I feel like........well, this:

I have a fever of one hundred and two degrees and a sore throat.......not feeling oh so well.
Well, I guess I had better check schoolnotes and see what's for homework. Oh, before I do that, do you want to know an estimate of how many hours I slept yesterday? Probably about 18 hours. Not bad, right? Well, that means I can't really fall asleep today!Allrighty, Bye y'all(s).

Hello on this beautiful, rainy day!!!

Don't you just LOVE the rain? I do!!Well, I think we all had a nice Spring Break. My family and I got back from paradise alive, I haven't been killed with homework, and it's raining! My life is pathetically easy. Except, of coarse, dealing with time difference. Hawai'i is six hours behind us over here on the East Coast. And, climate change. It was nice and warm in Hawai'i! What in the world happened over here? It's COLD!!!!! I might have the idea to move to Hawai'i when I old enough! Besides, surfer dudes are awesome, though not as cool as the shave ice at Matsumoto's and the turtles and the paintings on the sides of buildings and the food and the malls. The malls, depending on with one,have NO doors. In one area you could see no doors, trees growing in the middle of the mall, and no roof. On the side of another mall, there was an aquirium!!!With real fish, sting rays, and sharks!!! That was amazing! Whew, my fingers are sweating because I was typing so energetically! Better go, Bye!
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My most memorable moments from Hawaii.

This trip was interesting from the very beginning. The canceled flight almost torpedoed the entire trip, but it worked out OK. After all, we got to fly first class for one leg, something I've never done before. The leg room alone will make me at least check the price difference whenever I fly.

Once we got there though, and got to relax some, it was pretty smooth. I want to talk mostly in terms of impressions here, rather than facts. When we got to Bellows, I was really happy with how close we were to the ocean. Though the cabin was small and utilitarian, that was OK because we weren't going to spend a lot of time there. Sleeping the first few nights was pleasant, with the sound of the ocean and the breezes coming in through the open windows. I think camping there would be fun.

Having all of us together without anyone having any assignments or deadlines to meet was fantastic. Although we spent more time driving around than would have been ideal (over 600 miles) it still felt more like a vacation than anything we've ever done as a family before. It seems like any time we go on any kind of trip, there's an agenda of some sort. Whether it's family business, people we have to see, activities that must be done in a short time, or homework that will be due upon our return, it's always something. This was very pleasantly different.

As I said we drove around more than we would have liked. Some of that is because of a rock slide near Waimea Bay. Waimea is on the North Shore and went through the area early in the trip, with plans to go back. Well, the rock slide closed the roads down except for one way traffic during limited times each day, and that was only after a couple of days it took to get it that clear. So that meant that some of the things we were planning for that side of the island became inaccessible. On the other hand, there was the weather. It was beautiful, don't get me wrong, but many of the places we'd have liked to snorkel were on the North Shore, and the waves were still coming in big. Like 20+ feet big. Not good for snorkeling. The good side of that was that we got to experience it, and watch a little surfing at Turtle Bay and the famous Sunset Beach.

So we spent more time over on the eastern side of the island, where the waves were calmer but many of the beaches still had red flags out. We snorkeled in Hanauma Bay, which was nice but somewhat small and kinda crowded. It was worth it though, the reef fish there were outstanding and the protected waters insured that everyone could focus on having a good time without having to worry too much about staying alive. Sam had fun despite having a mask that didn't quite fit her properly, and I was really impressed with how well Jason took to it. Terri was having some problems with her fins fitting correctly, but we all had a good time together.

The colors of the ocean! I just could not believe the different shades of blue in the ocean as the surf came in. I tried my best to capture it with the camera film, but it's barely a taste. When Jason and I went out fishing on Friday, the blues got even deeper. It really is beautiful.

Speaking of fishing, funny story. There were 5 of us on the boat, beside the captain and deck hand. One young guy from Arizona, another guy from St. Louis, and Mike, from Haymarket. That's right, in Hawaii, we run into a guy that lives maybe 15 miles from us. This wasn't a package deal, we stopped at one of the places in the harbor that I'd seen a couple of years ago and booked the two of us for a day trip. It just happened. The fishing was unfortunately poor, but we brought home a couple of little tuna that got grilled for dinner that night. Plus we got to see some porpoises from a distance and a couple of whales.

Pearl Harbor. "The Wall" in Washington always chokes me up. The Korean War is also haunting, and pulls at my heart strings. The new WWII Memorial is beautiful and solemn, but it doesn't pull at me like the others. I was totally unprepared for Pearl Harbor. It hit me when walking around the museum grounds, waiting our turn to go out to the Arizona. Then I came to the circular memorial for those lost in the attack that were not on the Arizona. I started reading names, and I cried. I gathered myself in some before we boarded the shuttle boat for the Arizona. I'm not fluent enough with words to describe it, but I will try.

A vast emptiness filled and then left my heart, leaving deep respect and sorrow behind. I knelt there at the wall with all the names of the heroes entombed in the rusting hulk below me, wearing my "Gulf War Veteran" hat and feeling unworthy. And I cried.

The enormity of what happened there has certainly been overshadowed in my own lifetime, but I've never felt so emotionally drained in my life.

On to brighter things. When we left Pearl, we took the kids to Waikiki and ate at one of the places Terri and I had eaten on our previous trip. Although I enjoyed putzing around there before, it really was a matter of being pretty much stuck there most of the time by myself and making the best of it. I didn't find it as charming as I did before. The mall that I thought was so cool before was mostly closed with renovations, but we did visit one of the little handcraft shops, where the manager took time to talk with us and fussed over the kids and thanked us for coming back in (we had been in last trip) and serving our country.

The other big mall was filled with very high end shops, but we all managed to find something we liked in some of the kiosks. So Terri got a new turtle bracelet, Sam got a necklace I think, and Jason and I both got cool necklaces from Australia. Go figure. The food court was huge and full of all kinds of new things to try, so Jason got pizza, and the rest of us got burgers.

Then we went to Turtle Bay, where I booked rooms for the portion of the trip that extended beyond our plans. Great place, but we were later getting in and found ourselves, for one night, in a room with one bed. And an air mattress for Jason. The apologized, gave us tickets for a complimentary breakfast buffet, and moved us into an executive suite (which apparently means top floor) the next day. The kids loved it because they were old enough to go to the pool on their own, and the views were spectacular. This is when the rock slide bit us though, pretty much locking us in on that part of the island 40 miles from nowhere. It was all good though. It was from there that we went to Hanauma Bay on Easter Sunday, and the kids and I visited the Polynesian Cultural Center on Monday. Unfortunately Terri's tummy was being uncooperative so she missed that part, but it was pretty cool.

The flight home was long but I got plenty of sleep, and we flew all the way back with the other 4 people that got left at Dulles when they canceled the flight.

As I said, this really felt like a family vacation. I'd have liked to spend more time snorkeling and less time driving, but we learned something about what to research for next time. I really enjoyed spending more time on the "uninhabited" side of Oahu, and I think if we follow through with going back in a couple of years, we'd like to go to one of the other islands, and keep away from the crowds if possible.

Preliminary Hawaii Report

There's so much to tell about our trip to Hawai'i, and I've just spent about half of the day selecting pictures to put up. I chose 160 of 918 photos that we took that I thought would do a good job of representing our trip without boring everyone. They are posted in my Hawaii album on Picasa.

I also set up some of the sites that we visited on Google Maps. I haven't cross referenced the two yet, but I plan to at least to some degree. The map is pretty cool, the satellite images are pretty well detailed.

To start telling the story of our trip, I'll begin with the story of a canceled flight. Keep in mind that I booked our flight on July 24, 2006. We were supposed to fly out on Saturday, March 31. Just as we were about to board the plane to Phoenix for the first leg, we were called to the podium. Apparently the plane that was to take us from Phoenix to Honolulu had a mechanical issue, so we were supposed to go up front to the ticket counter so they could make other flight arrangements.

We spent about 5 hours at the ticket counter, with the next available seats being on Tuesday, April 3. Our original date to return was Saturday, April 10, and that's when our reservations at Bellows AFS ended. There was anger, frustration, and tears, as we saw our vacation plans disintegrating, and beyond our control.

We got back to the house and after I calmed down some I started making phone calls. First I called to see if we could extend our stay at Bellows. The cabins are generally reserved a year in advance, and as expected I could not extend. So I called looked into booking a room at Turtle Bay Resort, the place I knew about up on the North Shore of Oahu. I booked rooms there from Saturday until Tuesday. Then I called to change the rental car dates, then called the airline to let them know what they needed to do to salvage our trip.

So at about 3 a.m. on Tuesday, April 3, I rousted everyone out of bed to try again. We left Dulles about a half hour late at around 7:45, then hauled ass in Phoenix to make our connection to Lihue, HI. That flight we got to stretch out a little, since the airline could only find us a spot in first class. We were at Lihue for maybe an hour, then off we went to Honolulu. We arrived in Honolulu sometime around 4 in the afternoon.

I'll pick up the details from there in my next entry!