Hawaii 2009
I had to miss my 50th Class Reunion at BYU for this trip, but it was WORTH it. Our friends, Bob and Nancy Zornes, joined us as we flew separately (now how is that for an oxymoron) to the beautiful island of Kauai. We arrived about an hour ahead of the Zornes and when they arrived we picked up our car and headed for our Timeshare for the week. It was gorgeous....right on the ocean. We could walk out and up a short little hill and then walk along the ocean in either direction for what seemed like miles.
For the next 6 days I think we hit about every interesting site on the island, starting with Waimea Canyon, which is considered the Grand Canyon of Hawaii. Nancy had her little scooter so she was able to toodle around every place we went.
We hit a different restaurant each night, and by the end of the week we had eaten everything from hot dogs and hamburgers to Italian food and a hotcakes with coconut syrup. We also managed to cook up some good breakfasts and snacks in our apartment, which was lovely. I also took advantage of the gorgeous pool at the resort...and finally talked Nancy into a swim the last day.
I decided I wanted to take a tubing trip down the irrigation ditches of the island, so Nancy and Bob drove me there and dropped me off, and I had a ball. The ride out to the ditch was an adventure in itself, with all the bumpy roads. The water in the ditch was clear and warm, and the tubes were comfy. We headed through tunnels with our miners' lamps lit, and after about 2 hours came out the other end of the ditch. There were a couple of little bitty rapids on the way...maybe class 1/2, but they were fun, nonetheless. I can't even remember WHERE Spence was during this time. He wasn't with the Zornes.
One of the side trips I really enjoyed was a tour of a working plantation. We saw a herd of wild boars and that was something else. There was a poor female in heat that those males just would NOT leave alone... We also ride up the river to the famous falls where they sing the Hawaiian Wedding song to you. The singer left a bit to be desired, but the trip was lovely...in a mist of rain.
A highlight for me was the luau at the Smith place. The food was excellent for luau food, and the entertainment was quite good. My only problem was that it made me nostalgic for all the luaus that we used to put on in Garden Grove, and I wanted to be up there dancing with all the pretty young girls....discretion being the better part of valor, kept me from making a fool of myself, however.
Our next to last day we finally rented snorkels and headed for the snorkeling beach. It was rocky, and we couldn't figure out how to get out to the open water with our flippers on, and I kept getting tossed and turned and laughed a lot. Nancy and I finally gave up and put on our water shoes and just walked out and tried snorkeling without fins. My mask kept leaking and I got tired of snuffling water, so I finally gave up, and the two of us just stayed out in the water rolling on the little swells for over an hour. The water was so clear that we could see the fish just by looking down....phooey on the old mask.
That was Saturday, and on Sunday I woke up about 5:15 in the morning with my left hand throbbing, and my ring finger purple and swollen. During my tossing and turning in the water in the surf, I must have somehow sprained my ring finger. I thought that I would just go back to bed and wait until after Church and then see how things were, but as I lay there, it began to hurt more and more, and I decided that maybe I wouldn't have a finger if I waited that long, so off we went to the nearest fire department to see if they had ring cutters. Well, we knocked on their door about 5:45, and alas...no cutters, but they brought us inside and proceeded to try and cut it off using a side cutter...but after many tries, all they had succeeded in doing was just creasing it enough to make a jagged edge. My hand was practically frozen from being submerged in ICY water to reduce the swelling.
They called the paramedics, but they had no cutters, so they called the neighboring city (about 20 miles away) and sure enough, they had cutters. So off we went in the car. They were waiting when we arrived, and immediately reached for my hand and began cutting. I stopped them and asked if I could please sit down. They were embarrassed. I think it was the most exciting thing that had happened in a long time and they just wanted to get on with it. Finally, after about 5 minutes and some painful moves (to me) the ring was severed. It took weeks for the swelling to finally subside, and I had been wearing this size 5 ring on my fat finger for so long, that it looked like I still had a ring on, even after it was removed. It has almost been 6 months, and my finger still looks a bit weird and you can still see the 'ring' around my finger.
In my appreciation for all their initial work, I sent the first fire department a gift of a ring cutter. Hope they got it okay.
When we were first making our reservations, our Frequent Flyer flight was scheduled to be the same one as Nancy and Bob's return trip to LA, but then Northwest cancelled that flight and we were changed to a 9:30 PM flight, which did NOT make me happy. Bob and Nancy got out on a different early flight because they were paying customers.
BUT....I decided to make lemonade out of lemons so I called Jim Ritchie, our former Stake President, who is serving a mission with his wife Carolyn, at BYU Hawaii. He said we would have plenty of time to rent a car and drive to the campus and then spend the day at the Polynesian Cultural Center. He arranged for tickets for us and told us to head to the school cafeteria for breakfast before we headed over to the temple to walk around the grounds and tour the visitors center (It was closed for remodeling). At noon, when the gates opened, we went to the center and spent a lovely day watching all the shows and enjoying a delicious buffet. We met Jim and Carolyn at 5 and visited with them before they had to head off to a meeting. We drove back to the airport and got our flight home, and I must admit that the lemonade for the day was delicious.
I would go back to the Islands in a heartbeat. Hopefully one day we can take our whole family to the Big Island where we first bought our time share.
All in all, it was a glorious trip with wonderful friends.....where to next, Bob and Nancy??? (This was our second trip together.)
