Aloha Hawaii, Aloha Virginia

It seems that Aloha means both hello and goodbye. It also appears to be a life philosophy of zen like proportions. You learn something new everyday. Go practice random acts of Aloha! (It seems to relate mostly to driving habits. So be a kind driver!)

I am very sorry that this post is so late. A full 26 hours of traveling left myself and greywings feeling a bit like our luggage must've felt during that time. Tossed about, dropped onto hot tarmac and sent through an X-ray machine so many times it isn't sure what life is like without a conveyor belt and men in uniforms with friendly German shepherds that ask about your liquids. (It's been four days and I keep waiting for someone to come along and tell me that I can't take my cup of tea with me on the plane.)

Now onto our last day in Hawaii. We went to see a black sand beach. Now black sand isn't as it would seem by the name, sand. It's broken, ground, and otherwise mangled lava that fell into the ocean. It happens when a volcano erupts on a nearby island and the lava falls into the sea in enough small lumps and is carried across to the other island. It is very soft and fine. It also washes up in such a way that if your standing on the beach when a wave comes in you'll get black sand all over your legs and feet. (Or in my case all over your shorts because I misjudged the size of the incoming wave.)

It was high tide so we didn't see much of the beach but I saw enough. It was pretty darn cool. There were piles of volcanic rock that had been tumbled smooth by the ocean and a small forest just behind the beach. On either side of the beach, sheltering it, were huge forested cliffs. It was very scenic. This is the kind of place you get on postcards with a little empty deck chair and "wish you were here" on the bottom.

Now, getting to this beach was another story. It was about a three hour drive from where we were staying. The drive was very scenic since we had to go over to the "dry" side of the island which is full of cactus. It's very interesting that the rain seems to fall the most only on one side of the island. So one side is tropical and lush and the other is almost a desert. It makes for interesting driving conversation when the total Hawaiian island newbie looks out the window and says: "Hey! That's a cactus! You have Cactus in Hawaii?" Everyone laughs and says, yes in fact they do have cactus on Hawaii. And cows and Banyan Trees. Cows with horns. I cross an ocean and I still can't get away from the cows. There were cows in China too. Ok, no more about cows. Back to beaches.

Now to get to this beach you have to climb down a path that zig zags down the side of a cliff. It's only about a 15 minute walk but it's a very steep walk. Going down was difficult since I have short legs and paths are never built for people with short legs. It was hard but manageable. I tend to have the balance of a mountain goat so I could bound from rock to tree root in Teva sandals without much trouble. Going up was a different story. It was a very long, hard, steep walk to get back up. It still only took 15 minutes but it was hard going. I was reading "Lord of the Rings" on the plane and felt a little bit like Sam Gamgee (the fat one) trying to climb the cliff steps in Mordor. I was pretty winded by the time I got back to the top.

So we enjoyed the crashing waves on a black sand beach our last day and headed out to the airport at 7am the next day for our flight home. First flight goes from Hilo to Oakland. No problem. We get there and check our bags (which have to clear two separate inspections. There's the normal one, and the agricultural one). The woman at the desk informs us that our seats were not reserved but since we are willing to sit in an exit row we have seats on this plane. She gives me a number to call to reserve the others. I call the number while greywings waits in line for the security check. The number proves to be just a maze of "press 1 if..." and a computer voice that supposedly understands numbers when you read to it. It didn't understand me and thinks my "A"s are "K"s and just doesn't want to see otherwise. I hung up and went to stand in line.

D, greywings's Uncle, had given me something called Bonine for travel sickness. I will now swear by this new drug. I will never travel without it. The flight from Hilo to Oakland went about as smoothly as flights can go. Very, very nice after the crippling airsickness I'd experienced before.

I called United again while greywings waited for our luggage to appear. After about 30 minutes (I'm not exaggerating, I timed it) I FINALLY got a human and couldn't hear a damn thing because it was so loud in the airport. I'm told that our seats will be assigned at the gate because there are no seats. I'm confused. I'm also confused because the person on the other end mixed up my flight days and I thought for awhile that I wasn't going to fly out of San Fransisco until the next day. After some confused and panicked shouting we straightened things out somewhat, but still confused, I gave up thanked whoever it was and went back over to collect our bags with greywings.

We collect our bags (which have arrived safely) and we head out of the airport and to a bus which will take us to the Bart train. (Bart=T and for those of you not from the Boston area, Bart = subway) Now in order to find this out I had to consult an information desk with a severe lack of information and a very kind airport employee. We paid $3 each for the bus and sat down with our bags stowed for the ride. Sadly onto the bus staggered a woman who was either very drunk or very high. The jury is out on which she was and she may have been both. She liked to scream: Aiyi! at random intervals and stamp her feet. greywings and I had already been on a plane for five hours and were unamused.

We endured and arrived at the subway where we grabbed our bags and fled. I navigated the ticket system and was actually 80 cents short on our rail tickets. (A fact I didn't find out until the end of the ride.) No matter, we got to the platform and I was content in my knowledge that we wanted to get on what on them map appeared to be the blue line. The trains in San Fransisco are not color coded. A voice comes over a loud speaker and tells you were the train is going once it pulls up. We found another young man going to the airport who lived in San Fransisco and decided to follow him.

The very drunk lady showed up again with her traveling companion (who I felt very sorry for) but luckily they got on a different train. We boarded our train for a 20 minute train ride. Now the Bart system is very well planned I'm sure and subways, as a rule, like planes are very loud. However, the part seemed to be designed to make the loudest possible sound while going through tunnels. It was so loud I had to cover my ears. It was terrible!

We arrive at the Airport station with our ears ringing and I am forced to add more money to our tickets so they'll let us out. (It turned out to be $5.80 each. Add that to $3 each and you get $17.60 for the privilege of getting from one airport to the other in order to make a connecting flight. I hate flying.)

We get into the airport and go through security again. At this point I know the drill so well I'm instructing the people around me by example. We check in and get our tickets and are told once again that our seats will be assigned at the gate. I'm confused and stressing at this point but we go a Subway (the sandwich shop) for some dinner and then head to our gate. It changes part way through our wait and I only find out when I approach the desk to try and get our seats assigned.

We move to the proper gate and wait. Now we find out that our flight, which is a red eye, has been oversold. I'm in panic mode now because the next flight leaves at 9am the next day and we have a connecting flight in Dulles. I chew on my nails for awhile as they start boarding people. They were offering one free round trip ticket anywhere in the Continental US, a seat on the flight at 9am the next day and lodging in a hotel if people would give up their seats. Thankfully we got seats and were boarded. I now started to worry about our luggage. Had it made it onto the plane or was it was it waiting somewhere in a the airport innards for the next flight?

The flight went well but we got no sleep at all. It was another five hour flight at max from 10:25 to 6:25 (don't you love time zones? we lost three hours there). We landed in Dullas and staggered around to find the proper terminal for our connecting flight and got some breakfast. We boarded our connecting flight to Roanoke with no trouble. In a startling difference this plane was only half full. Oddly enough our seats weren't together but the flight was so empty the man next to greywings moved his seat and I jumped into his. Easily done. That flight was only an hour and we arrived in Roanoke with no trouble. Our luggage arrived too! I guess it didn't have to worry about finding room on the plane.

So safe and sound we landed in Virgina on July 1. I'm sorry to have kept you all waiting for this last post but we left Hawaii on June 31st. We were a bit bushed after all the flying and hauling luggage through airports and the like.

In short our month long travel was great fun. I saw things I never thought I would be able to see and I have the pictures to prove it. I will work on getting those pictures off my camera and onto a website for everyone to see. I can't promise it will be fast. I have in my estimate 1500 pictures to get off my camera, onto my computer, and then resized and all that. I'll make a post when I have that URL.

It's been a long but wonderful month. Thanks for reading!

Aloha Hawaii, Aloha Virginia

It seems that Aloha means both hello and goodbye. It also appears to be a life philosophy of zen like proportions. You learn something new everyday. Go practice random acts of Aloha! (It seems to relate mostly to driving habits. So be a kind driver!)

I am very sorry that this post is so late. A full 26 hours of traveling left myself and greywings feeling a bit like our luggage must've felt during that time. Tossed about, dropped onto hot tarmac and sent through an X-ray machine so many times it isn't sure what life is like without a conveyor belt and men in uniforms with friendly German shepherds that ask about your liquids. (It's been four days and I keep waiting for someone to come along and tell me that I can't take my cup of tea with me on the plane.)

Now onto our last day in Hawaii. We went to see a black sand beach. Now black sand isn't as it would seem by the name, sand. It's broken, ground, and otherwise mangled lava that fell into the ocean. It happens when a volcano erupts on a nearby island and the lava falls into the sea in enough small lumps and is carried across to the other island. It is very soft and fine. It also washes up in such a way that if your standing on the beach when a wave comes in you'll get black sand all over your legs and feet. (Or in my case all over your shorts because I misjudged the size of the incoming wave.)

It was high tide so we didn't see much of the beach but I saw enough. It was pretty darn cool. There were piles of volcanic rock that had been tumbled smooth by the ocean and a small forest just behind the beach. On either side of the beach, sheltering it, were huge forested cliffs. It was very scenic. This is the kind of place you get on postcards with a little empty deck chair and "wish you were here" on the bottom.

Now, getting to this beach was another story. It was about a three hour drive from where we were staying. The drive was very scenic since we had to go over to the "dry" side of the island which is full of cactus. It's very interesting that the rain seems to fall the most only on one side of the island. So one side is tropical and lush and the other is almost a desert. It makes for interesting driving conversation when the total Hawaiian island newbie looks out the window and says: "Hey! That's a cactus! You have Cactus in Hawaii?" Everyone laughs and says, yes in fact they do have cactus on Hawaii. And cows and Banyan Trees. Cows with horns. I cross an ocean and I still can't get away from the cows. There were cows in China too. Ok, no more about cows. Back to beaches.

Now to get to this beach you have to climb down a path that zig zags down the side of a cliff. It's only about a 15 minute walk but it's a very steep walk. Going down was difficult since I have short legs and paths are never built for people with short legs. It was hard but manageable. I tend to have the balance of a mountain goat so I could bound from rock to tree root in Teva sandals without much trouble. Going up was a different story. It was a very long, hard, steep walk to get back up. It still only took 15 minutes but it was hard going. I was reading "Lord of the Rings" on the plane and felt a little bit like Sam Gamgee (the fat one) trying to climb the cliff steps in Mordor. I was pretty winded by the time I got back to the top.

So we enjoyed the crashing waves on a black sand beach our last day and headed out to the airport at 7am the next day for our flight home. First flight goes from Hilo to Oakland. No problem. We get there and check our bags (which have to clear two separate inspections. There's the normal one, and the agricultural one). The woman at the desk informs us that our seats were not reserved but since we are willing to sit in an exit row we have seats on this plane. She gives me a number to call to reserve the others. I call the number while greywings waits in line for the security check. The number proves to be just a maze of "press 1 if..." and a computer voice that supposedly understands numbers when you read to it. It didn't understand me and thinks my "A"s are "K"s and just doesn't want to see otherwise. I hung up and went to stand in line.

D, greywings's Uncle, had given me something called Bonine for travel sickness. I will now swear by this new drug. I will never travel without it. The flight from Hilo to Oakland went about as smoothly as flights can go. Very, very nice after the crippling airsickness I'd experienced before.

I called United again while greywings waited for our luggage to appear. After about 30 minutes (I'm not exaggerating, I timed it) I FINALLY got a human and couldn't hear a damn thing because it was so loud in the airport. I'm told that our seats will be assigned at the gate because there are no seats. I'm confused. I'm also confused because the person on the other end mixed up my flight days and I thought for awhile that I wasn't going to fly out of San Fransisco until the next day. After some confused and panicked shouting we straightened things out somewhat, but still confused, I gave up thanked whoever it was and went back over to collect our bags with greywings.

We collect our bags (which have arrived safely) and we head out of the airport and to a bus which will take us to the Bart train. (Bart=T and for those of you not from the Boston area, Bart = subway) Now in order to find this out I had to consult an information desk with a severe lack of information and a very kind airport employee. We paid $3 each for the bus and sat down with our bags stowed for the ride. Sadly onto the bus staggered a woman who was either very drunk or very high. The jury is out on which she was and she may have been both. She liked to scream: Aiyi! at random intervals and stamp her feet. greywings and I had already been on a plane for five hours and were unamused.

We endured and arrived at the subway where we grabbed our bags and fled. I navigated the ticket system and was actually 80 cents short on our rail tickets. (A fact I didn't find out until the end of the ride.) No matter, we got to the platform and I was content in my knowledge that we wanted to get on what on them map appeared to be the blue line. The trains in San Fransisco are not color coded. A voice comes over a loud speaker and tells you were the train is going once it pulls up. We found another young man going to the airport who lived in San Fransisco and decided to follow him.

The very drunk lady showed up again with her traveling companion (who I felt very sorry for) but luckily they got on a different train. We boarded our train for a 20 minute train ride. Now the Bart system is very well planned I'm sure and subways, as a rule, like planes are very loud. However, the part seemed to be designed to make the loudest possible sound while going through tunnels. It was so loud I had to cover my ears. It was terrible!

We arrive at the Airport station with our ears ringing and I am forced to add more money to our tickets so they'll let us out. (It turned out to be $5.80 each. Add that to $3 each and you get $17.60 for the privilege of getting from one airport to the other in order to make a connecting flight. I hate flying.)

We get into the airport and go through security again. At this point I know the drill so well I'm instructing the people around me by example. We check in and get our tickets and are told once again that our seats will be assigned at the gate. I'm confused and stressing at this point but we go a Subway (the sandwich shop) for some dinner and then head to our gate. It changes part way through our wait and I only find out when I approach the desk to try and get our seats assigned.

We move to the proper gate and wait. Now we find out that our flight, which is a red eye, has been oversold. I'm in panic mode now because the next flight leaves at 9am the next day and we have a connecting flight in Dulles. I chew on my nails for awhile as they start boarding people. They were offering one free round trip ticket anywhere in the Continental US, a seat on the flight at 9am the next day and lodging in a hotel if people would give up their seats. Thankfully we got seats and were boarded. I now started to worry about our luggage. Had it made it onto the plane or was it was it waiting somewhere in a the airport innards for the next flight?

The flight went well but we got no sleep at all. It was another five hour flight at max from 10:25 to 6:25 (don't you love time zones? we lost three hours there). We landed in Dullas and staggered around to find the proper terminal for our connecting flight and got some breakfast. We boarded our connecting flight to Roanoke with no trouble. In a startling difference this plane was only half full. Oddly enough our seats weren't together but the flight was so empty the man next to greywings moved his seat and I jumped into his. Easily done. That flight was only an hour and we arrived in Roanoke with no trouble. Our luggage arrived too! I guess it didn't have to worry about finding room on the plane.

So safe and sound we landed in Virgina on July 1. I'm sorry to have kept you all waiting for this last post but we left Hawaii on June 31st. We were a bit bushed after all the flying and hauling luggage through airports and the like.

In short our month long travel was great fun. I saw things I never thought I would be able to see and I have the pictures to prove it. I will work on getting those pictures off my camera and onto a website for everyone to see. I can't promise it will be fast. I have in my estimate 1500 pictures to get off my camera, onto my computer, and then resized and all that. I'll make a post when I have that URL.

It's been a long but wonderful month. Thanks for reading!

Home again

Ok, so I'm actually home. We got home July 1 but we were just too bushed to even get on the internet other than to find a few address so we could ship some things out.

Happy Fourth of July to all you Americans who are celebrating or not. I'm going to head out this evening and enjoy hamburgers, smores and fireworks from my in-laws' backyard.

I'll be backdating my emails as lj posts so I won't have this month long gap in my journal. I'll post links in another post for those of you who don't feel like searching through my journal for them. Although, most of you have probably read them already.

Pictures will be forthcoming at some point. I have to work tomorrow and Friday but hopefully I can start in on them over the weekend. At my estimate I have 1500 pictures to get off my camera, resized and posted.

I also have a garden to save. The wiregrass has overrun several beds and the violets are staging a hostile takeover under the dogwood tree. On the other hand my tomatoes have flourished with a capital F. They are crazy large. The potatoes look great, the pepper has an inferiority complex next to the tomatoes but the onions are making up for it.

My allergies have also socked it to me hard. I'll do my best to stay ontop of things but I can't promise speedy delivery.

Home again

Ok, so I'm actually home. We got home July 1 but we were just too bushed to even get on the internet other than to find a few address so we could ship some things out.

Happy Fourth of July to all you Americans who are celebrating or not. I'm going to head out this evening and enjoy hamburgers, smores and fireworks from my in-laws' backyard.

I'll be backdating my emails as lj posts so I won't have this month long gap in my journal. I'll post links in another post for those of you who don't feel like searching through my journal for them. Although, most of you have probably read them already.

Pictures will be forthcoming at some point. I have to work tomorrow and Friday but hopefully I can start in on them over the weekend. At my estimate I have 1500 pictures to get off my camera, resized and posted.

I also have a garden to save. The wiregrass has overrun several beds and the violets are staging a hostile takeover under the dogwood tree. On the other hand my tomatoes have flourished with a capital F. They are crazy large. The potatoes look great, the pepper has an inferiority complex next to the tomatoes but the onions are making up for it.

My allergies have also socked it to me hard. I'll do my best to stay ontop of things but I can't promise speedy delivery.