve traveled. This has been good for our marriage and each of us individually and I just can’t express how wonderful this has been. ❤️
We had some trouble with our car this morning. We took a load down and the clicker wouldn’t work. We had noticed the battery on it dying, but this morning it just wouldn’t work at all. Matt called Avis and we tried some of their ideas. Just when they were gonna call a tow truck, we tried one more thing and were able to get a little compartment off the door handle so we could use the key to unlock the car. Problem solved. And thankfully we weren’t in a hurry and could deal with it this morning.
We had bought a salad for dinner one night and hadn’t gotten to it, so we enjoyed that for breakfast at the bar in our room.
The treehouse was really cool, but there were a few issues. First, the trap door isn’t able to be locked when you’re inside. That felt weird, so the second night we put furniture on it, just to feel a little more safe - even though we were in the middle of nowhere and very safe. The other issue was that the night that it rained we were snug as a bug, but the second night the ceiling was dripping. Matt thought maybe the condensation dripped down but we didn’t want to open the window because it was cold. Anyway, just a few small things like that. Otherwise, very cool experience and I love that it was completely green from the rainwater shower to the solar everything.
Matt pulled down the trap door and put the lock on and we said goodbye to the treehouse. Then we said hello again after we’d organized in the car and both had to go potty again. And then we said goodbye for real.
I drove and Matt got pictures and videos. We passed my little minor lighthouse of Hawaii.
We found a radio station called Sounds of Hawaii and listened to that the last few days and it was great. Sometimes weird when they’d do kind of a Hawaiian yodel or go really in depth into a story, but overall really fun.
We were driving along and saw a sign for a scenic route for 4 miles so we took it and it was amazing. We passed a botanical garden we would have walked around but tickets were $30 each and we were a little priced out.
We had a very loose plan for the day since we didn’t leave till 8:55pm. One thing I wanted to do was Akaka Falls.
It cost $20 for both of us and honestly was a little anticlimactic. We saw so many amazing waterfalls on Maui and this was only a half mile walk. But we enjoyed it.
Friends in Hawaii are a dime a dozen. How can you not be friendly and happy in Hawaii?
The trees!
We traveled the north eastern route. We really made our way around all 4 islands we visited. There were very few sections we did not drive through. We were getting hungry so we stopped off at a little cafe in Honoka’a. It was a little grocery store attached to the post office and they had a little restaurant counter in the back. We shared a kalua pork tacos with pineapple salsa and sat at their outside seating area.
Everything was delicious.
Our drive around the island continues. We saw much more impressive elevation, but this was the sign we could get.
Our plan was very fluid. I wanted to check out a beach, but it turns out it’s also a pay beach and we weren’t going to swim, so we skipped that. Matt wanted to get a picture at a Quicksilver with his vintage quicksilver sweater he has, and the store happened to be close to the Original Big Island Shave Ice Co., so we hit both of those spots.
That shave ice was good, but they didn’t have a lot of flavors. One thing I did like was they had fruit flavors and then also creamy fruit flavors. My assessment of the 4 islands best shave ice is that Kauai still wins, hands down. After that I’m not sure, but Oahu was on the bottom. Probably Maui #2, and Gecko Girls, OBISC, then Scandi’s from the big island in that order. Matt is not as big a shave ice fan as I am, but he supports. After our shave ice we found more petroglyphs, so we checked those out.
We had like 4 hours to kill before our flight and it was almost 90°. So I talked Matt into going back to the Royal Kona to swim. Once we got there the temperature had dropped to 82°, so that’s annoying, but we swam for an hour and it was really lovely. Every 20 minutes or so we’d get out of the pool and watch the ocean for awhile. The waves there are so crazy, it’s just beautiful to watch. They have an outdoor shower we used and then changed back into our clothes and grabbed dinner and filled up the car with gas. We still had about an hour, so we went to Ala Kahakai National Historic Trail and did their walk to their rocky beach. We got to enjoy our last Hawaiian sunset and then headed to the airport.
I thought a lot about my mom who had wanted to go to Hawaii for years but never made it, and Jeanne’s mom who passed so young. It makes me want to really make sure I make the most out of this one wild and precious life I have. If there’s one thing my mom taught me, it’s to serve, and I am looking forward to getting back to my family and community to do that.
❤️
Our flight left at 8:55pm. We paid extra to sit together and our seats were the 2 middles of the 4 person middle row. I felt very squished in the middle, but there was actually more legroom and we were able to rest on our tray tables. We slept off and on and landed safely in Denver at 3am Hawaii time, so we’re tired but grateful. Now we’re hanging out at the USO waiting for our flight to BWI. Tired but grateful is probably gonna be our motto for the next little while. We’ll take it.
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