Home sweaty home!

Welcome back to Kansas, where it is 96 degrees, little wind, and 46% humidity. Ugh. Where are those cooling pacific breezes when you need them?!?

The loooong ride

Prepping for the long ride home.  sigh.  Actually I shouldn't complain as it is only 6 1/2 hours from here to Denver (as opposed to the 8 or so hours we had from Houston to Oahu).  And..... I was able to use some of my remaining miles to get us into first.  :)  That helps.  

However, it looks as though we'll be on a 757, so even first isn't that plush.  Ah well!

One more for the road

One more frosty drink before starting the long ride home. Had to have an "adult milkshake" to go with my burger and fries. :)

Touring the island.

Last night we got to attend a luau as a closing event for the conference.  I took some pics, but nothing came out well enough to put here.  It was a wonderful luau.  The emcee for the event (and the leader of the troupe that provided the entertainment) was hilarious.  I laughed until my sides hurt.  And the dancers provided an outstanding show.

Today was our last full day on Oahu..... so we did a bit of touring.  We started at "the Punch Bowl", a national cemetary and memorial to those who perished in the Pacific Rim.  It is a peaceful and sad place.  It is called The Punch Bowl because, well, it looks like one!  The cemetary is set in the bowl of a dormant volcano, overlooking Honolulu.  This is the main monument of the memorial.  

And once you walk up all the steps to the monument and turn around, this is the breathtaking view that you see.  

Along one walk was a huge planting of many, many Bird of Paradise plants.  It was stunning.

Then we made the obligatory trip to Waikiki Beach.  Yep, it is beautiful as well.  And the waves there made us realize just how much the lagoon outside of our hotel is sheltered.  They were absolutely slamming into the seawall along one stretch of Waikiki.

We meandered around the eastern-most point of Oahu and turned north along the windward side of the island.  Yep, stunning views there as well.  I don't know how anyone could ever take these views for granted.

About a third of the way up the windward side of the island, we cut across and headed back to Honolulu.  That route took us over and through the mountains.  Well, not like Colorado, but still impressive none-the-less.  Most days this week, as I looked back at the mountains, one or more of them were wreathed in clouds and mist.  Today was no exception.  This was our view as we headed back west to Honolulu.  

And they even have tunnels!  We went through this one on the way home.

Back at the hotel, we were so exhausted from the tour that we had to lay around by the pool for a couple of hours.  Tough duty!  :)

Sunsets and tattoos

We were granted a beautiful Hawaiian sunset at the luau tonight. And oh yeah, I got a tattoo there. Grin. 

Wildlife around here

The Marriott actually has several pools .... The kind for the fish, NOT the people!  :)

One pool is strictly various kinds of fish.... Including some stunning bluish/white fish.   Another pool is given to sting rays. What a weird and awesome fish. They have two different kinds of stingrays -- six to eight of them!  Note the starfish too.

They also have one pool with just sharks. Not large, but lots. Mostly hammer heads and makos (I think). 

Pearl Harbor and tour

We started the day at the conference with a fabulous speaker.....  Wally Amos.  Remember the guy that started the Famous Amos cookie company?  Well, THAT's the guy that talked to us.  He is actually a pretty inspiring story.  About 20 years ago, he was ousted from his own company and forbidden to use his own name or image in any subsequent businesses.  It is amazing how he has recovered from that.

After the morning, they had arranged for us to take a brief tour of Honolulu and then onto the Pearl Harbor memorial.

There is a tiny little Chinatown in Honolulu.  By tiny, I mean 4 or 5 blocks.  Wish we would have had time to explore instead of just drive by!

Then we stopped at the statue of King Kamehmeha (spelling??).  He is certainly a revered figure in the islands.

Then it was on to Pearl Harbor.  They have a marvelous series of two museums that take you through the lead up to the attack and then through the actual attack.  Once you go through that, you go into a theater to see some actual film footage of the attack and the aftermath.  It is incredibly sobering and sad.  

After that, you would typically board a Navy tender boat to take a ride out to the actual USS Arizona memorial.  Unfortunately, that wasn't the case for us!  Apparently, today the water was too rough for the tenders to run (this is a very rare occurence, we were told).  So we didn't get to go over to the memorial!  Darn!

The best I can do is this long distance view of what we saw from across the harbor.

We were able to get up close to the anchor from the USS Arizona.......

Oh, I DO have to show this pic of lunch.  :)  We had bento boxes delivered to us on the bus so that we could eat on the way to the memorial.  It was actually very good.  But note the meats in the box.  All meat groups were covered......  beef, chicken, fish and of course, SPAM!  Chuckle.  Reminded me of my Mom, who loves it!

Dinner cruise

This evening we had the opportunity to take a dinner cruise on the world's largest catamaran -- the Ali'i Kai. 

Unfortunately, I couldn't get a pic of the boat (ship?) before departure as it is too big! And there are a lot of supporting buildings around it on the pier.  Fortunately, you can google the boat if you would really like to see a pic of it.  :)  But trust me, it is BIG!  It seats about 500 people each night for a cruise, dinner, and a show.  

We cruised by the Aloha Tower at the beginning of the voyage.  I caught this photo as we were backing out of our berth.

There was an amazing-looking rain storm right over downtown Honolulu as we passed by.  Somewhere in those clouds are a few more mountains.

We traveled down the shoreline, passing Waikiki Beach (I hope we can go there on Thursday) and turned just before we reached Diamond Head.  We were still quite a ways from it, so sorry, this pic is kinda grainy.

On the way back, they put on a show with hula dancers depicting dances from Hawaii, Tahiti. Samoa, and New Zealand.  It was a very good show for a a cramped area.  The food, well, as with any buffet serving 500 people, was a bit indifferent.  And the drink service?  Sheesh, I had to order my Lava Flow drink 3 times before it actually showed up!  Ah well, can't have everything.  And the views really made up for it!  :)

Sorority girl

HRR tells me that I have the sorority girl photo pose perfected!  On a dinner cruise, on the largest catamaran in the world!

My Hawaiian Look

While I was in conference today, max found me some beautiful Hawaiian hair flowers. Now I have my "official" Hawaii look going!  :)

Outdoor conference room?

When you are in an open conference room, it is sometimes difficult to pay attention to the speaker. Grin. Great view!

Hibiscus welcome

Tonite was the welcome reception and dinner for the conference. Off to one side of the ballroom, they had two candy artists making lollipops. But these aren't like any you've seen!  Mine was a hibiscus flower!  Seriously pretty and sweet. :)

She started with a small ball of clear candy, about the consistency of taffy. They kept it hot until they were ready to work. She added food coloring and started the shape the flower by hand. While it was setting up, she repeated the process and made a leaf to add on.  When completely cooled, it is rock hard. Oh yeah, and gorgeous!

The gal told me that she spent years learning how to do this form of Japanese candy making. And they made all sorts of lollipops... Dolphins, snails, dogs, etc. 

Golf is a wonderful thing.

This is a seriously beautiful course, folks!  We played in a golf tourney put on by the conference today.  As I mentioned in a previous post, we played at the Ko Olina Golf Course. And it provided resort golf at its best.  The area had lovely landscaping... Complete with multiple waterfalls. 

And there were a bunch of black swans around the ponds. They have no fear of humans!  :)

One of the garden areas next to one tee box had pineapple plants......

And sugar cane!  Sweet. 

And this was a drive thru grotto..... Yes, we actually drove our golf cart under this waterfall. 

This was the view from one of the tee boxes......

And Max got tired from carrying us all. :)  He played very well today. He even won closest to the pin on one of the par 3s!

Toy bomb!

Gabi and Ginger are staying with Grandma. Looks like Miss Gabi set off the toy bomb there too!

Golf in paradise

Ready to play golf at the Ko Olina Golf Club. Nice clubhouse! More pics as the tourney gets going. 

Time difference.....

The 5 hour time difference between Hawaii and Wichita. Is both a blessing and a curse. The curse?  By 8pm last nite, I was fading fast. I think I managed to stay awake until 9.30 or so. Sigh. AND.... We were wide awake and raring to go at 4am. Ugh. 

The blessing? It is 9.15 am now. We've had breakfast, gotten suited up, and are now laying on the beach. Sweet!

This is the protected lagoon that is out the back of our hotel. 

Nice place!

We are staying at the Marriott in Ko Olina on Oahu. Nice place!  This is a view from the pool area looking up at the hotel. We are on the ninth floor and have an awesome view of the ocean. I'll try to catch one of their famous sunsets from our lanai in the room sometime this week. We have a beautiful west-facing ocean view. 

Oh and we've already had a guest in our room. Max noticed this little guy behind the tv earlier. He convinced him that the lanai was a much better place for him. Grin. 

First look

The first look of the island of Oahu. We saw a submarine pulling in!   And no, I couldn't get a pic of that as my phone was already turned off for landing. Darn!

My view.

My view for the last 8 hours. We are on a 777. Headed where??  Hawaii, of course!  :)

Flights.

Sitting just in front of us on the "puddle jump" leg of our flights are a dad and his young son (I'm guessing the kid is around 6 or so). We passed through broken clouds on approach to landing in Houston. And I heard him say,

"Cloud storm!  Look Dad, we are flying through a cloud storm!"

Grin. I guess it is all in your perception.......

Sunrise at the airport

Alarm went off at 4am. McD's breakfast at 5.15am. Sunrise at the airport. Do we know how to vacation, or what?!?!

The long drive home

I'm a little late in getting this one posted.  We actually drove home yesterday.  How can sitting in the truck for 5 or 6 hours make me so tired??!!  :)  To give you an idea of what our caravan looked like....  here are a couple of pix.  This is the O's portion of the train.....

And this is the Z's portion of the train......

Now add ours (minus the boat!) and you have a pretty good idea of what our train looked like as it wound through the hills of Missouri and flatlands of Kansas.  There was actually one other piece of the train (complete with fifth wheel and boat), but they got an earlier start than we did.  I'm sure the folks that got behind or in between us said a few bad words!

Last night and today were spent unloading and cleaning the fifth wheel.  She is back in bed (storage) until the next big adventure!

What a great 4th!

What a great Fourth of July!  After a guy-cooked breakfast and a quick trip into Shell Knob, we hit the lake.  The kids rode Super Mable and skiied.  

The adults floated and drank.  :)

And then we did the traditional hamburger dinner, complete with homemade ice cream.  Max created strawberry ice cream and man, it was yummy!

Then we loaded up to go watch the fireworks.  This year we went to a small state park just down the road to watch.  We were so high up on the bluff that most of the fireworks were eye level.  Awesome.    This is what it looked like all up and down the lake.  Last year we would have been one of those boats as we did our viewing from the water.

Happy 4th!

To my family and friends that have served or are serving in the Armed Services, my heartfelt thanks!  

Oops!

What an entertaining day on the lake today!

We decided to boat over to the Big Cedar Lodge so that we could see it from the water side.  To give you an idea of the distance, it is about 30 miles, close to Branson. When we drove there the other night for dinner, it took about 1 hour -- one way -- to get there.  By boat?  It is about a 2 hour ride.  Whew!  We are staying near Shell Knob and the water on the lake here is mostly calm.  Over by Branson, the water is REALLY churned up.  That is where a lot of the very big boats hang out so they can make quite a churn.  So it got to be a very rough ride.

About halfway there, we saw a cluster of emergency vehicles at one of the boat ramps so of course, we had to stop and see what was happening.  It ended up being quite the spectacle..... as you can see in these next three pics.

We don't know how, but that truck AND boat trailer ended up in there backwards!  Usually, you back the whole trailer into the water to load/unload the boat.  But somehow this one ended up going in the wrong way.  Someone was having a REALLY bad day!

Just to give you an idea of our flotilla today, there were two other boats besides Ron and Judy's.  We made quite a parade.  :)

Since I'm a girl (and there are others in the group too!), no day is complete without a little bit of shopping.  This time is was marina shopping.  At the Big Cedar Marina, we had our purchases picked out and then were told that they couldn't sell to us.... only to guests of the lodge.  How weird is that?!?  Especially since they have courtesy docks for folks to park at.

So we took our desire to shop, along with our money, to the Branson marina.  Lordy, that place is huge!  It is where all the really big houseboats dock, so we had a great time ogling the million dollar+ boats.  And of course, a great time shopping.

On the way home, the kids finally got to do some skiing.  With three boats in the water, all 5 of them can be up at once.  They assure me that they had a great time.  :)

I was just going to type that we've been having really great weather here.  In the upper 70s to mid 80s (although the water tends to be on the cold side!).  BUT...... as I type this, it has just started sprinkling. Thank goodness for the awning!  Shoot..... now it has turned into a regular rain shower.  Time to go put some stuff under cover!!