With a full heart, I offer you...Hawaii! pt 1

This is the view Joe has EVERY day from his job at the top of Kaena Point.  This was Christmas Day, and this is what a stormy Hawaii Christmas looks like.

No jungle on the west side of Oahu.  You can see Kaena Point in the far distance.

Beautiful winter waves

NOW we are on the jungle side of Oahu.

One perfect plumeria

Enjoying Hawaii and each other

Oh, such wonderful memories!  The best part of the trip was being able to just sit back and relax and let Joe do the driving.  Although Scott followed our route on the map from the front seat, he wasn't navigating.  Susie and I were in the back, visiting and maybe planning where to stop next and eat.  We had such a lovely time and two thoughts kept popping into my head.  One: It's December!  And I am warm!  And it is SNOWING at home!  Yay me! and Two: So many people disparaged Oahu when we said we were going there. All I can think is that they never left Waikiki when they visited Oahu...there is so much splendid beauty, pristine isolated beaches, variety-- jungles and cacti!, wildlife.  We never set foot in Waikiki and didn't miss it at all.

Waianae, Nankuli, Maili on the westside are very different from Kailua and Haleiewa on the north.  Here is where the regular Hawaiians live...ramshackle houses, local Hawaiian barbeque fast food, barbed wire and barred windows...I may be poor and jobless, but I can spend my days on the beach!  It is also sunnier and drier on this side.  Susie and Joe's neighborhood is tucked away under a huge volcanic rock hill that reminds me of Iceland (volcanic is volcanic I guess) with sidewalks and well groomed small yards and loads of hibiscus and plumeria and bouganvilla spilling over the white fences.  It is about a 15 minute walk from their house to the beach, which is small and littered with trash (west side after all) but still offers that clear turquoise water and white foam.  Just look out, not down and it is paradise. Joe has about a, oh I don't know 20 minute? drive up the coast, to the end of the road and his perch above Kaena Pt.

Our first order of business was to go whale watching.  So on Christmas Day we headed up to Kaena...there was a storm brewing, so the waves were big, the spray fierce and the sky low.  There was this weird optical illusion that the ocean was actually reared up into a wall, ready to fold down from the horizon, and Ponyo style, chase us down the road!  As for whales, it wasn't my day. There's one, I kept hearing, but when I looked, I couldn't see anything.  I seemed to just miss seeing every spout or breech.  We went inside and checked out Joe's office and I stepped off a step that I didn't see and fell hard.  It was definitely a BAD WORD moment.  There seemed to be at least three times during the fall that I thought I could save myself, but I landed on my knee.  It hurt too much to be embarassing.  All I could think was FIRST DAY OF VACATION!  I spent the rest of the day limping in pain, very worried that I had injured myself enough to cramp my vacation activities, but I refused to give in, kept walking (slowly) and finally listened to Joe when we got home and followed RICE--rest,ice,compression and elevation (and ibuprofen) and when I woke up in the morning, it was BETTER! Moral: Listen to Joe!

After Kaena, we visited the lovely resort area of Ko'Olina, which was the location of the Marriott Susie and Joe called home for a month while they waited for their house to be ready.  Ko'Olina has a very nice beach park along the coast, with four lagoons to swim in and a picturesque walking path connecting them.  There is also a big Disney resort and it felt very festive.  We said hello to the rays in the Marriott's pond and watched the sunset as we walked back to the car.  Susie was so smart that before we left in the morning, we put a pot roast in the crock pot and had a yummy Christmas dinner waiting for us when we got home. Mele Kalikimaka!