Hawaii Day One: We Uber and Fly

So we are back in Hawaii and have settled into the folks' house.

As you might guess, that made today our travel day.

Because of the chance of rain, I opted for us to Uber in, where we usually take BART. It made the morning much simpler, and was only slightly more expensive: $22 instead of $17. I did feel like we rushed out of the house, though.

We've done the trip so many times that it scarcely phases me. I think this is our 11th trip to the islands and our 9th since my folks moved here, but I could be off by a year too many.

The trip was longer than usual. It was planned to be 6 hours in the air due to strong headwinds, and then we seemed to circle Honolulu for half-an-hour, though I couldn't be sure because the clouds were so heavy that I couldn't see anything. In any case, we landed in Honolulu at about 1.50pm, which was about 40 minutes late.

The reason for our delayed landing soon became clear because the departure and arrival boards were just dripping with blood. Everything was delayed and marked in red. At least two flights to Lihue were waiting. We have to guess that the storm and/or wind was worse before we landed.

On the bright side, our favorite lunch place now has a new balcony out over the Chinese cultural garden, which was pleasant. (Especially when compared to last year, when it was all boarded up.)

Unshockingly, our flight out of Honolulu was running about half-an-hour late, then we sat on the tarmac for quite a while. But we eventually arrived in Lihue only about an hour late. No biggie; as I said, the trip scarcely phases me any more.

Books read during the trip and at airports: Assail (~100 pages), Golden Fool (aloud in airports, ~40 pages), Rivers of London: Night Witch, Uncanny X-Men: Superior — Apocalypse Wars.

History articles written at airports and on planes: five and a half.

Sleep on planes: remarkably, as much as an hour!

Hawaii Day Two: We Get Muddy

After breakfast and some R&R this morning, we headed out to the Moalepe Trail. Except, there was a detour to drop a check off with a handyman, and then no one knew what the trail name was. We were going to head all the way out to the highway, then back up into Kapaa via a known route, but I managed to figure out the name thanks to my Facebook albums from a few years ago.

We stopped at a bathroom in a park on the way (which I'd also sussed out from our previous travels and my handy iPhone), and were surprised to find that not only was it clean, but there were even bars of soaps there! My estimate was that a bar of soap would last in a California public bathroom for ... nope, already gone!

The trail itself was very nice. I'd walked it once before. It goes along a big green canyon, and then turns up and starts ascending into the hills by tree-covered paths. Kimberly and my dad decided to stop a bit before the end of the trail, but Mary and I continued on until we finally hit a bridge that's the "end" of the trail (and the start of another). There were even more beautiful views just past the bridge. (I could never decide if my dad and I had made it to the bridge the one time we walked this, but I definitely didn't see the big vistas on the other side.

We had lunch at Monaco's, a tasty Mexican restaurant, where I was shocked to discover I didn't have my billfold. That meant no Lactaid, but I was fortunately able to scrape the dairy sauce off my seafood tacos. (The billfold ended up being back at home, which was my top guess.)

We then needed to digest our food a bit before swimming, so we went out to Lydgate Park, and my dad walked us down to the "play bridge", on the opposite side of the park from the lagoon where our car was parked. It was the most amazing bridge ever. A huge, maze-like structure of inclines and stairs (and even a slide). Technically, it went over a little ravine, but it was obviously meant to be a fun structure in and of itself, not really a practical one.

Afterward we swam at the lagoon at Lydgate.

And that was our busy first day in Hawaii.

Need more sunscreen on my cheeks and forehead in future days. I got a bit red.

Animals seen: chickens, chicks, a mangy cat

Animals fed: chickens, chicks (sorry mangy cat!)

Mud height: mid calf