HAWAII

We left Grand Rapids on Friday the 13th, not a good day to fly? Nope we were just fine arriving in Honolulu 14 hours later. Well, fine but really tired as it was 3:00 in the morning GR time. We boarded the ship, The Pride of America on the 14, for our Valentine cruise. Our first stop was

MAUI

The seas were angry my friend....we were told the winter seas are rougher....yes they were....we woke up on Sunday after rolling all night and we didnt get out of our stateroom and up into the fresh air soon enough. Yes, Tim blessed the pool area. After getting in the fresh air though we were better and headed for our first excursion, the Haleakala Crater. It is a dormant crater formed by a volcano at an altitude of 10,000 feet. From sea level we went up through the tree line, past the cloud layer and wound our way through the switch=back roads to the top. I nearly had to stay at the half-way point. I hadnt recovered from the rolling ship, but I made it after the driver suggested I sit in the back.

Second day on Maui we decided to change our excursion from snorkeling, we couldnt take another day of a rolling boat and went to Laheina, a small old whaling village that had a pharmacy so that we could call our physician in GR and have him prescribe patches for motion-sickness all the way in Hawaii. It was a tiny little Walgreens, but they had the patches, YEAH...

Hilo

Hilo is on the east side of the "big island"..we chose to do a volcano hike as our excursion that day. We first walked through a lava tube, which is formed by the lava as it flows to the ocean. To get to the lava field we had to hike down into the crater which was formed by the volcano that erupted in 1959. It wasnt a cone eruption, but a side eruption and we hiked over the cooled lava. It sounded like one was walking over Christmas ornaments crushing them as you walked. At cracks there was steam escaping and we could feel the lava around them warm. Still cooling from 1959. Then we hiked back up the other side of the crater.

Kona

This was a resting and relaxing day for us. Kona is on the West side of the "big island" This is where the coffee, pineapples are grown and sugar used to be. Nice little shops, and a nice beach nearby for us to walk to. We spent time just watching people surf and swim

Kauai

Our favorite island. Much more natural, fewer people and lots of chances for activity. We chose to zipline. It was the most fun. After getting all "suited up" we went out to the zipline course. A series of seven lines from 400 to 1,000 feet long criss-crossing over the area where the movie Tropic Thunder was filmed. We ziped across the river and over the area where the camp was in the film. The land is owned by the ower of AOL and he has leased the land to this company to use for recreation, but we were cautioned that the land had to be left in pristine condition. We saw where wild pigs had rooted through some fruit that had fallen from a guava tree and heard the wild chickens crowing.

In the evening we went to a Luau. It was held on an old sugar plantation in a barn kind of building. Wonderful dancers and fair food, but good time anyway. We dressed in our Hawaiian luau clothing, as everyone was wearing Hawaiian shirts and dresses and we had learned how to make leis on the ship.

Oahu

Back to the beginning Oahu and Honolulu. we rented a car, and went to see Pearl Harbor. A somber memorial to the men still entombed in the ship. We stayed on Waikiki Beach and walked the stores and sat on the beach, relaxing in the last of the warmth and sunshine and getting ready for the flight home.