We are Back!!!

I'm adding to this on Thursday night as I know my Friday back to work will be Hell on wheels. Darla checked in today and had 42 messages. I had called in on Tuesday to get an address and to check in and my assistant wouldn't talk to me. She has been stressed and said she would wait until Friday to talk to me. Hopefully, she isn't quitting. In truth, I think she just didn't want to rain on my vacation and figured that anything that was on the burner could wait two days.

We had a great time and I'm a little sad that it's over, but we took some good memories from the trip and I know the boys had a blast. We stayed in San Francisco on Saturday night before our Sunday flight and my good friend, Mel Tobias, who owns the inspection company that I use at work, took the family out to dinner at the Elephant Bar in Millbrae. We ate to our heart's content and Mel and his wife, Trish, sent us off on our vacation in style. I called to get his address as we wanted to send a post card from the family to thank them for their generosity.

We were able to do many activities on our trip and they included, in no particular order, snorkeling, surfing, driving trip to Waimea Canyon (the Grand Canyon of Hawaii), a 4 hour ATV trip through a 22,000 acre private ranch )that was the setting for Jurassic Park, Mighty Joe Young, King Kong, 8 days-7 nights, Raiders of the Lost Ark and many other Hollywood films), body surfing, boogie boarding, suntanning, a luau and polynesian show, spending time at the swimming pools, shopping, eating, sleeping and more. It was a jam packed ten days and worth the cost of our trip. The ATV trip was the highlight for me. David got pulled over by the owner of the ATV tour and told that he was hot dogging. He was fishtailing a little on the practice trail. We all laughed at him as he was IN TROUBLE. David and I rode four wheelers, nice Kawasaki newer bikes. Daniel and Darla rode a Hippo, which is a four wheel, two passenger ATV. It had a little more horsepower than the ATVs and they had to ride at the end of the line. David and I rode directly behind the women as the tour operator put all of the gals at the front followed by the men. Dave and I would slow down and pretend that we were repositioning our helmets and face rags (it was dusty on the trail) and then we'd go full out down the hills and over the rocks. David got his bike up to 44 miles an hour on the straightaway and I pegged out at 39. My bike had a governor on it. At one point Dave and I were both going full throttle and the group had come to a stop around a bend. We both had to lock up our brakes to stop in time. The trip was excellent and they took us to the top of a hill overlooking another private ranch and private beach. In truth there are no private beaches in Hawaii, but this beach is only accessible by water as the land around it is all private. The boats have to dock thirty yards from shore and the surf is rough, so the only beach users are the family that owns the ranch. The beach was the scene of King Kamehameha's sole attack on Kauai. Kauai is the only island that Kamehameha never conquered, as his troops were overcome with disentary and overwhelmed by Kauai's forces on the beach. Kauai was eventually included under Kamehameha's rule, but only through diplomacy. Kamehameha controlled the shipping lanes and goods were not making it to Kauai and the ruler decided to switch rather than fight and was made the governor of Kauai by the King.

Darla and I did attend two time share presentations in order to reduce the cost of the ATV tour and the Luau. We do intend to buy another week on Kauai as we want two weeks every other year, but with David in school and Daniel getting close, that will have to wait. I feel very good about our condo in Princeville. It is the oldest and has the largest square footage of all of the condos. The two bedroom that we upgraded to from our one bedroom is huge and has two master bedrooms and a gigantic living area. All of the other condos in Princeville are multi-family units with six-plexes being the norm. The two bedrooms at the Makai Club are stand alone units. One of the nice features is that we have windows on all sides of the unit so that the trade winds can blow throuh and cool off the unit. Our condo was right next to the pool and was a handicap unit. The bathroom in our bedroom was huge and made so that a wheelchair could turn easily in the room. I'm glad that we had a week in the two bedroom unit, because the one bedroom that we moved to in Lihue was much smaller. The boys had to share a fold out sleeper and their clothes and towels were everywhere. I got an impression of what it would be like to live at their Dad's house and it wasn't pleasant. The second resort was part of the Radisson and had five pools including a sand bottom pool, three tennis courts, two restaurants, three bars and two jacuzzis. They had a hula group and band playing the first night that we checked in and I sat in the hot tub and watched the show. It was great.

We did give the boys surf lessons and they both did well. They were both upset that the surf was so small on Hanalei Beach where they took the lessons, but they were soon to find out how good it was there. They were both up and surfing within fifteen minutes. We rented a board later in the week along with a carrier for the top of the SUV. I rented a Jeep Laredo for the ten days and it was plenty big for our two six footers. We took them out to Shipwreck's Beach and they got to watch the local surfer champions take on some huge waves and they really enjoyed it. The next day we went to a beach on the west side of the island with six-foot waves and neither of them could even row the board out to the waves as they kept getting pushed back.

We took them to Duke's beach next to the Marriott and they were both able to ride some four-foot swells. David got his feet cut up on some coral and was fighting scabs for the rest of the trip. Duke's is a beach made famous by Hawaii's first Olympic champion and he runs a bar and restaurant there now. We ate dinner at Duke's one night. Darla and the boys enjoyed body surfing at Dukes as the waves are big and really pound you. I read my book and took in all of the surroundings.

I did enjoy snorkeling and we bought two sets of snorkel gear that we brought home with us. Kauai has some of Hawaii's best snorkel beaches, including Anini Beach, Tunnels Beach and Ke'e Beach. My favorite was Ke'e at the end of the raod north of Hanalei. The beach itself is beautiful white sand and the snorkeling is great with huge reefs and coral and an abundance of sea life. Darla and David were surprised by a seven foot sea turtle that happened by while they were snorkeling. Daniel and I were able to run out and get a close up view of the huge beast. It was definitely a sight to see.

Finally, we did enjoy a luau on Monday night with all you can eat barbecue, featuring a pig cooked in an Emu pit for fifteen hours. We dutifully tried Poi and decided that it would be handy if you ever needed to glue something in a hurry. It was flaverless, but the consistency of Elmer's glue and a dull shade of purple. Yuck. I had a few mai tais and a Hawaiian beer as the drinks were included. David and Daniel enjoyed the dancing with girls in grass skirts and coconut bikinis. It was a great show and again we truly enjoyed ourselves.

Darla and I saw more of the island on this trip than we did in 2003 and we stayed busy. The boys were worn out by Tuesday and sat in the room and watched tv Tuesday afternoon while Darla and I went to the pool. We used up three tanks of gas in ten days, so we were definitely moving.

You'll notice that GOLF was not on the agenda. I had hoped to play in one of the 9 hole tournaments, but we were busy and the focus this trip was more on the boys and doing things as a family. It was tough. Our condo in Princeville is adjacent to 45 holes of championship golf and I had to swallow hard not to play. What a grownup I am, eh?

The boys have returned home to their Dad's and will leave Saturday for a two week trip to Washington, DC, New York City and Philadelphia. Not my idea of a vacation, but to each his own.

I will write more later and I'll get a couple of pictures from the trip on the blog. It's good to be back, but I'm sure mountains of work await me tomorrow. I like the idea of going back to work on a Friday to get the lay of the land. I hope you all are well. I'm excited that Jennifer will be home next month and plan to take a day off and maybe Darla and I will take her back up to Reno to spend the night. Ciao.