Hawaii in bullets

How on earth do you write about a fantastic trip that lasted 7 days? In that time, K and I did so much stuff. It would be quite a post to get it all down.

The best I can think to do is to start with bullets of each day. Then, I can elaborate on the most special/unique/memorable things in different posts with lots of pictures. So here goes:

• Day 1 (Tuesday, March 23): Arrive on Oahu a little after 6. CG & Joe greeted us with beautiful leis. They had some awesome surprises for us in our room back at their house. We headed out to Gordon Biersch for dinner. K and I were starving! By 9:00 (actually, probably before), K and I were really struggling, so we went to bed.

• Day 2: We checked out Turtle Beach with CG (more on that here), and we hit up Matsumoto for its famous shave ice. Delicious! 

• Day 3: K and I got up early to hike Koko Crater (more on this here). Once we finished the hike, we went for a drive around the entire island. We stopped by a macadamia nut farm (Tropical Farms -- HIGHLY recommend it! More on the tour here.) to go on a tour. ER and I had been on it when we went to Hawaii in 2005, and it was our favorite thing we did the entire trip. Neither CG or K had been on it, so I was very excited when they couldn't stop talking about how cool it was once it was over. K got his first look at Pipeline that day.

• Day 4: We got a late start on this day. CG cooked us breakfast for lunch, and then we headed out to a beautiful lagoon. That afternoon, we went on a sunset mai tai cruise. What a blast! I had a celebrity sighting (more on all of this here). We walked so much that I lost my buzz. Sleepiness set in, and I found myself standing up at our table at the bar in an attempt to stay awake. Although it was only 11:00 (if even), I was so glad when we finally called it a night!

• Day 5 (Saturday): The four of us (since Joe was off work for the weekend) went to a place I think may be pretty dang close to heaven: the Dole Plantation (more pics here). We went on the Pineapple Express, which is a short train ride that takes you around the plantation for a tour. We got Dole Whips, of course, before we left. Late that afternoon, we all took our host dog to a dog beach (pics here).  

• Day 6: K and I left early that morning for the Big Island. I'd been before, but K hadn't. We had quite an agenda. On this first day, we managed to get a lot of it done (more on this later). The most notable things: a trip to the summit of Mauna Kea, which rises 13,803 feet above sea level (and is the world's tallest mountain when you factor its total height of 30,000 feet, which includes its base under water); and seeing the glow from the lava at Kilauea Crater.

• Day 7: K and I got up bright & early to check out some lava tubes and to hike across a crater in the Kilauea Iki hike. After that, we headed to a black sand beach, the southernmost point in the United States, and the southernmost bar and bakery in the U.S. (not the same, by the way). We also did some off-roading to check out a green sand beach. We might have gotten whiplash, but the trip was well worth it. (Many more pictures to come from this day!) That night, we flew back to Oahu for one last night with CG & Joe.

• Day 8: We went to the beach one last time before spending the rest of the morning getting ready to head back home. We were at the airport by 11:30 a.m. Hawaii time. Three flights later, we arrived back in VA around 9:30 Eastern time. 

So there you have it: 14 out of over 1,000 pictures I took documenting our awesome trip. We did so much that I couldn't put it all in these bullets. (Guess that's one more reason jet lag is still affecting us after almost 72 hours of being home.)

And it's also why I see a few more Hawaii trip posts coming to this blog in the next week.