BLOGGED, BUT NOT ALONG THE WAY: PART V

 It was my birthday! It was the best birthday I've had in years.

We actually didn't do very much, because we'd chosen this day to be way more chill than the day before, and it was the last full day we had before we'd have to leave and wanted to enjoy it.

*Before I give my brief account, I know I'm forgetting stuff. We went back to that market an alarming amount of times during our stay. Steve went to the pool, and I went shopping. We ate, but not as often as we probably should have. Honestly, I don't remember which days these things happened, so just imagine those activities crammed into the cracks of all of my other stories.*

We met a cat in the morning on the back porch...ahem, I mean, the lanai. Heehee.

She was a sweet tortoise shell cat that had been caught, fixed (she had a tipped ear,) and released around the resorts. We'd seen several of them during our stay, and this was the second one to make friends with me. I think it was because I was eating cold, fried squid and shared it with her. She wanted love so bad, so I gave her lots. I named her Lilikoi, which is the Hawaiian word for passionfruit and one of the few words I could pronounce. She meowed so sadly when we left for the day. I wanted to cram her in my suitcase and take her home, but you can't even take a mango back from Hawaii, so I didn't think a cat would have made it through the agricultural check. :(

We drove down to Kona, which was the same town we went to for the luau earlier in the week, to visit the farmer's market that happened every morning. We wanted to buy fruit. I don't know why we got as much as we did because we had to leave the next day and couldn't take it with us, but it was too tempting. We got a pineapple, a cocoa bean, some bananas, a weird, scaly thing called a soursop, and a mystery orb that turned out to be a yellow passionfruit. I'd hoped that I could find something to take back to my mother and sister as a souvenir, but most of the booths hadn't opened and the ones that had were mass market stuff that I could have found anywhere else. We walked around Kona for a bit, met a very passionate man who worked for a local coffee company and seemed like he'd had a gallon or two that morning, and we got drinks from a local vendor (mine was passion fruit and I'm now addicted to them) to drink while we sat near the beach. It was a very lovely morning.

The only thing we'd actually planned to do that day, other than the dinner reservations we'd made, was visit a local beach. It wasn't one we'd seen before, and it was very popular that day. Don't be shocked, but I actually wore a swimsuit. In front of strangers. A two piece one! I know! Don't be too excited for me because it didn't fit very well. It was the first time I'd worn the bottom half and it was a shade too big, and the top was a shade too small, but except for my boobs threatening to fall out occasionally, I didn't care a bit. We found a spot to lay our blanket, and I got into the water. Dude, it was cold, but I stayed in until could swim around. Steve stayed on the beach, and I geeked out because I was in Hawaii, swimming in the pacific, on my birthday. I got out and walked along the beach looking for shells, but I really don't think that the island where we were was good for that. I only found two intact shells the whole time we were there, but I found a few pretty broken ones. Then we lay out on the beach for a while just enjoying the day.  

After we left, Steve found a place he wanted to visit a few miles away, but I decided to stay back at the condo and take a nap. When he got back we visited the resort pool and hot tub, and it was like a scene from Cocoon. Then I realized that we are also old, and that made me sad! Haha! It was evening by that point, so we got cleaned up to go to dinner, which was, weirdly, at a Hawaiian-Cajun fusion place at the shopping center. Great food; weird combination.

While we were waiting on our dinner time, I wanted to get one particular thing for myself as a souvenir, and that was a necklace. I'd been given some birthday money from Mr. Lee, and I thought a nice piece of jewelry would be a great thing I'd use all the time, and it wouldn't gather dust, but y'all...real jewelry is effing expensive. I didn't want anything elaborate, or made of diamonds, but even the relatively simple stuff I found was WAY out of my price range. I usually just wear a simple, silver necklace with a small pendant on it, and that's all I wanted, but geez. I did finally find one, not exactly what I originally wanted, but close enough. It's a tiny, silver hibiscus flower on a chain. It's pretty rad. 

We had to go back and start organizing our stuff so that we could leave the next day and I was sad. I know how cliche this sounds, but I genuinely didn't want to leave. I know that a lot of people feel like that, and they move to Hawaii for the vibes and then realize that living in Hawaii isn't the same as vacationing there, but I literally could have abandoned everything and stayed. That sounds so dumb. There was something about being there, on that island I hadn't prepared to visit and didn't know anything about until driving around it, that has my heart now. I genuinely miss it. Not the food, not the touristy stuff, but the place.  

But leave it I must. It is the way of things.

The next morning (Sunday) we got everything packed away, snarfed an obscene of farmer's market fruit, and played with the cat for a while. Three kids came up while we were outside and I introduced them to the cat, so I know she had some playmates after we left which made me feel better about leaving her there. After checking out, we returned the rental car and sat at the first of three airports for a really long day of travel. Our first flight wasn't until that afternoon, but our check out time was in the morning, so we sat in the Kona airport for several hours before a short flight to Honolulu. From there we got on a long-ass, 8 hour, overnight flight to Atlanta. I took a sleeping pill for that one, but still managed to watch a movie, have a meal, and try not to touch the person I didn't know sitting to my left. We hadn't managed to get better seats for the long-haul flight, but that was fine. Such is life! In Atlanta, early Monday morning, we had just enough time to visit the Delta lounge before our last leg of the journey.  Steve has enough Delta miles from work travel to be a member, and he can bring a guest, so we went in and got breakfast. Out of an abundance of Fuck-It-All, I ordered a White Russian at 6:30 AM, because it kind of has coffee in it and it's on my list of cocktails to try and I didn't have to pay for it! So slightly tipsy, we went to our gate and got on the plane to Huntsville, where I promptly fell asleep again.

Although the trip was not the one I'd planned, it was the one I needed, and I had the best time. I found a new place to love, and I hope I can go back one day to visit it, and the other islands as well. 

There you go! Aloha!

BLOGGED, BUT NOT ALONG THE WAY: PART IV

Okay. All right, now, let's see. Where were we? Oh, yes. In the Pit of Despair...

Well, no, we're still on Big Island. I believe this would make it Friday, February 13th at this point!

This is the day that Steve planned. When I told him to look on the map and find places he wanted to go, I didn't expect a full itinerary, but he surprised me! I have also been reminded that when he sets a schedule, he abides by it. I can respect that, even if I'm more of a wanderer, but I will comment more on that later.

We had to leave just after 8 in the morning so that we could go to all the places that he'd found to visit on this day. Although we still weren't sure about the size of the island or how long it would take to drive around it, and the internet wasn't telling us what we needed to know in a practical way, we decided that we'd just get up, get dressed, and go and worry about timing and anything else that came up along the way. 

(Important Note: I had only had enough water to swallow a pill before we left. I accidentally left my bottle of water on the table in the condo.)

As you can see with my fine graphics skills, I have numbered the areas on the map that we visited that day in the order we visited them. We had actually planned go in the opposite direction than we actually did, because there was one other spot we wanted to see that was closer, but the things that we had on our list were things we wouldn't be able to see if it got dark, so we reversed our course.

1- That was our home base. I believe that I showed you that in the last post. That first long stretch of the drive was through a desert of some kind. Not a lot of trees that weren't small and scrubby, bright, hot sun, and lots of lava rocks were the scenery at first. Oh, and goats. So many freaking goats. There wasn't much out there as far as buildings, but we did see some kind of testing range out there. I know it was military, but not what it was for. I figure if we needed to know, there would be a sign out front telling us what they were testing. Missiles maybe? Not my business. As we drove, we saw the same kind of landscapes that we'd seen the day before on our way: dry - then high and rainy - and then bright and lush. 

We would have loved to drive up the side of Mauna Kea, the worlds largest mountain from base to top, (SUCK IT, EVEREST!) but we didn't have the right kind of rental car to get there. Apparently, you need a 4-wheel drive, and we had a convertible, so we just knew it was there and had to be satisfied with that.

As we were getting close to our first stop, we got rear-ended at a stop light. Thankfully it wasn't bad and there was no damage to either car, but it scared the crap out of everyone involved. The poor guy who hit us either skidded on the wet road, or got bumped from behind by someone who didn't bother to pull over with us, but thankfully this didn't derail our day at all. In the spirit of Aloha (I read that on a travel blog, so don't blame me for that) we all parted ways kindly. 

2- It was a little hard to find, but such a lovely drive that I didn't care. We finally found our way to the first stop, which was the Star of the Sea painted church in Pahoa. It was so beautiful. I didn't know what to expect when we got to this tiny blue church in the middle of nowhere, so it blew my mind when we walked in. The link above can tell you about it much more succinctly than I can, so please go and read about it there, but going inside was such an experience. The interior was painted in forced perspective, so it actually looks much bigger when you first walk in, but it's really very small. There was only one lady in there with her baby, so we were able to look around without being crowded. At first glance it seemed a little gaudy, but when you took in everything that it was trying to express, it was really worth the long drive out there. There was a donation box, and a basket of "trinkets" that you could choose from if you donated, so I put in some money and got a rosary and oddly, my favorite souvenir of the entire trip, a macramé bracelet with a little saint medallion on it. I have no idea who the saint is, but I've got high hopes that having him with me is a good thing. :)

3- We drove on to this stop, which was Volcano National Park. I was really shocked that Steve wanted to go here, because it didn't seem like a thing he'd enjoy at all. His dad always took him to national parks when he was a kid, and I thought that he'd had his fill, but we were there to specifically see something called a lava tube. What is a lava tube?  It is a cave with protuberances. At least, that's what the internet tells us because we didn't get to see it. There were so many people in the national park that day that we couldn't find a place to park so that we could get to the lava tube. We could have parked a bit away and walked, but it was cold and rainy, and we hadn't expected to be in that kind of weather and didn't have jackets. Plus, the road we'd have to walk was narrow and winding, and we didn't trust that we wouldn't get ran over by a tour bus. We did get to see into Kīlauea, which wasn't erupting at the time, and we got to see some Nene birds (which are fancy Hawaiian geese) and that was very cool. We were going to go see some more stuff in the park, but we couldn't find a place to park anywhere. We even got stuck in a line of traffic that wouldn't budge, because people were parking in weird places, and some angry German lady got out of our car and knocked on our window and told us we had to move because she needed to leave, but we were literally unable to go anywhere, so she had to deal with it until we managed to inch forward. 

I almost gave her the Fist of Aloha. Hateful schlampe.

There was no place in the park that we could stop and look at anything because of the parking situation, and even the welcome center was closed for remodeling, so we decided to leave. I wish we could have seen more, but it was a nightmare trying to get anywhere with all the people, so we counted it as a partial loss. We did get to see a volcano, though, so that was my silver lining! 

We drove and drove and drove to get to the next spot, but again, it was such a beautiful drive that it didn't bother me at all. We went though a lot of neighborhoods and tiny towns, and it was cool to see the kinds of houses people live in. I guess I probably make it sound like they were living in grass huts or something, but they weren't, of course. It was just much different from the houses and yards where we live. There were small, brightly painted houses with lava stones decorating the yards, and all kinds of flowers everywhere. There were orchids growing wild on the side of the road, and wild chickens. We saw macadamia nut farms, and coffee farms, and there were wide fields that led to sea cliffs, so at certain points along the way we could see the ocean. We did pass one place I wish we could have stopped, which was another black sand beach, and a famous one from what I understand, but when I pointed it out, Steve didn't stop. I didn't say specifically that I'd like to stop, but I wish I had, because by that point a bathroom and a vending machine would have been nice. It was almost 1 PM by that point and I hadn't eaten, drank, or gone to the bathroom in all that time, but we had someplace to go and we were on a mission to get there. After driving through all of that, and then more driving through one-way farm roads towards the ocean, we finally found what we were looking for.

4- We got to the parking area of the Green Sand Beach, Papakōlea. I have read about this place before, it was a bucket list place for me, and I wanted very badly to see it, but I didn't think I'd get the chance. Not just because I thought I'd never get to Hawaii, but because it's apparently not an easy place to get to even when you're there. We'd heard you could pay locals to drive you out to it in an ATV, but we didn't like the idea of that because we'd be on some else's schedule.

Charles asked us our first day if we'd be going to the green beach, and we told him we'd like to but that we'd heard it was hard to get to, but he told us that it was an easy 2.5-mile hike without many hills. Very easy to do, you see. We are not big hikers, but we have hiked further than that before with no issues. Plus, Charles said it wasn't that bad! Charles wouldn't steer us wrong, would he?

Now, before you answer that, there is something you need to know about Charles. Charles is a multi-time Iron Man Triathlete finisher. I don't know if that's the proper term, but he was a big Iron Man guy. That was one of the reasons he lives on the Big Island, because that's where they do the Hawaiian Iron Man race. Also, unless you, yourself, are an Iron Man triathlete, you cannot trust them when they say something is easy, because they spend huge amounts of time torturing themselves to train to do a race that regular humans can't do, and their idea of easy IS NOT THE SAME as that of a normal person.

We didn't consider that. 

When we got out of the car, someone walked up and asked us if we wanted to pay for a ride. It was $50 for both of us out and back, but we didn't have that much cash on us, and we also figured if Charles said the hike was easy, then we'd be fine. That is when God punished us for our hubris.

It wasn't hard at first. Sure, we were walking on old lava flows, and it was hilly and rocky, but it was fine. It was lovely scenery, blue sea, black rocks, rough surf, and very windy, but still nice. It didn't take long before the trail stopped being a trail, and we had no idea how far we actually were from our destination, and it wasn't that nice anymore. It's easy to be dramatic about it now, because obviously we lived to tell the tale, but the hike out there became long, hot, dusty, windy, and complicated. Where the ATVs drive through, it had carved gullies out of the ground that you had to figure out how to follow. If you got out of the gully, you had to climb up and down rocky wash outs, and there were so many trails that we didn't know if we were following the right ones. Every time we saw a hill, we expected to see the beach just beyond, but it was never there! Two or three times, the ATVs and trucks drove by and they asked if we wanted a ride, but Steve said no. I was not pleased, but what could we do? After a time, I decided that if I could make it there, I'd count it a win, and so I became determined that I would see that green beach, even if it was the last thing my living body saw.  Finally, and I have no idea how long it actually took because my body had ceased being able to tell the passage of time, we got there. It. Was. Freaking. Gorgeous.  Did I think we could just walk down to the beach and enjoy it? Yes. Could we? No. Because we had to scale a lava cliff before we could get down to the sand. Geez.

Before we got to the cliff, I turned and asked one of the drivers waiting nearby if they took Venmo. They did. Hallelujah.

So Steve and I, out of shape, dehydrated, hot, dusty, and a little pissed off, got to the cliff and made our way down. There is a small ladder to the first landing, and after that, the rest of the climb is between you and Jesus. Thankfully, Jesus was on our side, so we made it down safely. It was totally worth the hike. 

I wish I could have stayed there for a long time because it was one of the prettiest places I'd ever seen. It was right up there with Zion National Park in my book, and that's saying a lot. The green sand literally sparkled, the beach was in a little cove protected from the wind and civilization, and the water was deep, dark blue. If we had been alone there, it would have been perfect, but of course, we weren't. It was still like something you'd dream about. I dug around in the sand for a little bit, and looked for shells, but there weren't any that I could see, but it didn't take long for Steve to want to leave. It had taken us much longer to get out there than we'd thought, and we still had another stop to make. Honestly, as much as I loved being there, I didn't fight him about leaving because I was so tired. So we climbed back up the cliff and were assigned a truck to get into, and we waited for the other passengers so that we could leave.

The ride back was...harrowing. The man who drove us had a green truck he called The Turtle. At least I think that's what he said, because his accent was thick and I wasn't sure what he was saying. It was a very old truck, and once the other four passengers got in (we all stood in the bed, holding on to metal pipes that had been welded into a sort of frame to keep us in) he used moving straps to hold the doors of the cabin closed before setting off. I'm fairly certain that even in my most redneck of days, living on our little farm and riding in the back of the farm trucks, I have never been so close to death as we came from riding back to the parking lot in The Turtle. I had my arms and legs wrapped around the pipes, and we would go over hills violently, or tilt up almost 90 degrees very slowly, or tilt to the side so much that I just knew we'd fall over. However, the man got us back. It didn't take any less time, more or less, but it took much less energy, so we were grateful. Once we got back, Steve venmoed the money to the guy's wife, and I was so glad to be back that I gave him every last cent of cash I had on me as a tip. That was dumb, I realized later, because when we came to a place where someone was selling water, we didn't have cash for that. Good Lord. I would realize later that every time we hit a bump, my right hip bone was slamming against the pipe, so I had a nice sized bruise there and, on my elbow, after a day or so.

Thankfully our next stop was literally less than two minutes away.

5- This place was the southernmost point in the 50 states of the US, called Ka Lae, Hawaii. It was a cliff. Steve didn't get out of the car, but I did. I didn't go through all of that not to get my foot picture with the edge of that cliff, by God. I didn't stay long. 

We had a long way to drive back, and although we were going to make one more stop, we decided not to because were not only dehydrated, exhausted, and sunburned, we were now filthy from all the dust we had walked through on our way to the green beach, and all the dust that The Turtle kicked up on our way back. We weren't just filthy, we were gritty. It was not pleasant. I asked Steve to stop somewhere so that we could get something to drink, but I don't know if he was so zoned out that he wasn't paying attention, or if he wasn't seeing the gas stations and restaurants we passed in time to turn, but it was a while before he actually stopped so I could get something. There was a brief moment where I could have gladly stopped the car and beaten him to death for that, but I kept the spirit of Aloha right up until we got back. Lucky for him.

We got back to the condo, cleaned up, and FINALLY got something to eat before collapsing into bed. I don't remember anything after turning the lights off. It had been a fun, adventurous day, but damn, I was glad it was over.

BLOGGED, BUT NOT ALONG THE WAY: PART III

 I woke up again in the middle of the night again (damn the time difference) and made a reservation to visit a vanilla plantation!

The guy who did our timeshare thing (you're going to hear about him again, so I'm gonna call him Charles. I don't know if that was his name but humor me) gave us some ideas on what to do on the island after he stopped trying to take our money. He asked if we had heard about the place, and that they did a tour and then fed you a meal where every course had their own vanilla in it. We had not, but the idea stuck, so I found it online and bought some tickets!

Our reservation was at 11:00, so we got up with the sun and then went back to the shopping center to have breakfast at one of the restaurants before we got on the road. We ate at a place called Kona Biscuit Co. and I learned about guava jelly and passionfruit butter. My life will never be the same. 

The plantation was on the other side of the island, so we had about an hour and change to drive to get there. Sorry about the rough nature of this map, and that it isn't to scale or painted:

We started roughly on the far left of that red line, and had to drive to the spot on the right, so it wasn't a terribly long drive, all things considered, but it felt longer because the speed limit all over the island was fairly low. Maybe that's all a part of driving in the spirit of "aloha." Well, that and not giving people the bird when they piss you off. It was interesting, because we started out in bright sunlight and those lava rock fields, going up through hills and grass, and then it got cloudy and drizzly as we made it higher up and found ourselves driving through neighborhoods and small towns. Then the sun came out and we were in thick trees and flowers, and much greener landscapes, so we knew that we had made it to the "wet" side of the island. That was where it looked much more like I had thought Hawaii would, and it was gorgeous! 

Trying to find the Hawaiian Vanilla Company was a lot of driving down one lane roads and through farms of different kinds. It reminded me to trying to find the small whiskey distilleries in Tennessee, but with less kudzu and more hibiscus. We finally found it and found ourselves in this tiny old coffee mill turned vanilla farm. We were super early because we hadn't known if we'd get caught in traffic or what, so we sat around reading and browsing the gift shop until it was our turn to tour.

There were about 15 of us in total, and they served us a delicious lunch before walking us down to their hothouse to see the vanilla vines. Unfortunately the orchids had already bloomed and been pollinated before we got there. The flowers usually only last for about three hours, they said, but we did get to see the vines and some of the beans that they'd left as a visual aid. We were told all about the process, and that this particular farm was the first American vanilla farm, and it was a beautiful walk around the grounds. There were avocado trees just casually on the side of the road, and we were in a place where people lived, so it was small and intimate. It wasn't their main farm, but the one where it had begun and where they taught people about how vanilla is grown, but it was still a neat experience.

On the way back we acquainted ourselves with the beaches that were closest to us along the way. I asked to stop at a state park beach, just to see what it was like. Very crowded, as it happens, and Steve found a very small, but very beautiful black sand beach in a cove in a gated community. Apparently, there are no private beaches in Hawaii, so we were let in without any trouble. 

It was probably the most beautiful beach that we'd seen up to that point. It was small, the sand was more gray than black, but black enough, and it wasn't overrun with people. We walked and took pictures, and I had to physically restrain myself from taking rocks from the beach. My gremlin self really wanted to take rocks, but it's supposed to be bad juju to do so. So I didn't. Boo.

By the time we made it back to our condo, it was late in the day and we were exhausted. I guess we're getting old, because instead of getting cleaned up and going right back out, we just ordered a pizza and called it a night.

BLOGGED, BUT NOT ALONG THE WAY: PART II

 After the timeshare meeting, Steve and I decided to make ourselves more acquainted with our surroundings since we had no idea where we were. Let me 'splain.

The area where we were staying did not look at all like I imagined Hawaii would. Like any good haole, I always imagined it was all lush forests, palm trees, flowers, white beaches and all of that, but we were in Waikoloa, which is on what we were told was the "dry side" of the island. If you remember me saying that when we drove in that it felt like we were in the middle of nowhere, that was both true, and not true. From the Kona airport to where we were, a 30 to 45 minute drive, there didn't seem to be anything other than hills and what looked like giant, lumpy tilled fields. It was like the surface of Mars, if Mars was brown instead of red. It wasn't dirt, though, it was fields of volcanic rock. So basically, we were on the side of the island with the old lava flows. There were beaches and homes/resorts on the coast, but not in the way I am used to. There were no giant, multi-story hotels, no tacky seaside shops, or trashy tourist traps lining the coast there, so from the highway we could just see the palm trees and sometimes the roofs of the houses as well as the ocean beyond. It wasn't obvious, and so well planned that unless you were really looking, it didn't seem like there was anything there.

The resort we were in was a part of one of those types of developments. You'd turn off the highway and see the row of condos. The further in (towards to the ocean) you'd go, you'd see more condos, a big fancy hotel or two, and two small shopping centers with restaurants and upscale resort wear, surf shops, and at least one large-ish market in each. Beyond that was the biggest and fanciest hotel right on the water with a black, rocky beach. It was beautiful and about as unobtrusive as you can get, unless you're standing in the parking lot, of course

We walked around the big hotel, taking pictures and trying to get our bearings. We looked for a beach we could walk on, but it was all just rough surf and black rocks beyond a retaining wall that we couldn't climb over unless we wanted to fall and die. We actually got a little lost walking around this big, sprawling place. We eventually found our way out, and it was almost time for lunch, which was at a restaurant in one of the small shopping centers we'd passed, so we went there and ate and then looked around. 

That shopping area, the market there to be exact, was where we spent a huge amount of our free time and most of our money while we were on the island. It was a grocery store/souvenir shop, but something better than, if that makes sense. Since so many of the nearby places closed early, we stocked up on snacks for the condo and got some supplies that we didn't know we'd need for our trip until we got there. We also got matching outfits for the luau we were going to that night. Well, Steve got a Hawaiian shirt and I found a cheap, matching dress. He was a little horrified, but I thought it was funny! We went back to the room to change and then headed back to Kona for the Luau.

It was quite a drive, and we got caught in terrible traffic (Kona is a biggish city on the island and much more touristy than where we were) but we made it to the hotel where the luau was going to be, got our leis and got seated for dinner. It was all outdoors and the weather was beautiful. We were under palm trees and right next to the water, and they kept bringing around cocktails from the open bar. It was a while before we got to eat, but we did the whole thing, roasted pig, poi, and all! The show was so good, it showed a bunch of different Polynesian dances from all over, and the emcee explained the differences. It was a lot of fun. That night I learned that I don't like Mai Tais or Poi, but I very much like passionfruit and Hula Kane (male hula dancers.)

We went back to our condo afterwards and even though it was still relatively early (we were 4 hours behind our usual time, so early didn't feel early to me) I told Steve to look online and find some stuff he'd like to do, and I fell asleep almost before I was all the way in bed. With the exception of the timeshare part, it had been a fun day. 

BLOGGED, BUT NOT ALONG THE WAY: PART I

I'm back from my vacation! 

Full disclosure, I've been back for a week already, but I didn't have the time or the energy to write anything because of jet lag, backup of work stuff, and what I can only assume is some kind of radioactive pollen flying around my end of town due to the unseasonably warm weather that is trying to kill me, but I'm back all the same!

Have you been wondering where I went? You'll never guess in a million years. Unless we're Facebook friends, or if I texted you photos, of course. :)

I FINALLY GOT TO GO TO HAWAII!!!!!!  Not an EPCOT version, not a town in Tennessee or Georgia called Hawaii, but the real, actual state of Hawaii. The one in the Pacific Ocean!

Last year, Steve and I went to Florida for Disney (of course) and for a conference, and we accidentally stayed in a Hilton Resort property. I say accidentally because we didn't know it was a resort; we just thought it was a nice hotel until we actually got there and saw it was a full-on condo. While we were in the lobby, a lady asked if we wanted to attend one of their time-share events (we didn't) and if so, they'd give Steve an obscene amount of points on his credit card to raise his status (which he wanted) so we agreed, knowing full well we didn't want a time share. We attended, sat through the torture of the presentation and repeatedly told them we didn't want the timeshare. However, they did give us the option of paying a one-time fee that would allow us to visit any other of their time-share resort properties in the US for a reduced cost to see if we'd like to reconsider. We still didn't want a time-share, but it was a good deal, so we did that. We knew they had some resorts in nice places, so why not?

Part of me didn't think we'd actually use the voucher, but since we paid for it, and it would be our 25th anniversary that November, I made the call that we should use the voucher for an anniversary trip, and I told him I wanted to visit Hawaii. Shockingly, he agreed. The only catch was that we couldn't take the trip on our anniversary because he was traveling for work in November, plus the holidays were right after that, so we planned the trip around my birthday instead.

My job was to pick which resort we were going to visit, as they had different ones on different islands. I initially told him that any one of them would be fine (this is important to remember) but after talking with one of my friends who was in the Navy and stationed out there, who went through the brochures with me and told me what was on each island, I decided O'ahu would be the best bet. Yes, it was touristy, and yes it would be crowded, but I figured that we might as well try that one since it was the one most people visited and we'd see if we liked it. It would have lots to do, and we'd be able to see all of the things we'd heard about, like Pearl Harbor, Waikiki, and the like. So I went back and told Steve to book the resort on that island.

February finally rolled around and it was time to go on the trip. I was peeing-in-my-pants excited, not gonna lie. I even offered to splurge and get the really good first-class seats on the flight from LAX to the island (they were not available on the Huntsville to Atlanta, or Atlanta to Los Angeles flights) which made the last leg of the trip awesome. We were 10 minutes to landing when I noticed something off about our destination, though.

We were watching the flight tracker when I saw we were landing at the Kona Airport. Now, if you aren't familiar with Kona, it is not on the island of O'ahu, it is on the Big Island of Hawai'i. I mentioned this to Steve and he said "Well, they're probably dropping off some passengers there and then going on to O'ahu. Besides, I booked the flight at the airport closest to our resort." However, our tickets ended in Kona. This is how we realized that he had booked a resort on a completely different island than we thought. We had no idea where we were going.

We landed late in the day, and the shuttle took us to the car rental place. As we drove, there was NOTHING around. No lights, very few cars, and it looked like miles and miles of nothing at all around us. I wasn't angry, yet, but I was confused. We picked up the car, headed towards our resort, and checked in. Still, nothing was around us. No cities, no houses, and not even a convenience store. Everything we could see was closed. We were hungry, but the resort restaurant was closed. Our condo was very nice, but I was on edge, which made Steve on edge, and so he decided he didn't want to hear me freak out about not knowing where we were, so he went to bed. I followed. Once I got settled, I cried.

Now, before you say "Oh, you spoiled bitch, you were in Hawaii, but not on the right island so you cried? Boo-fucking-hoo" let me just explain it like this: For 8 months, I'd planned on being in O'ahu. My ex-Navy friend and I had talked at length about the things to do there. What to see, what to schedule once we were there, places to go...all of that. He and his wife even put together and texted a long list of things for us to do and see while we were there. That had been the plan all along. Now I didn't even know where I was in relation to anything, much less all the things that I'd been planning couldn't be done because were nowhere near any of it. It was black as pitch, seemingly in the middle of nowhere, I hadn't even looked at the Big Island on a map, and the map I did see on the plane showed nothing that made sense. Imagine booking a trip to New Orleans, making plans to see very specific things, and when the plane touches down, you realize you're in Montana. That's how I felt. I wasn't angry with Steve, believe it or not. We'd sat down and talked about the trip! We talked about the reservations! The biggest problem was that I had told him to reserve any of the resorts to visit, he picked what he thought was the nicest one, I went back later to tell him that O'ahu was where we should go, which he agreed to and said he'd already made the reservation, and the entire time, we both thought we were talking about the same place. A failure to communicate, if you will.

So, yeah, I cried. However, if there is one thing you need to know about me, is that I generally need to overreact at first about anything that upsets me and then I can think rationally afterwards. I have to clear out the panic bugs and then I can move on quite decently! So that's what I did. I woke up in the middle of the night, made lunch reservations and reservations to attend a luau the next day, and went back to sleep knowing that I was going to make the best of this trip if it killed the both of us. :)

We got up, and I told him the plans I'd made. I told him I wasn't angry, just disappointed that we had to retool our plan, and that we'd have to fly by the seat of our pants for the week, which was fine with me. We, of course, had to sit through another time-share thing (which was part of the cost of being allowed to stay there) which we had purposefully scheduled first thing on our first full day so we could get it over with. We respectfully declined the offers, and then we finally got going on our Hawaii vacation!

More to come...

RANDOM ACTS OF BLOGGING

Hello friends! Sorry I don't update more often, but I can't stress how little I've been doing! Thanks for checking in, though. I'm glad you are making sure I'm still here.

1) Christmas was fine. We celebrated with Mr. Lee and with my side of the family. With Mr. Lee we grilled steaks and watched a video of one of Steve's Christmas concerts that his dad had to miss. It was nice. We celebrated with my family the Saturday before Christmas because so many of the younger members of the family have kids and babies, and mom didn't want them to have to interrupt Santa time to come over. It was loud, fun, and loud again. I was dressed as an elf. We played games and ate. 

We spent actual Christmas day not doing anything. It was glorious.

2) New Years was fine. We stayed home. I watched Stranger Things and cried at the ending, but I don't know why because I'm not particularly invested. Anyways, I liked it. I don't remember if we stayed up til midnight or not. I think we did? Who knows.

3) Got my haircut.. Actually, I really like it! You can see it in the picture above. It floofs well and is very easy to dry! I didn't actually cut it because of the dye job, even though I threatened to. I cut it because I was drying my hair one day and it got sucked into the intake of my hair dryer and I had to rip a whole wad of my hair out to get it loose. So, that was the catalyst! It was a little traumatizing at the salon (I went to a proper one that I had to make an appointment at and everything) seeing the absolute pile of my hair on the floor, but after I had time to adjust, I've decided I like it. I'm even going back to get a trim instead of waiting another year and a half to get it cut again!

4) Had a routine colonoscopy, and it was decidedly not fine. Not the results, those came back fine, but the beforehand preparation for it was Miserable. There was a time when I would have gone into detail, or at least the more palatable details, about the process, but I'm not going to do that this time. It was traumatizing. I had to take a whole day off of work just for the prep. I wasn't sure that was absolutely necessary to do, but I did it just in case. I'm very glad I did. Let's just say, in the span of 20 hours, I lost three pounds, every ounce of moisture in my body, and my will to live. It was the only time in recent memory that I figured I could swallow a ball bearing and have it drop all the way through me without touching the sides.  I was so dehydrated that my voice cracked and the skin on my freaking arms was wrinkled. Thankfully they let me come in early and get the procedure over with, so I was out of the hospital by 1:00 PM and could go home and eat and drink and try to function like a human again.

Oh, and they accidentally pulled my gown open in the back without closing the door of the room, so everyone who walked by got to see my ass! I guess Mardi Gras got started a little bit early!

5) I'm going on vacation in a couple of weeks! A real, non-Disney vacation to someplace I actually want to go! If it goes well, I will tell you about it. I don't want to jinx it. Just know I'm excited. :)

6) Work is fine. It has been busy! Well, relatively so. My job is more about support than anything, but there was a lot of meetings and organizing, and some holiday stuff. My job is great, even if I'm not really doing anything important, but I like the company and I like the people a lot. I'm lucky to work there, I think. Also, they let me be whimsical as long as I'm not causing a ruckus, which I appreciate. 

7) I've been crocheting again after a long sabbatical. I finished an entire, adult sized afghan! It's only the second one I've ever made, and hopefully this one won't be donated to Goodwill, Well, I don't know if the other one was donated, but I suspect it might have been. Anyways, I also finished three baby blankets and some toys, and I'm working on another afghan and doing some other things trying to work through my yarn stash to get it under control. My only issue is that I buy yarn because I like it, but I don't have any real idea what I'm going to do with it. So when I try and use it, I have to go buy more of the same so that I'll have enough to make the actual project, which means my stash doesn't really get any smaller. However, I am trying, and so more blankets and toys will be made. I got a great, creepy pattern for a granny square with an eyeball in the middle, and I'm going to make a biblically accurate cardigan or purse. It will be hideous and I'm so excited.

That's really it! I stay at home most nights and listen to true crime podcasts, which isn't anything to elaborate on. Hope you're doing well and that you have some excitement in your life.

DON'T LAUGH

Ok, so I wrote a song.

Please don't laugh. Also, don't get too excited.

Lemme 'splain...

Steve was playing around with an AI music app, and he was putting in prompts for silly things. The program was doing a great job writing the songs he wanted, so far as an AI program can "do" a great job. It even wrote a song about our dogs that turned me into a snotty, crying mess because I loved it so much. It was fun, but I have complicated feelings about AI.

I think it can be a great help, and a useful tool, but I don't really think people should use it to create things out of whole cloth. I know too many musicians, writers, and artists to feel comfortable stealing from them, especially if that is how they make a living. I do use AI at work sometimes if I need a very specific graphic for something and can't find an alternative, but unless I'm in a hurry, I usually try and use those things as an inspiration or as parts for something I piece together myself. So, while I was enjoying the songs from the app and thought they were fun, they felt a little like a cheat.

He told me that you could put in prompts, or you could put in original lyrics, and the app would give you a song. Now he had my attention!

I can read music, and I can sing music, but I cannot write music. That is a whole set of skills that I do not possess, much to my chagrin. I've always wanted to write music but didn't know how to do it. Anytime I tried, I ended up playing a song that already existed. However, I can do words, and now I had a tool to help with the rest.

I've had this sentence running through my head for a few months that sounded like a line of a song, and it wouldn't leave me alone. I had tried to write something to make it into a song, but nothing worked. I was trying too hard to turn it into music rather than just putting down the words. So, in about 10 minutes, I came up with some lyrics and sent them to Steve and told him to use the prompt "Delta Blues" as the style of music and have a woman's voice sing it. I wasn't expecting very much.

Now, it's very imperfect and there are lyrics I would change if I could. They're a little derivative, and some lines are kind of cheesy, and I would much rather be the voice singing the song instead of the AI lady, but I like what the program did with it. It's more Chicago Blues than Delta Blues (the program emulated the style of Buddy Guy we think) but I'm not mad at it. I work with a musician who heard it and likes it enough that he said he'd learn to play it so I could actually perform it one day. I still know it's cheating, but I can't help enjoying the fact that I can hear a song I wrote "out loud." I uploaded it to SoundCloud so that I could have a way to listen to it easier and realized that I can share it. So I'm going to share it here.

It's ok if you don't like it, it's not great, but please don't laugh!

TaebelleKMP · Burned My House Down