Sea monsters {Hawaii 2}

"I'm getting up at the crack of ass!"

That would be the last thing I proclaimed before passing out the previous night. The average person would probably say 'crack of DAWN' but I like mine better. 
 

 

The point is, I was up at 6:15am. I had every intention of taking my camera outside and watching the sunrise, but as it turns out our lenai doesn't face that direction. I enjoyed my time anyway. 

I think I was up for at least 2 hours before anyone joined me. Some people like to use vacation time to sleep in and relax as much as possible, which is ok, but I prefer to get up and experience as much as possible.

By the time everyone was ready to go I was pretty much starving to death. I am a bottomless pit of hunger, you know. I may have even resorted to eating the licorice I had in my bag and pretending it was breakfast.

Being that it was day 1 and we arrived after dark the night before, we really had no idea where we were going. And then a beautiful thing happened. We found 'Lanikai juice' which may just be the greatest place ever. If we had these places at home I think I would eat there everyday for the rest of forever. 

We had fresh juice, smoothie bowls and sandwiches. My choices were fresh cashew milk and a 'hula bowl.' It has guava, apple, pineapple, mango, banana and passionfruit and is topped with granola, banana, pineapple and honey. I don't think you could understand how delicious it is so I'm going to move on.

 

After breakfast we went in search of a beach. I don't think any of us prepared for it though. Everyone wore a bathing suit, but we had no sunscreen and no towels. Everyone at least got their toes wet, but Grace and I went in waist deep. To pee? 

Kuilei Cliffs beach is quite a pretty place. It sits just behind Diamond Head and was never busy. The beach was nice, the water was great and we enjoyed watching the surfers. 

 

Just for fun we decided to leave and go check out other beaches. We found Maunalua beach next but It didn't really appeal so we got back in the car. 
 

This needs no explanation.

Since we, mostly I, really had no business being outside in Hawaii with no sunscreen we had to call it and head indoors for a bit.

Having rented a house instead of staying at a hotel, we wanted to make food in our kitchen instead of eating out for every meal. We decided that 1 large grocery shop would be good for a week. Everyone picked out something here or there, but mostly we agreed on the kinds of foods to eat. After spending entirely too much money we headed home to put it away and continue hiding from the sun for a bit. 

For our first evening out we wanted to go to Waikiki beach. Obviously we have no idea how to get there so Weronika used the maps on her phone to navigate. This would lead to my first (of many) car tantrums. Waikiki is absolutely FULL of 1-way streets. I'm not used to that kind of driving so we ended up parking a million miles away at the mall parkade and walking down. 

Tantrums aside, we eventually made it to the beach again. Grace isn't a big fan of salt water so she was the towel master on the sand, Alycia and Weronika came in the water for a bit, but it was windy so they eventually joined Grace. Rachel and I are all about the swimming. I brought my GoPro camera and made a few videos before it died. 

                                       

At some point I decided that we should just keep swimming out, even though we really had no idea how deep the water was. After a bit I decided I should test it out and see about touching the bottom. I got nowhere close. That doesn't bother me at all though, I'm confident in my swimming abilities and really, we weren't that far from shore. 

Now, picture this. Swimming out in the ocean, you know that it's quite deep. All of a sudden a huge dark shadow is right underneath you. As soon as I noticed it I did the obvious thing. Screamed, flailed about and kicked really hard while swimming away. I think I darn near had a heart attack too! Rachel was witness to all this and she looked about as terrified as I felt. ANYWAY, it wasn't a sea monster coming to eat me. Just a huge piece of coral that came up nearly to the surface out of nowhere. The coral monster did cut my foot though!

Needing a bit of a breather after that, we decided to just close our eyes, hold hands and float around for a bit. Its quite lovely actually. The ocean makes the strangest noise when you just lay in it, it kind of crackles.

                                   

Eventually we had to retire from the ocean and go in search of food. I promptly broke my sandal and had to walk down the streets of Waikiki in 1!! 

We really wanted sushi but didn't find anything that appealed so we ended up back at the mall. Convenient, since I was in the market for new footwear.

 

Because I hadn't gotten my fill of heart attack for 1 day, we got pulled over while driving home.... Oops..

Apparently I didn't have my lights on. They are supposed to be automatic so I'm not really sure what happened. The cop was obviously a nice guy though because he just told me to put them on and then left me to it. Not going to lie, I was mildly terrified. I've never been pulled over before!!

With my lights now on, we headed in the direction of home. And then got lost. And then stayed lost for a while. This island has funny roads, I'm not a huge fan of them. 

With the help of our map (Weronika) we go home somehow.

And because things "happen in 3's" we needed one more event to end out the day. 

As we were all getting ready for bed the lights went out. We all ran to the living room to sit by the window and hangout together. A few of us may or may not be afraid of the dark... 

Someone realized that we had battery operated candles around the apartment, but not a single one of them actually had a battery in it. 

Our lovely landlord eventually came to bring us lights, and snacks too!! He also informed us that the power was out on the whole mountain and we would just have to ride it out. 

The electricity gods came to save us at some point and we could finally go to bed. 

Now that I'm thinking about it, that clearly makes no sense. Sit around waiting for the lights to come on so we can turn them right out again??? 

More adventures await us tomorrow!

xoxo

For anyone interested, we stayed here.

En route to Oahu! {Hawaii 1}

The day finally arrived!!! I've been waiting to go to Hawaii for 13 years now and I couldn't be more excited to get there!

 

Our first day of vacation was a full travel day. We left for the airport at 9:30am Edmonton time so we could be 3 hours early for our international flight. We all got checked in and everyone else dropped off their baggage. I only brought carry-on's so they had to come everywhere with me. 

I've typically always been an over-packer and I decided that this time I would resist the urge to bring everything I own. On top of that I also avoided the checked baggage cost and waiting at the carousel, not to mention the fact that I had no chance of lost bags.
 

As any traveler will know, the first step on an journey involving flight is getting through security. One of the girls has never flown before and she was the one that got separated into another line up. I think the man working saw that she had no idea what was happening and he let her come back to us. 

On the other side of security we found a lounge to kill some time in and made a shop stop to get some food. I'm a snack-y traveller so I made sure to buy lots of snacks before getting on the plane. Hunger is irrelevant, as soon as I'm buckled in for a road trip or set in my seat in the plane all I want to do is snack.

                                     

                                     

The first flight was short and easy. About an hour and a half to Vancouver. Unfortunately once we got there we had to go through security again and through customs. Not that either are difficult, mostly I find them tedious and time consuming. Customs does have potential to be pretty intimidating though. 

                                     

Any which way things go, I love the airport. It such a magical place for me. If you are one of the majority of people that find it to be a crazy hectic place with no joy, think of it this way. This building can take you anywhere in the world, it's ALMOST as good as the wardrobe to Narnia. Go up to any counter, any airline.. everywhere will lead you somewhere new, to a different adventure. And as you arrive at other airports new destinations become available to you. I love it!!!

Both flights were uneventful, I get a bit bored when I can't move around though so I had to make use of all the gadgets I had in my carry-on. In these scenarios nothing holds my attention for very long so I would take out my iPad for a bit, put it away, get something else, put it away... I'm sure my seat mate would have liked for me to sit still for a while. 

It was night by the time we arrived in Oahu and we were all losing our minds a bit. We had to find friend #5 who was joining us from a New Zealand trip and then it was off to start the actual adventure.

                                   

It took us a good while to collect everyone's luggage and find the bus that would take us to the rental car place, but we got there eventually. 

The car we got was a Nissan Altima and the vehicle I drive at home is a van. For more than just the obvious reasons, this made for an interesting drive.  I was at the point where I really should have been sleeping already and I was a tiny bit loopy. I also had no idea where I was going, had to adjust to a new car, it was raining, we couldn't stop laughing and the roads are crazy. 

At one point while driving down the freeway I realized I was driving in miles/hour instead of kilometres/hour like I'm used to. I may have freaked out a tiny bit. And then I realized that everything still works the same, the signs just have smaller numbers on them....

Anyway, after a quick food stop we eventually made it to our rental house with the help of our 'landlord' leading the way. The house is on the side of a mountain and all the roads are steep and winding, I actually shouted, and I quote: "We're barely not moving forwarder!" ...  as I sped up the hill. My lack of proper speaking skills is always a sure sign that it's past my bedtime. 

Our driveway was extremely steep and I didn't have the necessary brain function to back into it without killing everyone so we decided to let the landlord do it. He promptly bottomed out the car, and that was the last time the car ever went into the driveway. 

Part of the rental agreement was that we have quiet hours after 9pm. Let me just say, putting 5 over-tired, over-excited girls in a house together at 3am doesn't make for a quiet time. Especially me. When I get really tired I have a tendency to be a bit crazy and I laugh at EVERYTHING, loudly. 

Fear not, we didn't get kicked out. Everyone passed out eventually.

xoxo

First trip of 2015

For my first of what I hope will be many trips in 2015 I went to one of my favorite places. I've written about it before. Jasper, Alberta. It has me awestruck ever time I go and it really never gets old. One day I would like to live there, even if its just for a season.

As soon as I get that first true mountain view I'm hooked. There is nothing quite like it. It's so different from what I see in my everyday life! Not to say that it would be any less amazing if I saw it everyday though. 

I recently rediscovered my iPod from high school and i've actually been really excited about it. It's like a little portal to another time. I brought it with and we listened to it for the whole drive. It has some real winners!

R and I talked about stopping a few times along the way but decided we would rather get to where we were going at a decent time in the afternoon and allow ourselves the stops on the way back. However, once we made it into the national park and started seeing things that my new camera wanted to capture that all went out the window. 

We abandoned the car for about 10-15 minutes in favor of exploring a beautiful area where there happened to be some wildlife. R got some amazing shots!

When we eventually got going again it was only a short drive to the town and our hotel was really easy to spot. I let him choose where to stay and he picked something out that was pretty much exactly to my taste! The Athabasca Hotel is probably the prettiest hotel i've stayed in, and being just off Main Street makes it all the more perfect for me!!

                                

Once we got checked in and put our bags down we went right back out to find food and walk around the town. It wasn't a very long outing because we both wanted to get to a hike while it was still warm and light out.

We went to do the 5 Lakes hiking trail which starts not far outside the town. It took us a bit to find it because there isn't really any signage. It starts off quite flat and much like a typical hiking trail. A little while into it the inevitable happens and we had to start going up and down slopes. And from there something else inevitable happens. I fall on my ass. The whole area was still covered in ice and snow making it a much harder hike than I think it would normally be. We only got part way through the trail before we started finding areas that we wouldn't be able to get up or down because of the ice. Because it also gets colder and darker a lot earlier out there, we decided to head back. 

Later in the evening after warming up and eating we decided to go back out. Because I got a new camera I really wanted to see if I could get good pictures of the stars. I've always wanted to but never had a camera that could do the sky justice. One of my favorite places near Jasper is Pyramid lake and I figured it would be the perfect place to escape what little light the city provides and try to capture the beautiful night sky. 

I started out only able to get the moon. As lovely as it is I still wanted more. 

Next, I made lines with the light. I don't know how I did it, but it's fun anyway. 

Eventually, with several adjustments to the settings, I was able to capture a (1) semi-decent amateur star photo.

 See the Big Dipper???!!? 

Anyways, after this little outing it was time to retire for the night. 

Day 2 started off great. I can't remember having had a better sleep, ever. If I could sleep like that all the time, I'm pretty sure I would rule the world. An excellent sleep followed by a delicious breakfast just made the morning even better!

After breakfast we headed out to hike #2, this one I have done before but only in the summer. Maligne Canyon is great for pretty much anyone. Last year I did it with my 4 year old neice and she made it through with ease. The nice thing about it is that there are several loops and you only need to go as far as you feel comfortable with. 

Completely on the other hand now, in winter time it is an entirely different beast. Forget the distance. Forget the lovely scenery. Just remember to bring/rent/buy ice cleats. I am very willing to 100% guarantee you will not make it through without them. The trail has a lot of slopes and they are pure ice. We had fun sliding around for a little bit until I took a good hard fall and slid down the hill on my bum, then it wasn't fun anymore. Because he is so lovely, R took me away for tea after to make me feel better. 

We discovered the most delicious bakery and if you know me at all, you will know that I felt instantly better with a sweet pastry in hand. We got a cranberry white chocolate scone that was to die for. 

Because we went to Pyramid so late the night before it was already too dark to walk out to the little island. Thats alright with me though because it meant we got to go back again!

I don't know what it is about that place but I just love it there. Any season, any time of day.. it's just so lovely.

Unfortunately, after that it was time to go home to the city. I think I could happily have stayed forever though. 

xoxo