Weather Mishaps

Day 8

Time for some more hiking!

River crossings

Quality time with the pup

David had never actually jumped off the falls before, so we decided to rectify that. I am pretty sure I once again pulled the wimp card and didn't jump in, because I've done it a bunch of times, and that water is freaking glacial.

Lily had never seen us jump off the falls either, so she proceeded to freak the heck out. She swam out to David and climbed the freaking waterfall! You can see David trying to tell her to get down. What's funny is you could tell that she was freaked out and WANTED to get down, but she was not deserting David, by god! David wanted her to jump in with him, and I was scared that she would actually do it. Thankfully, her head isn't totally empty, and we got her down. After that I had to hold her back, and she would make these yelping, moaning noises whenever any of us would jump, causing the surrounding hikers look at me, specualting if they needed to call the ASPCA. It was kind of funny.

Ruthie braved the jump!

Here's Josh going off the high one - he is more courageous than I am . I stick to the small jump.

David, not to be outdone.

Here are some videos of both Ruthie and Josh jumping! Multimedia fun!

These videos aren't the greatest, because I was planning on editing them, but in reality, was way too lazy to do so. Meh.

Mainly I was having issues because I was trying to restrain the crazed dog while everyone was jumping, and whenever anyone actually jumped, she started lurching around trying to 'save' them, which results in lots of camera jiggling, and trying not to fall off the rock I was perched on, and long run-on sentences, apparently.

I'm not sure why anyone ever lets me film things. At least I didn't turn the camera sideways, like I usually do.

So, now for the trek back. Josh was going turban-style.

Aw, my dog is so cute

Here the boys show off their casualties. It had been kind of rainy, so the stream trail was one giant mud slick. Josh was the first to go down, hard on his side. Then David totally biffed it in front of a big crowd of people while trying to be cool, and ended up falling on his rear. It was possibly the highlight of my day. Sorry honey.

Vine Swing!

I'm not sure what I'm doing in this picture, or why I have 2 jackets and a towel tied around my waist. I blame it on decreased brain cells. About 2 minutes before this picture was taken, I became the third casualty, tripping over the vine David is now standing on, and falling face-first into those rocks. Nice. Naturally, I had just taken my camera out, so I had to sacrifice my face to try to save the camera. I figured my face will heal for free (hopefully) whereas the camera would cost me. I'm nothing if not frugal.

Remember how I said it was muddy? Yeah. This was the trail. Josh finally just gave up trying to stay clean.

After that, the plan was beach and then a nice walk for sunset, but the weather decided to bring the smack down on our plans.

Our previously gorgeous beach had been ransacked by a storm, and it looked like another was moving in. We had just enough time for some naps on the beach and frisbee before the skies opened up.

We decided to drown our sorrows in some more malsadas.

Backseat Buddies!

The final blow came the last night, when I had actually planned some night-time activities. There really is practically nothing to do here after dark that doesn't include copious amounts of alcohol, so I had booked us for some bowling, which had to be made 2 weeks in advance. For bowling. Crazy.

So, I guess I shouldn't be surprised when this happened:

Goodbye electricity! A big storm rolled in, and whenever that happens, there are power outages. Like crazy ones. The whole island was without power for 12 hours. What crazy person designed the power grid so that whenever there is a storm the whole things goes out to lunch?! Probably the same guy who designed the terrible highway system. Arg.

Anyway, so no power anywhere. Stuck at home. Goodbye deposit! I was kind of mad at nature. I am finding that happens often over here, especially in the winter.

We were hungry, and I didn't want to open the fridge, so I was all for venturing out to see if there was any food to be had. David was sure we were all going to get robbed. But, we went anyway, and I'm kind of glad we did, just for the kookiness factor.

Naturally, everything is closed, but there is a grocery store a few blocks down, and they were having a sidewalk sale. You couldn't believe. There were the requisite eggs, a shopping cart of meat, and all the ready-made food they had. And there was some weird stuff. I have kind of gotten used to the nastiness that the locals here consider cuisine, but I was still not hungry enough to eat this stuff. Boxes of fried who knows what, deviled eggs, Spam prepared in everyway you can think of, scary-looking sushi, random floaties in soup (why are they always hot pintk!?) and mystery sandwiches. And it was insanity. People were just grabbing whatever they could get their hands on, like they were famine victims or something. We gave up and went home. I can't remember, but we probably ate something like corn chips for dinner.

Day 9 - Last Day

Basically the only thing they really wanted to do while they were here was to go on a whale-watching tour. Unbeknownst to us, you are supposed to book like 3 weeks in advance. What? So, the only charter we could get on was on Sat, the last day of our trip.

And, as it turned out, the day after the giant storm and blackout. Perfect. The weather wasn't too bad on our side, but the closer we got to the North Shore, the worse the weather got. When we finally made it to the harbor, the rain was pounding, and there was actual thunder and lightning, which would turn the ship mast into a giant lightning rod, frying everyone.

Not a good way to end your vacation.

So, we ended up driving around for a bit, but finally called it a wash as it started raining again, and generally looking dreary.

I still made them stop at the Dole Plantation, where I forced Ruthie to take this picture.

Josh was still mourning the death of his whale watching trip.

Mmm, Pineapple Ice cream

Josh loved the word 'Mahalo' and he even made up his own version and used it at every opportunity while he was here. I kind of wonder if he kept it up once he got home.

Sushi boat!

So that was it - they were off, back to Dallas. We really had a wonderful time with them while they were here. It was great to see you!