Friends (Insert the Friends theme song here)
We’ve shared a lot of our specific activities we have done while on this trip, as well as all the lovely landscape we’ve got to experience, but I want to take a quick minute to talk about a few things that have really made this trip much more meaningful for me. See, one of the many reasons I found a love in traveling (and let’s be honest entertaining strangers in my home who are also travelers) is because I’m really an introverted social person. I love knowing who people are, where they came from, the things that bring them happiness and joy, what their life experiences have been, and what truly makes them the individuals they are. It’s the innate social worker in me, I suppose. I can’t help it, nor would I change it, because it’s given me the chance to create amazing friendships and truly notable acquaintances over the years. This trip has given us the opportunity to not only meet new people everywhere we go, but for us to reconnect with our friends, many of which Matt or I have had the chance to spend time with in at least two to five years. I introduced you all to my friend Josh, the heavy-pour bartender who enabled us to miss our first flight to Hawaii, I’d now like you all to get aquatinted with Rene. Rene and I had the opportunity to work together in the Oklahoma County juvenile court system since 2008. We first bonded over our crazy work experiences, but second was our love for animals. Rene’s spirit and energy is contagious, her laugh so very lovable, and her feistiness is like none other. A few years ago she decided to move back to Kauai (she’s from here) to lead a more simpler, present-moment life. So, as Matt and I were coming into town, we contacted her to meet up and catch up on her life happenings. On Sunday, Rene gladly served as our local tour guide taking us from the Lihue/Kapaa area all the way west to the Waimea Canyon. We stopped to see several waterfalls, we did a rum tasting at the Koloa rum shop, we toured the coffee plantation at the Kauai Coffee Company, and hiked up to see the best views of the Waimea Canyon (noted as the Grand Canyon of the pacific). We got to see all the great spots, including lunch at a fantastic little side-of-the-road shrimp stand that was absolutely phenomenal. She was able to give us all the history of the area and all the fun insider details of truly being a local. A huge thank you to her for taking her day to do this for and with us, we had a great time and loved getting to catch up with one another. This was our last day in Kauai and quite frankly I was terribly sad to leave. I fell in love with this island and can see us coming back here many times in the future.
The next day we headed to the airport for our last Hawaiian island flight to make the quick trip over to Oahu for the next two days. We managed to get to the airport, get our boarding passes, and then headed towards security. Well, this is where things once again at an airport went south. Matt always tells me I’m not friendly enough with the airline people and that he is just going to “handle” the check in processes since he thinks he can use his brilliant personality to get what he wants (read: Matt thinks he is awesome and he has endless skills…) just wait. So, I took him up on the offer. He was handling check in this time. Matt always carries this specific knife with him everywhere, and he’s usually really good about remembering to take it out and put it in his checked luggage. Well, since you know we can’t get anywhere on time with him, we are cutting it close to boarding time as we are going through security. Well, “Brilliant Personality” forgot to put his knife in his checked luggage (probably because I wasn’t asking him 800 questions about do you have this, have you done that, etc.) and TSA obviously wouldn’t let him take it through. He decided to go over to the baggage check area to see if they would pull his bag and put it in there, but it had already gone out to get on the plane. At this point, they are calling our names on the intercom that they were going to shut the doors to the plane in two minutes and here he is, still not back through security for the second time. I literally ran to the gate (I’m too fat and out of shape for that kind of activity) and begged the ladies to wait so that he could get on the plane (I shouldn’t have, maybe he would have learned his lesson). Luckily, they did for his sake. Matt had to end his 12 year relationship with this specific knife at the baggage counter of Hawaiian Airlines because of his poor planning and “handling the check in process.” I’ll bet he’ll relinquish that decision back over to me again fairly quickly, since episode one of his new approach didn’t work so well. Twenty years later, some things just never change.
We were only going to be in Oahu for two days before catching our flight for the next leg of the journey, so we tried to hit a few highlights while we were there. We went to the USS Arizona (Pearl Harbor) memorial and museum as soon as we left the airport. The government was still technically shut down at that point and it was going to be the last day they were going to be open for visitors if a resolution had not been established. We stayed in Waikiki Beach that night and found ourselves making new friends in the hotel bar. At this point, we were about 11 days into this trip (which around 10 days historically is when I start to get cranky, want to sleep in my own bed, and become terribly impatient and intolerant of just about anything), we decide to go down for one drink and then we will go watch the sunset and go to bed early. Well, one drink turned into several, new friends were made, no sunset was seen, and no dinner was had. Four hours later we finally got to bed, so much for resting I suppose.
I’m pretty sure we wear ourselves totally out on these trips because we just have this drive to see and do as much as we can on our time off. With high expectations from both Matt and I, and a bucket list that seems endless, some days I just really want to rest and do absolutely nothing. No rest for the weary here, by 9:00 am the next day we were headed to the North Shore of Oahu to catch the locals surfing on what we were told were some pretty spectacular waves. January-March is the season for the 20-30 foot waves in this area that the crazy locals seem to love. After a few hours of watching the surfers (see attached photos), we also got to see a full on, out-of-the-water breaching humpback whale. Unfortunately, since nature isn’t “on demand” Matt wasn’t ready with the camera for it, but the image is permanently burned into my memory and I’ll take that, it was spectacular. We then spent the afternoon at the Dole Plantation learning all about the history of pineapples in Hawaii and of course, trying the famous Dole Whip. The tour around the gardens was interesting, as was the beautiful landscape they keep absolutely pristine. Who knew it takes 2 full years to grow a single pineapple? You learn something new everyday! The real highlight of the day was finding the mecca of all Target stores in the U.S. I needed to get a few things before we start the next phase of this trip (and lets be honest, I just really needed to get away from Matt for like one hour and mosey around looking at all the things I don’t need). With some hawaiian potato chips (they didn’t have any popcorn at this Target) and a fresh Diet Coke in hand, the three story Target store was just what I needed at that time. Next adventure: Dinner with Matt’s longtime friend, Philip and his wife, Andrea.
Back to the earlier conversation about meeting up with long-time friends, Matt and Philip have been friends since 2001. They were students at OU at the time and also worked together. Matt also became good friends with Philips brother, Ed, who served many years as our resident guinea pig on trying Matt’s random BBQ/cooking creations while he was in medical school. It’s been about 2-3 years since we’ve last seen each other, so getting together for dinner was on the agenda. We ate dinner at the Side Street Inn restaurant, which is known as a place for “local comfort food.” We followed up with hours of conversation at their house after their two sweet kiddos went to bed. As I’ve been missing sweet JuJu cat, I was able to get my kitty fix here, as the Nguyen’s recently became a kitten nursery, as their human kids let in a stray momma cat who was pregnant. Those little kitties were just so sweet and cuddly, exactly what I needed. At about 2:00 am we finally returned to our hotel to catch about three to four hours of sleep before we had to pack and be back at the airport to begin the international leg of this trip. It’s going to be a long day…..
Hawaii has been a wonderful experience and we’ve enjoyed every minute of it. Can’t wait to come back! Up next: Tokyo, Japan, off to meet all of Matt’s extended relatives for the first time ever. I can’t wait to see how this goes…..
