How is 2024 treating you?
We've had an interesting start for sure. On December 28 we got on a Viking cruise ship in Los Angeles and headed for Hawaii! Yeah, it's not like visiting Columbia or the Sudan or Pakistan but, well, it's not sitting around in the house either!
It was a fine trip. My wife and I like being out at sea and Viking did everything it could to make our trip a SEA trip. We took 5 days to get to Hawaii and the first two were really kind of rough. It doesn't bother us but there were plenty of seasickness wrist bands and behind the ear plasters to be seen. We did celebrate the New Year onboard. I'm pretty sure we've never had little hat things for the New Year before!
Then we got to visit Kauai, Oahu, Maui and Hawaii. On each island there were tours and we planned on taking one of them on each island. Ok, with that lead in, do I have to say it didn't work out? Kaua'i worked out just fine. The only problem was that much of it was at a 'plantation' which has become a tourist town with lots of small buisnesses to sell stuff to tourists. Unfortunately many of them were closed! Duh! You have 400-500 tourists coming by and you are closed??? Retail has changed a lot since I worked in it! We did manage to find this Christmas ornament. It is glass and is painted on the inside; not the outside. It has chickens because many years ago chickens became wild on Kaua'i and they still are! You are driving somewhere and here are 6 or 8 chickens just pecking around by the side of the road! It's amazing! And fun if you like chickens. I was trying to take a photo of this rooster trying to have his way with out of the ladies but it just didn't work. Darn!
The next day we were on Oahu in Honolulu. We were getting dressed to go out and my wife remembered she wanted something from the bathroom; she turned, caught her foot in some bedclothes that were hanging down and fell! Oh shit! Of course she's been recovering from her broken ankle and now she was down again. Slowly I got her up and we headed down to see the ship's doctor. The good news is that there was nothing broken; the bad news is that she really couldn't walk and her toes, arm and ribs hurt and were bruised where she had fallen on them. SO, back in the wheelchair for wifie!
The staff were really quite nice. They would find us places to sit and places to hide the chair. The bar staff got to know us better than usually since we did have more time on board and alcohol helps the pain go away. But really that was only for that first day. Then I left my wife.
NO, not for ever, just for the Maui tour. We decided that I'd go do that and she would just relax in our cabin. Well, actually, she could have come with me except for climbing onto the bus and out of it. However I did go on the tour. The first part of the tour was up to a tourist shopping area in Lahaina. Well, shit!
Here you are driving through residential neighborhoods where everything is burned down and then you are in the Hyatt, Hilton & whatever neighborhood with their pristine buildings and lovely golf courses. Oh, and in the middle was our destination: the Whaler's Village (Mall). Well, shit! Just what I wanted to see: Louis Vuitton, Sephora Cosmetics, Tommy Bahama clothing, Lululemon sportswear, Keani Hawaii jewelry, Maui Divers Jewelry. Really??? The folks who lived there are still working on finding places to live. There are tents on every beach where people are trying to live. Of course there are vans parked along the road as well. It was nasty! These tents were probably 30 feet from condos that are worth $700K on a bad day! Oh, and the people in the background are tourists getting on their sailing trimarans for the morning.
Anyway, the second part of the tour was up to a crazy little river, oh, and a rock! Where you got to climb 147 steps (or something like that) to see the river falls and a weird rock. The rock is the Iao Needle; it just sticks up there in the middle of a canyon like it was meant to be there. Weird but photogenic. The steps were just awful! They didn't even have hand rails on both sides!
Our last day in Hawaii was on Hawaii, the big island. We checked with the tour people and they said that going while using a wheelchair was fine so we decided to do it. Our tour started with viewing the Rainbow Falls. That was ok; my wife couldn't view them being in the wheelchair but I got a couple nice photos. This is the falls.
Then we wandered off to the Panaewa Rainforest Zoo. That would probably have been ok too but it was really raining in the rainforest! And my wife was in a wheelchair and, well, it was pretty wet for her! So we were definitely first back on the bus!
THEN came the thing we wanted most from Hawaii. My wife's sister and her husband sold their huge, fantastic home in Washington a year or two ago and are building a smaller place there; however she hates the winters up there so they have purchased a condo on the island of Hawaii for winters (also golf which is a passion). We were hoping to meet them for lunch. Their condo is across the island and it is about a 2 hour drive to get there so visiting at their place was out of the question - so we had lunch together in a local restaurant near the ship. That was fun. We'll be back to visit them when we can rent a car and enjoy the island. No photos, we just all forgot!
And then we were on the way back east! It was another 5 days of 18 knot speeds and we landed in Ensenada, Mexico. Apparently there is an old law saying that foreign vessels can't go between US ports exclusively; they have to go somewhere like Canada or Mexico too! Ensenada is close; Carnival Cruise Lines likes it too!
Anyway, we had a nice day in Ensenada; well, except for the tour! There is a blowhole, La Bufadora, that is pretty impressive with seawater spouting up through this hole in the rock. That was really nice; the 2/3rds of a mile of trash and trinket sellers on the way there and back was kind of a pain in the ass! Or, in my wife's case, in the foot! But we managed it, two + hours of walking may not have been what she wanted but it worked out ok. There was a nice musical party going on a mile or so from the boat but we just crashed!
And then there is an overnight very quiet ride to LA. and hop off! Well, it was kind of screwed up since they didn't bother announcing that we were cleared to go but we managed to get off about 08:40 - probably an hour later than we had hoped. Zoomed through customs; a nice guy named Cassady spent way too much time checking out our passports and then we were in the taxi line. Amazingly there were no taxi's waiting but a guy showed up and took us to the hotel where we'd left the car and ZOOM!
I've got to admit that I haven't driven that fast in a while. We were doing 80-85mph most of the way across California. Not that we were passing anyone but still! We got to the kennel about 13:45 - and they want the dogs out by 14:00! So we just made it; the clock showed 14:00 (2 p.m.) as we drove into the yard. The house was just the way we'd left it; didn't clean itself or anything. But, we were happy to be here. And we had a lovely sunset. What's not to like?
Thanks for stopping by. Keep washing those hands and be safe!
