Hawaii: Part 1

We took this Hawaiian cruise in honor of Scott’s uncle Rick to celebrate his 50^th birthday. We celebrated in true Cannon style, (any excuse to have a party). Our group had 12 people, Jeff, Janet, Nicole, Rustin, Clark, Carole, Amanda, Uncle Rick, Uncle Bob and Aunt Anita, and Scott and I. I’ve decided to take on this Hawaii post in a series of posts. There are just too many pictures and experiences to talk about! First off we dropped our children off at my brother and sister in law’s house the night before so we wouldn’t have to wake them up at the crack of dawn. That was Jory’s idea: brilliant. It was so great to pack all of their stuff and get them taken care of and then we could pack our stuff. (Day 1)I woke up early Friday morning and started to get ready. While I was getting ready I decided to turn on the TV at 5:30 and to my surprise I hear about an earthquake in Japan. I thought wow that’s crazy; I then continued to watch as I heard about a tsunami watch over the entire state of Hawaii. What the heck? How long have we had this trip planned? I went and woke up Scott and told him the news. He proceeded to call his mom and let her know and ask her to keep us updated because we needed to get to the airport. By around 6:30 the tsunami had already hit Hawaii and there were no major damages to report. When we got to the airport there were no airplane delays and word from the cruise was we were good to go. So off to Hawaii we went. We had a 2 ½ hour layover in Salt Lake and then a 7 hour flight to Hawaii. Luckily we were on a nice plane that had individual TV screens that had about 10 movies you could choose from, TV channels, games, music, the works. It was awesome.

When we arrived at Honolulu we went directly to our hotel, they were having some serious issues and it took at least 1 ½ hours to get checked in. We had just enough time to change our clothes and head out to our dinner reservations at 7:00 Hawaiian time, 10:00 Mountain time. Considering the fact that we had been up since 5:00 in the morning and traveling all day, I was pretty spent and not really up to it. To add insult to injury I think it took about 2 hours from beginning to end. I was so ready for bed it was not even funny. (Day 2) The next day we woke up early so we could make it to Hanauma Bay to do snorkeling. We arrived at the beach and it was closed because of the tsunami, bummer. They still let us in the park so we could look around and take pictures. It was beautiful. We headed further north a few miles and played at Sandy Beach. The waves were pretty powerful and it freaked me out to go in them, even more so being pregnant. Scott had a blast playing in the waves, and that was his favorite beach time of the trip. We then headed to the Bishop’s Museum after a pit stop at the grocery store. The museum was kind of random, it had a dinosaur section and a lot of their dinosaurs had feathers and looked like big fat chickens, it didn’t look right. They had a demonstration where they melted lava rock, a 50 ft. sperm whale skeleton, and other random Hawaiian things. After that we made our way to the cruise ship. We got checked in and I was starving and we helped ourselves at the buffet and then we bailed on dinner because I was so exhausted from the last couple of days. After a few hours of rest we later got up and explored the ship and went to bed early.

(Day 3) On Sunday morning we arrived in Maui and we took the road to Hana. It is this ridiculously narrow, windy road. It has one way bridges and all kinds of blind corners. It was so beautiful though. Along the way we stopped at Wainapanapa State Park where they have a black sand beach. It was pretty cool looking although because it was small lava rocks so it wasn’t too friendly on your feet and the water had jelly fish and man of war. Not exactly the kind of beach you want to hang out on. We headed further down the road to Oheo gulch where you can look at the 7 sacred pools. A bunch of us opted to go on a spontaneous ½ mile hike. When we got to the overlook there was no water and the waterfall was not even there. We ran into a family who had taken the hike before and they insisted that we needed to continue on another 1 ½ miles to the waterfall and that we wouldn’t regret it. We decided to carry on. After another ½ mile we ran into a beautiful spot that had pools and a rope swing. Mandy, Carole, Nicole, and Rustin stopped to play at that point. Scott and I continued on the last mile to the waterfall. It was a beautiful hike. Part of the trail was completely surrounded by bamboo. It was really cool. It was really dark because it was so shaded and when the wind blew it made this creepy sound. It was pretty eerie. We made it to the waterfall and it was impressive. We got in to take the picture and headed the 2 miles back. I can’t believe I did a 4 mile hike in flip flops. My dogs were barking! On the way back down the others were still playing in the pools and said they would come down shortly. Unfortunately half of the party that hadn’t gone on the hike expected us to be gone for maybe 45 minutes and we were gone for 2 ½ hours, ( that wasn’t very considerate of us). But I have to say that was probably one of my very favorite things we did. Janet had also made dinner reservations that we were going to miss. So a group of them headed out and the rest of us followed about 30 minutes later. We drove home so fast it was completely terrifying. The max speed limit is about 20mph and we were going much, much, faster on windy, curvy, blind curves with one way bridges. Oh my! We made it back around 9:00 pm and Scott and I bailed on dinner reservations again and got a quick bite and went to bed. These Cannons have energy and stamina for days! I can’t do it. To be continued…

Pictures in Honolulu first day

Picture from The Orchid Restaurant day 1

Pictures from Hanauma Bay day 2

Picture of Scott playing in waves on Sandy Beach day 2

Bishop's Museum day 2

Getting on the cruise ship day 2 (more details from ship to come)

Drive to Hana pictures day 3

The part of the hike the others stopped and played in, day 3

Hike to the falls, the bamboo section