Hawaii 2014 - Final Thoughts

The years are flying by and the window is closing fast on our big family trips. We hope to squeeze one more big trip in next summer, but that's only if the stars align properly. Derek will be going into his Junior year of high school then. The adolescent years are in full swing, especially for Derek, and we're no longer the center of their lives. Even when we're together and things are going fairly smoothly, we're not really "together" like it used to be. Their agenda's and our agenda's are diverging...as it should be. If there was no strife they would never stretch their own wings and leave. We know it's normal and we accept it, but we don't like it.

Here are some reflections on our trip:

Trip Planning: I wouldn't go as far as saying I'm passionate about trip planning, but I enjoy it. I like immersing myself in all the possibilities. The anticipation and the nostalgia are my favorite parts. The actual doing is at times really nice, but it's also filled with stress, anxiety, conflict, second-guessing, contradiction, indecisiveness, inconsistency, etc...basically, real life. I try to get the rest of the family involved in trip planning, but they're always so busy with school and other activities that they're content with me planning the trips.

It's a Long Flight: Flying to Hawaii is a lot easier for people living on the west coast. In Atlanta, we get deals all the time to the Caribbean. It seems like people on the west coast get the same kinds of deals for Hawaii - they just pop over for a quick resort stay. For us, it's a big investment of time and money to get to Hawaii. Who knows if we'll ever get there again so I felt compelled to take advantage and see as much as possible instead of parking ourselves at a resort. Helen joked about staying in Hawaii forever - not because she loved it, but because she didn't want to make the long flight back.

Hawaii: This was our first trip to Hawaii. Like most people we had all the usual preconceived notions: hula girls, lush tropical landscapes, beautiful flowers, incredible beaches, exotic wildlife, crystal clear waterfalls, etc.. It's all there...at the resorts. Just kidding...kind of. It seems so unrealistic now, but I kind of expected EVERYTHING to be like the Hawaii marketing brochures. It's not. Those places exist, but so do all the normal things like crowds, traffic, road construction, hard to find parking, strip malls, fast food, tourist restaurants, homeless people, tacky shops, run down buildings, overhead utility lines (in paradise...really?). There is so much beauty, but it's not all beauty.

I loved how there was such diversity of topography, weather, and landscape. Each island had soaring lush green mountains, rain forests, all kinds of beaches (brown sand, green sand, black sand, rocky, grassy, tree lined, etc), rolling hills, and lava rock. You can be on the beach with soaring lush green mountains right behind you and the most amazingly imposing clouds coming over the mountains and know that you won't get rained on because the beach only gets 10 inches of rain a year while the valley on the other side of the mountain gets 400 inches!

Our Favorite Island: We spent a week each on Oahu, Maui, and the Big Island. I think we liked Oahu best. We loved that it was small but so diverse with a good mixture of metropolitan and rustic. We felt like it was the best place to observe and experience Hawaii like a real Hawaiian and not like a tourist. Maui was pretty and we really enjoyed it when we were able to get off the beaten path, but it was hard because it seemed like everything about Maui was for tourists. We loved our condo and it was always comfortably breezy. We especially enjoyed the less crowded North Shore and Hana sides of the island and we saw an incredible sunset at Haleakala. The Big Island is really nice also. We loved the diversity and the uniquely austere beauty of the pervasive volcanic rock. It's big so it's not as easy to traverse all the beauty as easily as the other islands. There was a rustic feel, but it didn't feel bountiful - we expected more fresh produce like in the rustic areas of Oahu and Maui where the fresh produce was everywhere. It was almost surreal how the resort areas were carved out of the austere landscape. You would be travelling through barren lava fields and then every 10 miles or so a resort area road would appear. You could take the road a couple miles down to the ocean where there would be hotels, shops, and restaurants.

Favorites: 

• Local Food (fish, fruits, banana bread, malasadas, plate lunch, kalua pork, lau lau, poke, loco moco, shave ice, sugar cane, shrimp trucks)
• Flowers (so much diversity, plentiful but not everywhere like I expected)
• Topographical diversity (lush green soaring cloud covered mountains, rain forests, beautiful beaches, waterfalls, volcanic rock)
• Water color (the prettiest deep blue color of the ocean and the almost surreal aquamarine color of the water at the beaches)
• Snorkeling (Shark's Cove and Hanauma Bay on Oahu and City of Refuge (Two Steps) on the Big Island)
• Waterfalls (Twin Falls on Maui and Pe'ePe'e Falls on Big Island)
• Farmer's Markets and Produce Stands (Hilo Farmer's Market, Hana Farms, plentiful roadside stands (except on Big Island?))
• Shave Ice (Island Snow on Oahu, Ululani's on Maui)
• Restaurants (Ohau: Ono Hawaiian Foods, Nico's, Rainbow Drive In, Cinnamon's, Teddy's Bigger Burgers, Leonard's Bakery, Ted's Bakery. Maui: Da Kitchen, Haliimaile General Store, Clay Oven Pizza, Leoda's Pie Shop, Star Noodle, Eskimo Candy. Big Island: Big Island Grill, Cafe Pesto, Da Poke Shack)  
• Old Lahaina Luau
• Trails and Tide Pools (Makapuu Lighthouse on Ohau)
• Big waves (Banzai Pipeline on Oahu, Magic Sands beach on Big Island)
• Honu's
• Sunsets
• People (It's hard to describe what a native Hawaiian looks like because there's so much diversity - mainly Polynesian and Asian - very few African Americans. Everyone was really nice. They were laid back and it was so nice not to hear any "drama". We felt safe wherever we went, which is so nice when you're exploring an unfamiliar place. We saw very few police.). 

Will We Go Back? I don't know. Maybe. We're not really beach people and generally prefer new experiences plus it's a long way to go, but it might be fun returning at some point and reminiscing about our trip with the boys.       

Hawaii (Day 19 of 19) - Big Island - Phoenix - Atlanta

Last morning at our condo in Kona

Our flight home wasn't until 10 that night and I was kind of regretting not booking an additional night just so we would have a place to rest and clean up before our flight. We talked about getting a hotel room near the airport, but decided to wing it.

Album for these photos

All photo albums

We ended up feeling reasonably comfortable about our condo in Kona once we forgave it for not being as nice as our condo in Maui. One thing we couldn't get over was how there was no breeze. At our Maui condo there was a constant breeze. At this condo nothing but stillness. How can you be right by the ocean and have no breeze? We never figured it out.

Still dealing with my elbow that started swelling earlier in our trip

Coffee farm tour at Greenwell Farms

Our guide did a great job

This little dog (and her owner) were fun

Heliconia

Bread making at Kona Historical Society

We really enjoyed this experience. We had fun talking to the hosts. The environment was peaceful and everything felt laid back and authentic.

Warm rolls from the oven with some fresh soft butter...so good

Taking the bread up to the road to sell

Greenwell Store Museum

We enjoyed the store tour. The host talked about the history and then gave us some things to trade with the store keeper.

We saw this fun looking park and decided to stop and play

We kept passing this cute little church in Kona during our trip

Ali'i Gardens Marketplace

Most of the stuff in the marketplace was pretty touristy, but we enjoyed talking to the guy at Stan's Koa Hut

Big Island Grill

This place is pretty run down looking on the outside, but nice on the inside and the food was so good. I was Thanksgiving hurting when I left. We had to walk around the shopping center for awhile afterwards.

Honokohau Marina

Kukio Beach next to Four Seasons Resort

We almost missed this Honu bathing in the sun on the rocky beach

Another turtle on the beach

Such wisdom in those eyes

Driving north to see some more things before our flight

Mauna Lani Resort Area

Fairmont Orchid 

Beach 69

Hokuloa Church

Puako General Store

Hapuna Beach

One of the most secluded beaches prior to the highway in 1975. World War II soldiers trained for beach invasions here (there are signs to beware of live ordinance). Ranked as the best beach in the country in 1993. 

One more Freal

We made it to the airport with plenty of time to spare...maybe too much time. Luckily by getting there early, we mostly beat a rush of people trying to get through security. The security personnel did not appear to be the most proficient workers. The wallet of a lady in front of us ended up in Helen's bin and the lady would never have known if Helen didn't see it happen and return it to her.

We're always amazed at how non-standard the security experiences can be from airport to airport. This time the world was saved when some young exasperated security worker spotted a 4 oz bottle of cream we were carrying (it had passed through every security check on our trip up to that point) and dutifully disposed of it. I know I felt much safer.

Like a lot of places in Hawaii, the terminal is mostly open-air. We knew it was a small airport, but not that small. We kind of expected it to be a little more hopping. Most of the seats were taken and I generally don't like to be too near other people, so we settled for a stone landscaping bench.

The red eye flight to Phoenix went fine. Other people were sleeping away and looking comfortable, but I struggled. The airline should hold some beds until the middle of the night when the passengers are the most miserable and then offer them up for bid. It wasn't as bad as the red eye flight back from Alaska a couple years earlier where we had no leg room, but it still wasn't good.

In Phoenix it was breakfast time, but some construction problem caused the water to get shut off to the terminal which meant long lines at the bathrooms and restaurants. We left Kona at 10 pm Thursday and arrived back in Atlanta about 3 pm Friday.

Everybody missed Lulu