Sorry, between the new job (which is going well) and getting ready for the new house, the update on the honeymoon has slipped a little. Yesterday we spent 8 hours furnishing the new house. Purchases included a kitchen/dining room table and 6 chairs, couch and love seat, bed set including bed, dresser, chest, mirror, and nightstand, a fridge, 47" LED flat-screen TV, blu-ray player, and a gym membership. Now today we're packing up everything we won't need this week. So excited to move into the new house!!!!
I also apologize; not sure if this post will be a full of details as the first 3 as I'm more preoccupied with the big move coming up. But you were more interested in the wedding details anyway...
Family time
Because we only see Rick's family every now and again and also because they haven't ever been to Kauai, we spent the better part of the day after the wedding with Rick's parents. It's also somewhat more fun to show everyone around Kauai than it is to do it ourselves since we know the territory. It was funny, though, we ran into my parents at Puka Dog (seriously, the best hot dog you'll ever have)--small island. The last night on Kauai we met up with my sister and her husband to pick up the missing folder, and although she had expressed that after the wedding she was on her honeymoon, they asked us to eat supper with them--it was great. We saw all of our family the day after the wedding, and the day before the real honeymoon began.
The Big Island
We decided to honeymoon on the Big Island of Hawaii. We had been there for a weekend back in October of '07 and decided we hadn't had enough, so we spent 5 days on the island. We stayed in a really swanky hotel with multiple pools (salt water, one with a slide, one with a beach--we spent a lot of time by the pool) and got upgraded to an "ocean view" room. I use the term loosely--if you looked straight out from the room you saw the roof of the lobby, beyond that was the mountain. But, if you stood at the very end of the balcony and leaned over the railing, you could see the pool and, beyond that, the ocean. And we were upgraded at the rental place too from a PT cruiser to a Jeep Wrangler. And we got free drinks at the hotel one night--apparently it pays to say you're on your honeymoon!
Mauna Kea
The highlight of our honeymoon, by far, was going to the top of Mauna Kea. It was a guided tour (check out Hawaii Forest and Trail's website) and it was amazing. We headed up the mountain with a guide in a small tour bus and it was other-worldly driving up through the fog and seeing Mauna Loa rise up next to us (the two peaks are only a few hundred feet different in elevation). We watched the sun set at the top of the mountain and could see Haleakala, the highest peak on Maui. There are huge telescopes on top of Mauna Kea--deemed the best place in the world to stargaze because of elevation and lack of light pollution. After the sunset we descended 400 feet to base camp and did some star gazing ourselves, as well as a stop at the visitor's center. It was amazing. I have never seen so many stars. I learned so much, our guide was amazing, and the scenery and stars were indescribable. We even saw some snow! If you ever head to the Big Island, I highly recommend you go!
Lava adventures
Let me cut to the chase. We didn't see any lava. And the trip was far less exciting than the Mauna Kea trip, but then it was hard to live up to that experience. Two people in our tour group ruined the trip for the rest of us, to an extent. Nothing was right. The guide didn't talk loud enough or walked too fast. These two were hot, they were cold, they were hungry, the air was not clean (to be fair, volcanoes emit sulfur, but again, we saw no lava and were not really close to any vents), they wanted flashlights... These all seem like legitimate concerns as I type them, but this couple was so needy and made the trip seem much less fun than it really was.
That being said, it was a fine trip even though we didn't see any lava. We drove to Hilo (it seemed like forever on an island, but I'm sure it was only an hour and a half, maybe 2) and stopped at the largest Japanese garden outside of Japan before heading to a macadamia nut farm. I didn't think I liked macadamia nuts, but they were great when you cracked them fresh. We had a nice meal there and then headed to a recent sand beach. If you're not aware, Kilauea has been erupting pretty continuously since January 3, 1983 (just a few weeks longer than I've been alive!) and has wiped out towns in recent history. Black sand beaches are created when the lava reaches the water, solidifies along the shoreline, and the ocean breaks it back up leaving black sand behind. Apparently the beach we went to used to be a huge black sand beach but lava covered it around 1990. So the sand we were walking on had been chiseled out in the past 20 years.
We went to the lava viewing site and saw nothing. No lava, no smoke, but it was fine. You can't control nature (though the needy couple was very angry the guide could not provide lava). Again, Mauna Kea was way better. But had we seen lava, it might have gotten more praise.
We all live in a yellow submarine
To round out the high altitude mountain adventure, we decided to go 100 feet underwater as well. We went on a submarine ride--it was pretty cool, but not as cool as SCUBA diving. But Rick doesn't SCUBA, so we compromised on doing this together instead of me disappearing for a dive for half a day on our honeymoon. It was a little creepy as they closed the hatch, but it was neat. Saw lots of fish, and a lot I knew from diving in the Caribbean and in Hawaii before, which was nice so I could point them out to Rick. We also circled a few shipwrecks. The pictures didn't really turn out, but it was fun.
How many places can you spend time under water, on the beach, and in a parka at the top of a mountain (world's tallest when measured from the ocean floor)?
We also took a Kona Brewery tour--small but fun!
Plane troubles
Leaving Kauai, our plane had "malfunctions" and they had to fly in a mechanic. Only put us a little late. On the trip home, in Phoenix, our plane caught on fire at the gate before we left. The attendants asked us to leave without gathering our things. After 20 minutes or so, they let us back on row by row to get our carry-ons and explained that we had a fire in the cockpit. Luckily we were at the carrier's hub so we got a new plane pretty quickly.
It was a great trip. Sorry I'm not as elaborate as parts 1-3, but I think you get the point. We had fun. It was an adventure. Check out the pictures (they have pretty good captions, I think)!
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