Cute Diner Photo

The Seaside Diner has found a potentially permanent home in my bedroom under the window!  The light from the window shines through the top of the diner and makes it look like a real neon sign.  I love it!

Just a quick post to brighten your day.  Have a good one!

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3 days on Hawai’i with Kailey

Last weekend I went to the Big Island of Hawai’i.  It was my first time to the Big Island.  It was my first weekend trip to Hawaii.  And it was totally awesome.  I wish I could go to Hawaii every weekend.

Kailey joined me for the adventure.  We scored 1st class upgrades!  I say “we” because on the first flight, they couldn’t find anyone to sit next to me, so Kailey got her own first class seat!  I imagine that is extremely rare for dollies.

On these short trips, I make it a requirement to get to the destination as early as possible.  In this case, it meant a layover in Oakland.

I got to sit in first class for the next, longer, flight, but Kailey had to sit on my lap.  We could see the cockpit!

I learned that they lock the pilot and officer in the cockpit when in flight, and when one of them wants to get out to stretch their legs or use the facilities, one of the flight attendants acts as bodyguard and passengers are not allowed to pass.  I doubt a 92-pound flight attendant is much of a match for a terrorist, but I suppose if she can lift 50 pounds over her head like it says in her job requirements…

Also from this seat I was required to listen to flight attendant gossip.  I don’t wanna stereotype all flight attendants, but this particular one was not the sharpest crayon in the box.  I am now considering investing in noise-cancelling headphones.

The flying is the unpleasant part of a weekend in paradise, but even that isn’t so bad.  We arrived safely and on time, and were soon at our hotel, the Royal Kona Resort.  It used to be a Hilton or some other big name property, and you could tell that it used to be quite fine.  Now it’s really showing it’s age, but for the price I paid it was amazing.  Here’s the view from part of our balcony:

I say “part of our balcony” because I scored a gigantic corner room with a king-size bed.  I booked a volcano-view room, which is the cheapest room choice available, but I got a balcony that wrapped around the corner of the building.  One side had a volcano view (which for most of the trip was a fog view), and the other side had a partial ocean view!  The above photo is looking straight ahead, at the neighboring hotel, and our hotel’s swimming lagoon.  Turn your head to the left and lean out a teeny bit and you could see the entire ocean!

As hard as it was to get off the beach chair on the balcony, we headed out for a late lunch, stopping for a photo at the koi pond.

After lunch, as I was deciding what to explore next, I fell asleep.  Work the day before was really awful, so I kinda needed it.  But I woke up in time to watch the sunset by the lagoon.

There aren’t a lot of sandy beaches on the Big Island, so it was nice that our hotel had a private lagoon.  The water was sheltered from the surf, nice and calm.  It was super hard to walk along the bottom, but I doggie paddled my way along to a rock on which to sit and watch the sunset (Kailey watched from a nice dry lounge chair).

I considered eating dinner after sunset, but went to sleep instead.

The next morning we embarked on a guided tour to Volcano National Park.  It’s about a 3 hour drive from Kona (can you say boring?), but we made several stops along the way, and the guide told stories, so it wasn’t boring at all.  Our first stop was lunch at a coffee farm.  As a Mormon I have zero interest in coffee, and lunch was super boring, but the farm had a lovely view.

Next stop was a black sand beach.  It was pretty awesome.

We eventually made it to the volcano.  We took a short hike through the forest and through a lava tube (which is a fancy name for a cave) and then got dinner.

After dinner it was dark out, so we went to watch the volcano glow in the dark.  It was really hard to photograph, and not quite as spectacular as I imagined.

And that was it.  The next morning I had to head to the airport.  And I had to leave much earlier than I would have liked because the shuttle company made me.  I had to wait at the airport for 3 hours before my flight.  Which was totally lame because the airport was super small.  No good food.  No good shopping.  But a cute sculpture:

I was totally bummed that I missed out on 1.5-2 hours of beach time (or perhaps lunch time) and spent it instead at an airport.  But as one of my facebook friends says about Hawaii, “two days are better than zero days”!

And here’s one final photo.  Bon voyage!

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Maplelea Monday: Charlsea’s Cowichan Sweater

It’s here!  The newest Maplelea item, an authentic Cowichan sweater.  These sweaters are hand knit by the Cowichan tribe on Vancouver Island using traditional techniques.  Mine was hand knit by Dora Wilson, and it has a tag that says so.

Isn’t it amazing?  But if you want one, you’ll have to wait.  It’s already sold out!  I remember the first batch of Saila’s amauti sold out too, but it came back.  We’ll just have to wait.

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