Happy New Year from Waikiki Beach

Jarl and Jarlina are wrapping up their trip by spending the New Year's Eve on Waikiki Beach. They spent the day touring the Arizona Memorial and the Battleship Missouri. It was especially interesting having just watched Ken Burn's series on WW II. Tomorrow they catch the plane back to Minnesota. It will be great to be back home. Jarl can hardly wait to start shoveling snow again!!!

Travel Day to Honolulu

This will be a quick entry, because the Internet connection is $10 a day at their hotel. Jarl is using his cell phone to make this entry.

Jarl and Jarlina took a 30 minute flight from Maui to Honolulu today. After they checked into their hotel, they walked up and down Waikiki Beach. They have never seen so many people on a beach. Their are 4,000,000 people in this town, and it seems like most of them were on Waikiki Beach.

Tomorrow they are taking a tour of Pearl Harbor and a city tour that should take most of the day.

Jarl and Jarlina Become Beach Bums!

Having seen most of the sights on the island, Jarl and Jarlina decided to rent a cabanna and just sit and watch the ocean today. They brought books with them, but they stayed shut for the most part. It was amazing how easy it was for two, over achieving, baby boomers to just sit and do nothing for most of the day. The roar of the ocean waves just seems to lull you into a trance. They did move for lunch, but then went back to the beach for more rest and relaxation. The wind picked up so much they moved to the balcony of their room until it was time for the luau for the last night. The ate way too much food, and drank way too many Maitais, but what are vacations for.

Tomorrow, they fly to Honolulu for 3 days, and then back to the snowy tundra.

Aloha

Quiet Day at Lahaina

Jarl and Jarlina enjoyed the whale watching so much, they went back for a second day. They took the bus to Lahaina, ate a light breakfast under the banyon tree in front of the old court house, and then watch the surfers at the end of the wharf. After a light lunch they went whale watching again. This time both of them got up in front of the boat and had a great time whale watching. Two hump backs breached way out in front of the boat. The splash the whales make when they hit the water is what you expect when 40 tons of blubber hits the water from a height of 50 feet. Jarl was lucky enough to be looking through his binoculars when one of the whales flipped his tail and dove under the water. He got so excited Jarlina was a little embarrassed. After 2 hours of whale watching they went back to Lahaina, had an early dinner, and then went back to the room. They did stop at a restaurant by their hotel to get the biggest piece of chocolate cake that either one of them had ever seen.

Quiet Day on Maui

After yesterday's excitement, Jarl and Jarlina spent a quiet day sightseeing around their hotel. They drove over to Ioa Valley State Park (shown at left) and hiked around the park. They drove up towards Waiehu to see a little of the north shore. They turned around when the state highway stopped, and went back to Lahiana for lunch. Then they drove up towards Kahakuloa. They think they must have driven around over 3,000 switchbacks, so at the first chance they got they turned around and went back to the hotel. As you can see from the picutre below, the scenery on the north shore is spectacular. The weather is much wetter, the wind much stronger, and the waves are much higher on the north shore. There are no big hotels they because the shore is so rugged, and the weather is so bad, no one wants to stay there. However, it is a spectacular place to visit. Every beach has surfers risking life and limb to ride the big one. Needless to say, Jarl and Jarlina did not get anywhere near the surfing. They went back to the hotel and watched the hula shown again. Hope everyone is having a good time back home.

I Have Been to the Mountain Top!!!

Now, how in the hell do I get down!!!!!!

Jarl had been to mountain tops in both the Rockies and the Smokies. How hard could it be to get to the top of the mountain on an island? The summit is only 20 miles from the ocean. The answer is damn hard. These people built a road up a goat path. It climbs 10,000 feet in 30 miles. Instead of winding around the mountain, like they do in the Rockies and the Smokies, this road goes practically straight up the side of the mountain. The whole trip up you wonder if the car is going to tip over backwards. To be honest it does not go straight up. It winds back and forth on a line that goes straight up the mountain. When going around one corner, Jarl thought he was thinking, "Oh my God!". Apparently he had said it out loud, because Jarlina said, "Why are you going 'Oh my God!'. I'm the one on the outside." They finally made it to the summit, only to see that it was socked in with clouds. So they decided to climb even higher on foot to see if they could see anything. It was OK, until they turned the corner. Being good Midwesterners, they had their parkas on, the sleeves and waists were pulled tight, but it was warm enough to leave the hood slightly open. Big mistake. Once around the corner the wind went in their hoods and filled up the back of their parkas like a giant parasail. Thank good for those donuts every Saturday morning at Byerlys. Had it not been for those extra 20 pounds they both would have shot off the mountain like two loons shot out of a cannon. Jarlina, being the lighter of the two, said, "That's it! We're going back. I am not getting blown off this mountain." Jarl did not argue.

Once back to the visitor station, Jarlina visited the restroom while Jarl tried to catch his breath. Jarl was just sitting there staring into the cloud when it just disappeared. There was the giant crater below. One quick look at the map and he realized that this was the mouth of the volcano that had birthed this island. As you can see, it is an almost lunar landscape. It is so majestic to realize that the island would not be here if this volcano had not spewed forth the lava that created the island. The valley below goes twenty miles straight into the Pacific Ocean. Jarl snapped a few pictures, and then looked to see where Jarlina was. She was just coming down the hill, and got to see the same majestic view of the crater. They watched in awe for about 10 minutes, and then the cloud moved in again and the view was gone.

Emboldened by the spectaculor view of the crater, Jarl and Jarlina strapped themselves into the rental car for the decent. Once Jarl figured out how to put the car in low gear, the trip did not seem so bad. With each mile Jarl became more confident. Jarlina even had to tell him to slow down. All the way down they were looking down at the rainbows in the clouds below. In about 3o minutes they were back at sea level. Jarlina pointed out the recent for the National Park was good for three days, so they could go back up on Thursday. If looks could kill, ...

More pictures from Hana

Words just cannot describe the road to Hana. Here are some pictures that Jarl and Jarlina took:

9 & half hours to Hana and back

After a leisurely breakfast in the room, Jarl and Jarlina set off for a drive to Hana and back. At the orientation breakfast, they were told the other name for this highway is the Divorce Highway. They now know why. It has more turns, ups, downs, sideways, dropoffs, hairpins, and general road conditions that can drive two midwesteners to total distraction. As you can see from the picture, it is also the most beautiful highway on the face of the earth!

While on this trip they saw the following:

• Surfers going through a rainbow
• Wild streams bursting at their banks
• Wild flowers of unimaginable beauty
• Waterfalls that seemed to leap right out of the cliffs

They got to Hana about 2:30 pm and found the Hana-Maui Hotel open for lunch. They had the best pork sandwich they had ever tasted, which is saying a lot for two people from Iowa. The view, as shown below, was not bad. Lunch was served on a giant porch, which had glass doors that could be shut in case of rain. Jarlina said, "That looks like rain!". The words had no more crossed her lips, and 6 waiters appeared from nowhere to shut the glass doors. The rain hit those glass doors with the force of car wash. There was one table where the last doors came together that didn't quite make hit. They all looked like they had just gotten out of the shower, which they actually had.

Mele Kalikimaka
(Merry Christmas in Hawaian)

There She Blows!!!

Jarl and Jarlina went whale watching today, and had three things happen:

• They saw three whales breach,


• They saw a humpback whale nudge the boat (they got really close to the boat), and


• They heard whales sing!!!

Jarl and Jarlina were sitting in the back of the boat when the captain said there were whales at about 1:00. When they looked in that direction, the whales came entirely out of the water. Normally whale watching is just 2 hours of staring at water, and maybe you see a tail. We got to see the whole whale!!!! When we got close to where they breached, the whales came up to the boat. The captain put a microphone down and we got to hear the whales sing. We were practically in tears. Unfortunately, we didn't get any pictures (Those big buggers are quick!). This was an experience we will remember the rest of our lives.

The picture above is what Maui looks like from the sea. On a different entry, I will try to upload some video of our whale watching.

We made a new friend!

When Jarl says this place is for the birds, that phrase takes on a whole new meaning. 5:00 am here is 9:00 am Central time, so Jarl and Jarlina were up with the birds this morning. Neither one of them had ever heard such a chorus of birds in their life. It was spectacular. When they went for a walk this morning, this guy was just sitting by the side of the path, and was more than happy to have his picture taken. This is really a neat place.

Now This is a Vacation!!!

Before and After:














The before picture is from the airport as we were leaving. The after picture is from the beach in front of our hotel. I understand now why there are no ancient civilizations in the Upper Midwest!

We kept hearing how beautiful Hawaii is, but no description can compare. It is so strange to see the calendar say December, and the thermometer say 76 degrees. We are just checking out the local areas around our hotel and taking it easy today. Jarlina has her eye on renting one of the beach cabanas. Sitting and doing nothing seems to be an accepted practice in this society. Jarl thinks he likes this place.

We finally made it!

So we left our house at 9:00 am Central Time, which is 5:00 am Hawaii time. We finally got to our hotel at 10:00 pm Hawaii time. This is going to be a short blog because I may fall aslee

OH MY GOD!!! WE ARE LEAVING ON SATURDAY!!!

We have known this trip has been coming for quite some time, but now the time is here and Jarl is panicking more than a little bit. Jarlina has one suitcase partially packed, but Jarl hasn't even taken his suitcases out of the closet. It will be interesting to see what he forgets to bring.

Jarl's cell phone has all the telephone numbers and hotel reservations in it, so at least we will be able to call for help if we need it. Thursday and Friday night should be quite interesting with all the last minute details to take care of. Seems sort of strange that taking a vacation should be so stressful.