A Pocket Full of Shells

 (My apologies if you will now have "Bulls on Parade" running through your head the remainder of the day).

This month, DH and I took our first family vacation in probably twenty years.  I know we didn't take one in 2007, the year DS1 graduated from high school, and the next year he was in the Marine Corps when we took the other three kids out to Oregon and back roadtripping to (and from) the family reunion hosted by DH's second youngest aunt. So it's been twenty years, or maybe even 21, since DH, I and all four of our children (and population exploded family) went away together on vacation.

We (DH & I) have talked about doing this for a long time, especially in the last several years.  Then, in 2025, on the flight back from taking K3 and Toad to Sedona over Spring Break, DH asked the two of them for ideas of places we could all go on vacation together in the future.  K3 said "The beach!"  Specifically she was thinking of Myrtle Beach, where we had taken her and Toad back in 2022, and her alone way back in 2015 (which she couldn't remember that trip because she was only 3 at the time.)

Which was how this family vacation went from concept to reality in 2026.  DH. Me.  Our four kids.  Their spouses (and DD2s current boyfriend [whom I really do need to assign a blog name to because he's looking more and more like a lifer]).  Nine grandkids (Two-EEs daughter Cowgirl didn't come; at 17 and having been living with her father and step-mother for the last few years she has in the past 8 months or so decided she doesn't 'need' her mother or that side of the family.)  Myrtle Beach.  Four days, three nights, lodging for everyone covered by DH and I. (They were on their own for food, transportation and activity expenses.)

It was chaotic.  I mean, is it even possible for anything involving 19 people, 9 of them children, to not be chaotic?  It was often loud. (NINE children!)  Was it enjoyable?  Do any of us ever want to attempt such a thing again?

YES!  And another YES!  In fact, on the long car ride home, there were texts flying back and forth vehicle to vehicle and state to state (it's about a 14 hour drive for most of us) proposing we do a huge group trip every 2-3 years.  Possible future vacation destinations were tossed around; from mountains to beaches to National Parks.

But back to this current vacation.  I tried to walk the beach every day.  Sometimes at low tide, sometimes at high tide.  Sometimes in the morning, sometimes in the evening.

And it seemed that I couldn't take a beach walk without coming back with shells in my pocket.  Which brought to mind the lyric "rally round the family with a pocket full of shells".  Different context, different shells from the song mentioned above, but it sorta fit.  Lotta family.  Lotta shells.

some of my favorite shells are teeny, but intact

In addition to finding shells, there was 

--swimming, both in the ocean and several of the resort's pools (most of which I did not have my phone for, so very few swimming pictures)

9 grandkids together on the beach!, 

Buck, K3 holding Lucky, Toad holding Octavia, Rascal, Tractor (front), Faline (mostly hidden by Tractor), Sixlet

--kite flying; tiny kites that hardly show up in the pictures although we watched from our balcony other people (adults) flying huge shark and squid kites

--group dinners made in one or both of the suites we stayed in (one 3-bedroom suite and one 2-bedroom suite).  Smoked brisket and pulled pork (the first night, brought from home, smoked by DH), spaghetti and meatballs, make-your-own taco bar (Tuesday!), and white chicken chili with toasted baguettes (which oddly enough wasn't the wrong temp/flavor for a hot humid southern evening and was heartily enjoyed by all ages).

waiting to be called to dinner

waiting again

--kids babysat by aunts and uncles while sets of parents each had a turn at a childess afternoon or evening out.

DD1 in charge of (niece) Octavia

 --general shenanigans

Monkeys on the luggage cart

"Hiding"

Can a 2 year old fit in the cabinet?

Yes, yes he can.

--and even a succesful family picture (which I decided was too many tiny faces to try to make them unrecognizable/anonymous so I could share it online and abide by my own no recognizable faces blog photos rule).  I have plans for that family picture to be enlarged and printed on a canvas to hang on my living room wall before the year is through. (We also have not had a 'real' family picture since before DS1 graduated high school in 2007.  Its been a crazy past 20 years.)

In addition to our mass activities, some family members formed various smaller groups for various outings (I didn't go, so didn't get pictures) such as:

• miniature golf 
• go-carts 
• an aquarium visit 
• a driving range
• a nature preserve 

And while they were gone to those things, I enjoyed some peace and quiet, reading or knitting or beach walking or sitting on the edge of the water just feeling the waves and thinking; and recharging my (introvert) batteries for more group fun!

A Little Down Time

 DH and I slipped away for a quick vacation.

Although I'm not sure 'slipped away' is the right phrase.  Because it took talking to and arranging with several people in order to make it happen that I could be gone.  I feel 'plotted' would be a more apt word to use.

Anyway, we went on a Florida vacation without stepping foot in a theme park, and without hanging out at a poolside bar.  Kinda like going to Vegas and never entering a casino or seeing a show.  The resort was our homebase for sleeping, but when morning came we got the heck out of dodge and went to see things an hour or more away.

Because the point wasn't to go to Orlando and see the entertainment parks in Orlando.  The point was to take advantage of a sale on resort stays in Orlando, and direct flights to Orlando, and use those resources to make possible some exploring of central Florida. To get out of Michigan, to run away from life for a while, and to enjoy warm weather in a 'new' place.  (We've been to Orlando in the past, but always in the context of Disney, not as in the region around it).

Like Cocoa Beach, which was supposedly a good place to find shells.  Spoiler alert, it wasn't.  At least, not at all like what we'd expected.  I found a few decent ones, but I've been to other places in other states that had far more shells compared to sand on the beach.  Maybe its better at a different time of year.

While we decided not to don bathing suits and swim in the ocean as the water was rather chilly at knee deep, we did take off our sandals and walk through the surf for a mile plus, while watching for decent shells and seeing several different types of wading birds as well as pelicans. At ankle deep or less, the water was pleasingly warm, except for a rogue cold wave or two.  

Wading barefoot is definitely a task you can't do on the shores of the Great Lakes here in Michigan in early March; a lot of those are still covered in ice this time of year.  So, being able to do so in Florida was a nice treat even if the shells were kind of lacking.

a willet I (barely) managed to catch a non-blurry picture of

With the exception of traffic around Orlando, which was a snarl that took forever, it seemed, it was a relaxing day.  We saw alligators on ditch banks, lots of cattle grazing, and did a quick side trip over to Cape Canaveral but decided neither one of us was interesting in going in the Kennedy Space Center enough to pay for parking plus admission when the day was half over.  Instead, we watched flamingos flying, which was rather trippy to see big pink birds in the sky, and saw a wild boar browsing along the side of a road.

The next day began with a hunt for a good doughnut for breakfast.  I rarely eat doughnuts anymore, since they are too much carb for too little breakfast ever since I was diagnosed with Type II diabetes in 2017 (2018? I don't remember), but I had planned ahead and before we left the resort I ate protein in the form of plain Greek Yogurt and was then theoretically ready to blow my carb allowance on a long John style doughnut. A careful vacation splurge, if you will.

Except a long John turned out to be an elusive thing to find.  With Dunkin shops all over the place, it was very disappointing to walk in a few locations and see pretty much only circle doughnuts with holes. And even the filled circles didn't have custard inside or chocolate frosting on top, being jelly filled and coated in powdered sugar.  Nope.  Not good enough for me.

(Side note, since it's been years since I was last in a Dunkin shop: do they even make long Johns anymore?  Or was this lack just a regional thing?) 

We looked up doughnut places online, tried, by their pictures, to determine which ones actually made long John doughnuts, and finally hit upon one that looked promising.  DH typed it in to the navigation system on our rental car and off we went on a (doughnut) treasure hunt.  Which took us to the gate of Universal Studios.  Yeah, the doughnut shop was in the theme park.  Not going there.  

With dropping blood sugar and resignation that I really needed to eat some carbs ASAP, I had DH stop at a grocery store where we also found no filled doughnuts. I did score a large container of fresh fruit, enough to cover my breakfast carb requirement.  So I had strawberries, blueberries and grapes for breakfast and DH found an Einstein Bros bagel nearby for himself.

Our second planned fun thing for that day was to go kayaking.  We headed through the (horrendous) Orlando area traffic over to Kings Landing in the Wekiva River Basin, where we rented a couple of kayaks and went out paddling for a few hours.  

We saw many kinds of fish, enjoyed floating down the beautiful clear water, and even saw an alligator on the bank of the river.  Ironically I paddled right past it, less than 2' from where it was in some brush, and wasn't even aware of it's presence until a minute later when someone in a kayak behind me said "There's an alligator!"

Of course I had to turn around, paddle up river, and go looking for it! DH, curious but more cautious than I, turned around and came too, staying behind me (so the alligator would eat me first and leave him alone?) We stayed close to the opposite bank this time, and DH managed to get a picture or two although they came out a bit blurry.

That black bumpy thing isn't an old tire, it's a gator!

After our kayak excursion, before getting close enough to Orlando to join the traffic, we stopped at a gas station to use the restrooms and guess what I found!  Not exactly a custard filled long John with chocolate frosting, but the gas station did have a doughnut case with creme filled chocolate frosted doughnuts!  

So we bought two of those, one for me and one for DH and called it lunch.  They were (surprisingly) excellent doughnuts.  Circle K for the win!  Who would have ever thought a gas station would have a great doughnut when several doughnut shops did not.

Our final day of vacation, we drove over to Ocala, heading for the World Equestrian Center.  DH had taken it upon himself to look up the WEC online several weeks before our trip, and had seen that there was supposed to be a dressage show series starting the last day of our trip.  So our plan was to drive over and spectate some Grand Prix level dressage.

As it turned out, that was the first day of the show series, but it was not a show day.  It was a schooling day.  Which was not as exciting, but I still enjoyed watching many horses being worked.  There's not a lot of opportunity around this little place here to sit and watch riders practice piaffe, passage, canter pirouettes and zigzags, let alone doing one tempis!

I took several videos, but apparently forgot to get pictures of the cool stuff, lol.  Here's a picture of one of the riders who I most liked how he rode (quietly in the saddle and without being harsh to the horse) while he was finishing their session at a walk.

Although there were no dressage classes scheduled for that day, on other parts of the WEC grounds there were multiple jumping competitions going on.  We first watched a Young Riders (Under25) class, then headed to the main arena where we saw a few riders in a jump off round of a 1.45 meter class (where the height of the jump is about 4' 9").  That was very interesting, especially for DH who doesn't get as much joy as I do from the nuances of watching dressage.

Along with three days of interesting-to-us activities, we experienced some really good food.  Unlike most other vacations we've had, where we utilize the kitchen in our suite--and the grill(s) provided by the resort--I did zero cooking this time.  That was one of my stipulations when this vacation idea first came up: that if I was 'getting away from real life' for a bit, that had to include me not planning, shopping for, cooking, or cleaning up after any meals. I've been rather burned out on that aspect of my life for a few months now.

Instead, we made a list of cuisines we'd like to eat while we were there.  Did we find all of them?  No, our list was quite a bit longer than the number of meals we had in three days.  The main goal was to try something different than our usual.  So, preferably no pizza, no pasta, no major chains (local chains OK). . .

We had some incredible Cuban food, (my pechuga de pollo plancha with salad, fried plantains and Spanish rice is show below), awesome Turkish kebab, and discovered a breakfast place (a chain, turned out) that was so good we ate there two out of three mornings.  

delicious Cuban dinner

breakfast hash with goat cheese (minus eggs since I don't eat commercial eggs)

This was just the break from my real life that I needed.  I have to say it was the most relaxing vacation I've had in many years.  And even though we ate out a lot, the food wasn't horribly pricey despite being a tourist area with the expected price hikes.  In fact, $40 seemed to be the theme for dinner cost; two of us and no matter where we went and what we ordered, the tab was always $40.  That's not any more expensive than dinner out in our home area.

Hawaiian Vacation, Part Two

To say my first exposure to Oahu wasn't very positive would be an understatement.  I had absolutely loved the quiet, laid back, mostly rural nature of the Big Island.  Then, I get my broken foot (accidentally) stepped on by DH just before our flight to Honolulu started.  And then, with a throbbing, achy foot, I disembark in the much larger airport in the enormous city of Honolulu.

Did I mention that the airport in Kona is small?  And it's outdoors?  It was sooooo neat!  There were roofed areas, typically where there were desks/gates with computers, but no walls (with the exception of a few air conditioned lounges for those of membership status with specific groups).

Kona Airport terminal

The Honolulu airport was a different world.  Ultra urban.  Multi-level, sprawling walled-in structures with glass and long roped off mazed sections like cattle chutes in a stockyard.  Outside the walls wasn't any more calming.

Culture shock.  High rises everywhere.  Traffic everywhere.  People everywhere.  My anxiety level ratcheted up exponentially.  I don't do cities.  I don't like cities.  I don't like crowds.  I don't want to do this.  Where's the escape button? To say I was overwhelmed on Oahu more often than not would be an understatement.

Anyway, back to my story.

Because parking fees were so exorbitant, and because DH was sure we could walk pretty much everywhere in Honolulu (an opinion formed by the resort's claim to have everything you could ever want within a short walk), we'd decided not to rent a car on Oahu.  We planned to get a ride from the airport to the resort, and from the resort to Pearl Harbor and back, but pretty much walk everywhere else.  We were only going to be there three nights and two full days, so even with my foot recently broken, we felt we could do it and save close to a thousand dollars on the combination of car rental and parking fees.

We got a Lyft to our resort.  Which was like a night and day difference from the resort we'd just been at.  That one had been maybe three stories, but I think it was only two.  It had been quiet, we'd had a suite and a lanai. This resort was a high rise hotel (and hotel is how I refer to it).  I don't remember how many stories, but I do remember it was more than 33 because I accidentally punched 33 into the elevator call button once when we were actually headed to the 3rd floor (where the pool--indoor--was located.  Nope.  I didn't swim in that pool, not once). 

And our suite was, well, it was a suite in that it had a separate bedroom off the living room area.  It did not have the same homey feel as the other suite though.  It felt like a hotel room with a separate bedroom. 

I have to mention that the bathroom had a bidet.  I'm not a bidet person; I'm rather funny about when and where water can touch me.  This was a very fancy, high tech bidet and it drove me nuts; every time I sat on it--so, every time I needed to use the toilet--it would make noise (I think contact  woke up the computer part to be ready for me to push buttons for what I wanted it to do) and that was too much for my all ready jangled overwhelmed by the city nerves. The seat was also weird, sort of slanted, to put you in a good position for spraying off, I guess; it was not comfortable. I hated having to use the bathroom.  I just wanted a regular old low-tech toilet to sit on. 

The view from our room's 'balcony' which felt about two feet wide and three feet long.

Not on the same par as the lanai at the other place.

I was all ready missing the Nene and my gecko friend.

I do have to say, our Lyft driver was a great young (ha, probably in his early 30s) man.  He was polite, he was a good driver, and conversation with him was easy, not stilted.  We leaned that he had a regular day job, and would pick up Lyft passengers on his route home (or close to home) every evening.  Which was really a good way to make efficient use of his commute, cover the gas expense, and a way to meet people from all over the world without having to spend a lot of time with anyone who turned out annoying or otherwise unpleasant.  Not would I would do, but definitely a side hustle idea for anyone who commutes to and from a largish city, likes driving and is also kind of extroverted.

Also a shout out to our server that night at Hard Rock Cafe Honolulu. (The only place within walking distance on my throbbing re-smashed foot that had both food that sounded like I could eat it and not more than an hour wait for a table.) I believe his name was Levi.  He was awesome.  One of the first things he asked was if either of us had any food allergies, to which I said I was sensitive to soy and artificial sweeteners.  I picked my entree very carefully from the menu, paying close attention to the listed components of that offering, and even so, Levi came back a few minutes after we'd ordered and informed me that the marinade for the chicken in my entree contained soy, and would I like to order something else?  Since it was a minor 'contact' ingredient rather than a major exposure to me kind of thing I decided it was worth the risk (of later stomach upset) and kept my order rather than changing to another entree.  But it was so wonderful that he had the thought and took the time to ask the kitchen staff about ingredients without me even asking him to do that.  Best server encounter ever!!!  He was awesome in all the normal waitstaff ways too, and we left him a BIG tip.

Our first full day on Oahu, we got up early and took a Lyft to Pearl Harbor, where we spent about six hours.  Yes, there were a lot of people there, and yes, the crowds were rather overwhelming to me, but really wait times for anything wasn't too bad, and I would definitely go back if I had the chance.  DH and I chose to tour the U.S.S. Arizona Memorial and also the U.S.S. Missouri.  Really, I didn't take a whole lot of pictures, but we had a lot of quiet discussion between us pretty much everywhere we went while there.

The U.S.S. Arizona was very somber and thought provoking.

Approaching from the ferry.

remnants of a gun turret 

Markers for the U.S.S. Vestal and another ship (I can't remember the name of) which also sunk in the attack on Pearl Harbor.

As Pearl Harbor is still a working military base, we had to board a specific bus to get over to where the U.S.S. Missouri is docked.  That bus took you into a fenced in area, and you had access to restrooms and the U.S.S. Missouri and that was it.  

Walking towards the U.S.S. Missouri

  Neither DH nor I remembered learning anything about this ship in History class during our school years, and we wondered what made it special and why it was part of the Pearl Harbor Memorial.  Not very long into our tour, we found out.

On the U.S.S Missouri, at the time in Japanese waters, the peace treaty that ended WWII was signed.  Now it's presence in Pearl Harbor made sense.  The beginning of U.S. involvement in the war started there, and so it was fitting to retire to Pearl Harbor the ship on which WWII ended .

The spot on the deck where WWII officially ended.

Looking toward the U.S.S. Arizona memorial from the top of the U.S.S. Missouri

We spent hours on the ship, both with our guided tour group and after the tour ended and we were allowed to self-guide through some areas of the ship.  Neither of us had ever been on a battleship before, although I remember once seeing some Viet Nam era photos of my Dad's time on a ship when he was in the Marines.  Actually being in some of the rooms where the servicemen slept, ate, and enjoyed 'recreation time' was a whole different level of understanding than either of us had had in our lives up unto that point.

That was an interesting day, and now I was glad I had come to Oahu even though Honolulu's giganticness wasn't my thing at all.  Food was really becoming a problem, as so many of the 'grocery stores' in walking distance were more like convenience stores with packaged processed foods (the majority of which has ingredients I can't eat and still function).  Restaurants within a mile or two walk either needed reservations made several hours in advance (or even the day before) or they also had mostly things I couldn't/shouldn't eat.  Anyway. . .

On the drive back to our hotel/resort, we took another Lyft and had a horrid driver.  Not that he was rude or anything, but oh my goodness, he was on and off the accelerator constantly (traffic did not call for that, it was just his driving style), which was so bad that not only was I trying really really hard not to be car sick, even DH--who never ever gets car sick--was getting nauseous and just wanting the ride to be over.

On our second full day, we took a Lyft (better driver this time!) from our hotel to the parking lot of Diamond Head.  Like going to Pearl Harbor, hiking Diamond Head was on our Must Do List for this vacation.   

DH actually wanted to save money and hike all the way from the hotel rather than get a ride, but given how sore my foot was at the end of the day before from our walking around at Pearl Harbor (which was alternated with lots of sitting rest breaks for my foot), I was worried that if we hiked (about three miles) to Diamond Head I wouldn't be able to actually hike at Diamond Head once we got there.  So we got a Lyft.  And my foot was fine for hiking at our destination.  

looking toward Diamond Head from the parking area

It was a really cool hike.  Just over 3/4 mile one-way, and lots to see on your way to the top.  Like Fort Ruger inside the crater.

There's also a tunnel you have to walk through in order to get up to the old fire tower, which you go into in order to get back down.  Which was not as confusing in person as I just made it sound, LOL.

the narrow, dark, and not very tall tunnel

At the top, you have great views of the ocean as well as Honolulu.

You also crawl through a small, short doorway and go into the fire tower.  Which is where DH and I had a very up close encounter with a mongoose who apparently lives just outside the 'window' of the small room you enter via that doorway.  It was a little startling to see a mongoose at approximately face height and only a few feet away. 

Surprise!  There's a mongoose on the other side of the wall!

So, you can look out at the island from the fire tower for a bit, and then to get down, you have to traverse this old metal spiral staircase. It takes you down about two stories.  I loved it. It reminded me of stairways in some of the old lighthouses on the Great Lakes that you can tour.

Once you're back outside again, you are faced with this: The Ninety-nine Stairs!  And they are steep, and they are narrow.  These I went down sideways so my entire (broken) foot could be flat on the tread rather than the normal way where the ball of your foot carries a lot of weight (because it was the bones between my fourth and fifth toes and the ball of my foot that were broken).  It was a long way down!

99 stairs

We hiked back down to the parking area--and restrooms!--where we saw some more previously unknown to us birds.  Like this little tiny guy with a red mask across his eyes like a miniature winged superhero.

common waxbill

When we got back to the parking lot, my foot actually felt like it had some miles left in it, despite all the stairs and so we decided rather than call a Lyft, we'd see how far back to the hotel we could walk.  If I got going and just couldn't make it the full way back, we'd call for a ride.  Plus, we planned to stop and eat dinner somewhere on our way back through town which should give my foot a rest along the way.

So, we hiked through this tunnel which connects the road to Diamond Head to the rest of Honolulu.

tunnel back to town

We hiked through the edge of Honolulu, where there was a surprising (to us rural folk) number of homeless camps in the brush on the sides of the road, through some old residential neighborhoods on side-roads, and into the more bustling main part.  Where it so happened there was a street fair that had been set up while we were at Diamond Head and now the main road was blocked from vehicle traffic and the sidewalks were absolutely packed with pedestrians! So many people. Breathe, Kris, and keep hiking! 

We found Maui Brewing, and stopped there to eat an early dinner.  I don't remember what I ate, other than that it was good and I would eat there again given the chance (my brain tends to categorize food establishments into three categories: Never Eat There Again, Definitely Eat There Again, and Possibly Eat There Again based on if the menu offered much I can/want to eat and how good the food actually turned out to be).  I do remember that I ordered their stout, and that it was good.  Stout tends to be my beer of choice, yet it's hard to find stout on tap these days, especially during warm weather months or in hot weather locales.

Maui Brewing's stout

After dinner, we walked the rest of the way back to our hotel.  And that is how I hiked five miles on a broken foot in one day.  It was definitely sore when we got back to our hotel, and I think I spent the rest of the night reading a book with my foot propped up.

The next day, we were catching an overnight flight home, so we had quite a few hours to spend before heading to the airport.  We chose to spend most of the morning, until just before check out time, on Waikiki Beach.  It was fairly empty at that time of the day, and although I still couldn't actually swim because of my foot, I did enjoy standing about waist deep in the ocean.  I hadn't been in the Pacific Ocean before (touching it with my fingertips back in 2007 when DS1 graduated USMC bootcamp in San Diego doesn't count as 'in'). 

We had spent some time, not swimming, on the beach the first night we were in Honolulu, including watching fireworks over the beach that night.  The below picture is from then.

After swimming, we went back to our room, rinsed off, changed clothes, finished packing our bags, and took yet another Lyft (with another great driver, young, very personable and a smooth driving) to the airport.  We had a late lunch in the terminal at Sammy's Beach Bar and Grill, which had really good food.  Five stars from me, the picky eater/impossible to please person.  Definitely Would Eat There Again.

On our long flight home--it was direct Honolulu to Detroit--DH and I rehashed our Hawaiian vacation, pros and cons and what we'd do differently if we came back.  The Big Island, we would definitely do again and probably revisit all the same places, hopefully to hike more, see Kilauea erupt, get me to the top of Mauna Kea, and add more days to our stay.  Oahu, well, it wasn't what we'd expected.  DH has been to some major cities on work trips before, and even he got a little tired of the throngs of people and hugeness of Honolulu.  So, next time, if we went back to Oahu, we'd probably try to stay somewhere else, rent a car, and see the 'other side' of the island.

But, the general consensus is that we will go back to Hawaii someday.  Lord willing and the creek don't rise.

This Time Last Year. . .

 Back in September 2024, DH and I took a vacation to Hawaii, a place we'd both been wanting to go for quite a while.  We did it in two parts: first, the Big Island, and second, Oahu--Honolulu specifically.  When we landed at the Kona airport the first night, we had no idea just how polar opposite those two parts of our Hawaiian vacation would be.

I should note that we did not plan to do most of the things that tourists think of when they think about going on a Hawaiian vacation:

• no luaus.  Partly because we didn't want a 'canned' cultural experience, and partly because for the cost of the luau (including meal) and my picky-eating combined with the things my body doesn't handle well (soy, pork in certain forms, additives, sea food/fish) neither of us felt that I'd get enough to eat in a balanced fashion.  So, rather than a big waste of food dollars and maybe me having diabetic issues or gut issues or a migraine later, we skipped the available luau experiences.
• no tour groups, including whale watching excursions on boats.
• no snorkeling (partly because I'm not a very coordinated swimmer and swimming excursions aren't big desires for me, but mostly because I broke my foot shortly before leaving on our trip and there was no way I was going to be able to wear flippers).

What we did was mostly geared towards our personal preference for self-guided and nature specific sightseeing.  Plus, we tried to 'eat local' although that ended up being challenging since I can't do anything fish or seafood (so much seafood and fish everywhere) plus I'm not a big fan of Asian (soy, vinegar, hot spices) and there was an unexpectedly (for us) prevalent Asian influence to the food at most eating establishments that weren't your chain fast food (also a no).

We flew from MI to Los Angeles, (long flight, but I managed my blood sugar well enough I didn't get sick), then from Los Angeles to Kona on the Big Island (also very long flight, and again pretty successful with the blood sugar regulation--had a really huge and really delicious Greek hummus wrap from a place in LAX during layover).  When we deplaned on the Big Island, it had just gotten dark, so we really didn't see anything on the drive from there to our hotel on the first night.  Waking up in the morning was somewhat like being a kid waking up on Christmas--the delights that awaited us right outside our room!

That room happened to be on the lagoon side of the hotel, and in the lagoon there were dolphins swimming!  From our balcony we could watch them, and even from our bed we could hear them! (Confession: we had the sliding door to the balcony open to let in the breeze and be able to not use the AC system--AC fan noises and blasts of cold air make it hard for me to sleep when traveling.) 

It was kind of wild to wake up in the night thinking I heard deer snorting in the back yard at home only to realize I wasn't home, that it wasn't deer, it actually was dolphins blowing.   Definitely not a sound you normally hear in Michigan!

For breakfast, we sprang for the hotel buffet, and boy, I was so glad we did!  The food was fresh and delicious and I could mix and match offerings to make sure I met my macronutrient requirements plus enjoy what I was eating!  Not only was the food some of the best we had the entire trip, the walk to and from the buffet area was gorgeous.  

We saw all kinds of tropical fish (which didn't take very good pictures), as well as some spotted rays, an eel and a green sea turtle in the lagoon while crossing the bridge that went over to the eating area.  Bonus was the statue of a hippocampus.  A horse-fish.  How could I not love it?!?

After breakfast, we checked out of that hotel, as we'd only booked the first night there (paying with hotel points--frugal!) so we wouldn't use up one of the four nights in our vacation package on the Big Island by sleeping off our long flight.  Leaving the hotel, we did some exploratory driving around to get a feel for the lay of the land.  What we found was mostly rural (HOORAY) and a huge variation in climate.  I think we actually ended up driving about half the island that day before heading to the resort we would be staying at for the next four nights.

Fun facts we learned:

• there are feral goats everywhere.  So many goats.  In fact, you can buy one hunting tag per day year round for goats they are so prevalent.  

Goat in the median at the entrance to the resort.

• There are also feral chickens in a lot of places.  

Chicken at the shopping center we went to for groceries.

• Likewise, mongoose were abundant too, although most of my attempts at getting a picture of one were blurry.  (Teaser, there will be a decent picture in Part 2 of our vacation).
• In addition to goats and chickens, there were also many feral sheep (Mouflon type with big thick curly horns) and feral cats.
• Many, many places had open air dining.  It was a big change from what we're used to in Michigan (where some, but not the majority of, restaurants have outdoor seating).  And part of that open air dining that nobody seemed to blink at were the birds.  Flying through, hopping on the floor, sometimes even on the tables and chairs themselves.  I have to confess that I often got distracted by the birds, especially trying to identify species I hadn't seen before.  Hence few pictures of food and many pictures of birds.

English sparrow who took DH's seat at breakfast when he went to the buffet for seconds.

Zebra dove at lunch by the waterfront in Kailua-Kona

Two big shout-outs on food from this portion of the trip:

1. The Tsunami Blue smash burger at the Big Kahuna Beach Grill.  I am not a burger person (unless they are grilled at home) and 99.999% of the time I eat out I do not order a burger.  That said, the menu's description of this burger sounded so delicious I decided to go waaaayyyy out on a limb and order a burger.  I was so very glad I did.  Without a doubt, this was the best burger I've had in my entire 50+ years of life.  Even better than venison burgers I make at home.
   
   
   
2. Hamakua  Macadamia Nut Company's Butter Rum Glazed Macadamia nuts.  YUM!  Found these on our first grocery store run and bought them as a vacation treat.  They were so delicious that after we got home I wished I'd bought a whole bunch more to bring back to Michigan.  I ended up looking them up online in November, happened upon a Black Friday sale, and ordered several bags for myself as well as smaller cans to give to the kids as Christmas gifts.

 If you've read this far, you're probably wondering what, other than going to the grocery store and also out to eat a few times, did DH and I actually do while we were vacationing on the Big Island.

We went to Volcanoes National Park.  Where I saw more birds I'd never encountered before, such as Kalij pheasants.  Like the chickens, goats, and sheep, these pheasants were long ago (hundreds of years) brought to Hawaii by voyagers and left to populate in the wild as a food source for return trips to the islands.

While at Volcanoes we viewed the Kilauea Caldera, which had quite a bit of steam activity while we were there.  The island was under an Orange Alert for eruptive activity, which apparently meant there was lots of steam.  DH had hoped to actually see magma/lava coming out, but that didn't happen while we were there (it did a few months later and is still happening).  One thing the eruptive activity did was mess up the Chain of Craters Road, making big fissures in it and closing the road the day before we were there.  That was another thing DH had hoped to see, and he was quite bummed out the the road was not open for us to drive.

We had hoped to do quite a bit of hiking while at the national park, but, due to an oversight, my hiking boots got left in the room at the resort instead of being packed into our rental Jeep, and I was only wearing (comfy for the hour+ car ride) sandals.  Which, being that my foot was less that a week into the healing process after being broken, were not supportive enough footwear for hiking.  So we mainly walked from the parking areas to the scenic viewing platforms.

The one 'hike' we did do at Volcanoes was to and through the Nahuku-Thurston lava tube, which was extremely cool (as in interest level, not as in temperature).

Entering the lava tube.

We did drive as far as you can up Mauna Loa, and contemplated attempting to hike to the summit, but, again, my broken foot--and left-behind hiking boots--was a damper on that idea.  So we took some pictures from the overlook at the trail head, and marked that hike as a 'next time' item.

View from Mauna Loa overlook.

While on the Big Island we couldn't very well drive up Mauna Loa without also driving up Mauna Kea.  The plan had been for us to drive all the way to the summit.  However, that got altered when, shortly after leaving our mandatory 30 minute acclimation time in the Visitor's Center (at 9,200 feet), my gut decided that whatever I had eaten that morning was not going to play nice with my digestive system (I suspect I got soy protein in something, as that is a major irritant for my intestines) and we had to turn around and return to the Visitor's Center and it's restrooms.  I ended up sending DH to the summit without me, and I sat at a picnic table at the visitor's center (very near the restroom just in case) and read a book while he continued all the way to the nearly 14,000 ft peak.  Having come equipped with hiking boots that day, it was a bummer that my gut wouldn't comply.

View from the visitor's center, above the cloud deck.

Also driving-rather-than-hiking scenery included lava flows

and distant viewing of Waipi'o Valley.

Back at the resort, we spent time at the end of the day relaxing on our lanai, being visited by the (begging, unsuccessfully as I don't feed wildlife people food) Nene geese.  

There were also lot of myna birds, which I thought looked like pissed off robins.

Why so angry, bird?

Early in the mornings, I enjoyed sitting on the lanai with my new friend the gold dust day gecko who basked in the sun.

We did get to do a bit of hiking, most of which we did at Kiholo Bay, after a local tipped us off that it was a good spot to see green sea turtles.

Before we saw the seat turtles, though, DH almost walked into a sleeping monk seal.  We'd come around a bend and were paying close attention to the loose, rocky footing when he looked up and saw the seal only about six feet away.  We backed up and took a wide berth around it, then continued on to the bay.

Once we saw the turtles, which was difficult at first, because they were in the water and not on or close to shore where they'd be much easier to pick out, we kept spotting more and more and more turtles!  Most of them were feeding, and so you'd see a back foot, or the side of a shell as they were diving and or turning to dive, rather than heads and big rounded backs.

There were also a few lava tubes that were filled with water .  Now illegal to go in, one native lady who was there with her husband and small child at the time we were walking back, said that when she was a small child it was a local ritual to bathe in the particular one in the photo below.

The last night we were on the Big Island, we tried to get a view of the sunset.  We found a not too crowded spot on a beach to sit and waited for the sun to lower into the ocean.  Unfortunately that spot turned out the be the area that the sunset cruises went to drop anchor, so by the time there was actually sunset-like colors it was impossible to get a photo without a boat in it.  

Still, it was nice to sit in Hawaii and watch the sun go down after a relaxing day.

The next day, we had an early afternoon flight from Kona to Honolulu.  Before checking out of our resort, we took another swim in the gorgeous multi-layered pool.  I could wade, but I couldn't really kick to swim, so in the deep parts, DH gave me a piggyback ride around to get to the waterslide, or another, shallower, attached pool where I could again touch bottom and breathe air at the same time.

Then, before heading to the airport for our flight to Oahu,  we did a little hiking at Petroglyph Park to see some ancient drawings.  During the first half of the hike, there would be an etching on a rock here, and another one there, or a cluster of three or four on rocks in another spot down the trail.  There was also a confusing section where the trail wasn't clearly marked and after several false starts that we figured out weren't the right trail, we almost just turned around and went back the way we'd come instead of continuing on to the end of the trail.

But, we persisted, found the correct path, and were very glad we did when we came upon a huge area that had an uncountable number of petroglyphs right there on the ground.  It was like looking at a giant newspaper, there was so much 'writing'.

Just one small part of the petroglyph rock.

After that it was time to head for the airport and board our flight to Oahu.  Little factoid: while bending over and sliding sideways to get into our seats on that small puddle-jumper type plane, DH accidentally stepped down right onto my broken foot.  So that is how part two of our Hawaiian vacation started: with my foot very sore again!