Hawaiian Cruise: Kauai Luau, Return to Oahu then Home (Day 9-Day 11)
I woke up in Nawiliwili on the “Garden Isle” of Kaua’i, the fourth largest Hawaiian island and the last scheduled stop on the cruise. It was Thanksgiving Day, and I was approximately 4,900 miles from home and the traditions celebrated there. Well, most of them. Instead, after a satisfying breakfast at my usual spot, the 50’s theme restaurant on Deck 6, I walked the deck and got several shots, including the panoramic one below: At 12:30, I went to the ship’s theater, where they were live streaming the Dallas Cowboys football game. The Cowboys’ season hadn’t gone as we fans had hoped due to so many injuries to players, but we faithfully watch anyway, and it is a Thanksgiving tradition, so…. The main event of the day was the luau at the Kauai Plantation. It appeared that a lot of the ship’s passengers had been bused there for the…
Hawaiian Cruise: Maui and Two Days on the Big Island (Day 6-Day 8)
WARNING: the theme of the first three paragraphs of this post is “a little–well, a lot–of disappointment goes a long way.” Bypass them as you wish. My travel agent had strongly encouraged me to select off-ship excursions through the cruise line because the line would then be responsible for any incidents related to those excursions. I followed her advice except for two activities. The one that applied here I scheduled through an outside vendor because they advertised that they could accommodate those with accessibility needs for a sunrise visit to Haleakalā National Park. The cruise line specifically indicated that they could not provide accommodations, so that choice was my only option. I will not use space here to describe what happened, but the result was that I was unable to make the trip and, thus, missed the national park. The only positive from the situation was that I got a…
Hawaiian Cruise: More Oahu, Launch and Maui (Day 4-Day 5)
On Saturday morning and our last day touring Oahu, we went south and east to East Honolulu and our quickie, first stop, The Koko Crater Lookout and its popular hiking trail. Like so much of Oahu, the view was spectacular, and even though the day started out cloudy, it was still warm enough to get away with a light jacket–the heaviest clothing I would wear the entire trip. (Note here: my Facebook buds back in the DMV posted that the weather there had turned decidedly wintry.) We next arrived at the Byodo-In Temple, located at the foot of the Ko’olau Mountains in Valley of the Temples Memorial Park. Its website describes the temple as “a smaller-scale replica of the almost 1,000-year-old Byodo-In Temple, a United Nations World Heritage site in Uji, Japan.” The temple and grounds were incredibly beautiful. I did my best to capture its beauty in a number…
Hawaiian Cruise: Journey There and Oahu (Day 1-Day 3)
My preparations for the trip to Hawaii were seriously sidetracked when I discovered that someone had broken into the Silver Bullet. The only damage to the car was to the driver’s door, but that damage surprisingly affected many of her functions. I had to drive her to the Kia dealership and make arrangements for the insurance company to appraise the damage and authorize payments for repairs. This was incredibly inconvenient, but I kept reminding myself that SB could have been stolen–a far from unusual event in the DMV–and the repairs would occur while I would be off the mainland, anyway. Still…. My very early flight out of DCA had a layover in Detroit with a nearly 11-hour flight to Honolulu. I was so lucky that I had the adjacent seats to myself on both flights so I could spread out and be as comfortable as possible during the flight. This…
Thoughts about My Latest Long Stretch and Upcoming Plans
So, I finally got that bucket list entry, Glacier National Park, taken care of! After so many aborted attempts, I just wasn’t letting my hopes get too high until I actually steered the Silver Bullet through the park entrance. Anyway, it was definitely a visit that didn’t disappoint, even with the winter storm that cut the trip short and the parts of the park I wasn’t able to see. Before I left for that trip, I acquired a set of National Park postcards that also include several memorials and other sites that are part of the US Parks System. I’ve started work on a display of the parks that I have visited in the order I was there, with lots of space for more cards. National Parks Planned and Those So Far Visited It’s already August, but I have several trips planned for the remainder of the year. This includes…