Hawaii Vacation

Here's the play-by-play for after the race vacation! Tried to break up the long boring story with pictures!

Saturday

If you want to know more about the race you can read that on my other blog

triathlonfortwo.blogspot.com

Start of the race.

 After the race we hung out on a porch with Allison and family. Everyone was getting tired so we packed it up and went home. I said at the beginning I wanted to go back down for midnight but I was just too tired and didn’t want to make the drive down. We could hear the finish line from our house even though we were 25 minutes up the mountain.

Allison, Meredith, and me after the race!

Sunday

Post race insomnia like usual (got up 3X to eat!) but we all got up and going. We had to get my wheel switched over so we went down to do that and talk to the staff about the banquet. I was able to introduce some of the trigger point staff to Scott. We ended up leaving Meredith down there and Scott and I went to church. It was a great sacrament meeting where a young woman talked about family. What she said last was Family means nobody gets left behind (stitch quote). After the meeting we had a couple people come talk to us about the race there were a lot of people who had volunteered at it.

            Meredith had caught a ride to Allison and TJ’s to help pack her bike. TJ adjusted me there and then we went to finish with my wheels and go to Kona brewing company. The food was great and they had gluten friendly things! We went to Scandinavian Shave ice after the lunch. It’s right down next to the finish line and was gluten free and delicious. We went home and promptly lost the keys. Scott looked everywhere for them and then I started looking too. He thought they were probably in the trunk. We prayed and then I went and looked in Scott’s short’s pocket one more time and they were there! AMAZING! We have a joke that one of the three Nephites help us and replace stuff when we loose it. (but we say tree Nephites for some reason). We had a short nap time and cleaned up the house. We headed down for the banquet a little after 6pm.

Before going up on stage, Meredith has better pictures, Scott recorded it.

             The banquet costs $55 for people who did not participate (Scott). We didn’t want to spend that much money on it since at previous banquets you could enter without paying after the food portion was over. We asked the people selling tickets and they directed us to someone else who directed us to some Ironman staff. I explained to them that I was really not going to be able to eat the food because of gluten and that he just wanted to see the awards since I did well. I asked if he could just come in after the food etc. They ended up just giving us a ticket and we went on our merry way. The banquet was fun. The only thing I could eat was peas and carrots so I had a nice big plate of that. They had fire twirlers and other Hawaiian cultural things.

            The awards part was fun as well. They lined us all up and so we all started talking together. The other girls in my age-group commented on how I looked like I was just flying on the run. We went on stage and were announced. I was a little sad that they didn’t announce that I won overall not only for my age-group. They give you a nice long sleeve cycling jersey that they put on you for the pictures. We talked to Ruth from Cincinnati and then took off.

Monday

I never got really awesome pictures of the dolphins but here's a decent one!

The start of our true vacation! Bryan and Tiffany Krabbe had told us about a place to go swim with the dolphins for free! I’m a huge sucker for fun free stuff so we left very early to go down since we were told to be there at 6am. The “beach” was very rocky so it was a little tricky getting into the water. We had stopped by Wal-Mart to buy boogie boards and 1 snorkeling mask for Scott. There were a couple other groups of people there and TONS of dolphins! It was so much fun, definitely one of the top 3 things we did in Hawaii. 

Swimming upside-down 

While we were down close to Captain Cook we went to the painted church. No one was there and we walked around the long way, which is always sad when you just did an Ironman! The church was originally built on the beach but the people moved up into the mountains so they moved the church up into the mountains by donkey!

            We then went to a little macadamia nut farm where the owner showed us her property and then gave us samples. She kept saying the word NUT which was a little unsettling.

Me and Meredith at the painted church.

Scott and I at the painted church.

Panorama

             We went to Garret’s house to exchange Meredith’s race wheels. It was fun to sit at their beach house and chat. Meredith accepted her new job!!!! Happy day! Then we all went down to White Sands beach and went boogie boarding. It took us a couple times to catch the waves but it was awesome when we did! A sea turtle came by and said hi to us for a little while. We went and got some food in down town Kona and of course some Shave ice J. We did some shopping and found some wooden bowls to match the big Kona bowl, other than that we didn’t have much success.

            Got some more fruit at the fruit stand and went home for dinner and got ready to swim with the Mantas! It was raining hard for most of the afternoon so we called to make sure it was still happening! Because of the rain storm we lost power at the house.

            Scott and I went out and sat in the hot tub for a while and got hot so we jumped out and went and picked some figs to eat in the hot tub. The jets stopped working when we were pretty much done anyway which we found out was because of the power.

We just giggled at this name where the painted church was. 

 Laying on the front of the catamaran before jumping into the freezing water for Mantas.

             We went to the mantas and drove out in the ocean about 10 minutes. We were in the water FOREVER waiting for the Matas to come. There was a mom and son who had been there two other times with no mantas! We saw a spotted eagle ray and waited for at least 20-30 minutes and finally a girl manta came by and started feeding. It was so cool to be able to see the manta come up and eat and do flips. You kept thinking that the manta was going to touch you but she just came really close. After defrosting we went to bed.

Manta coming up to eat us! Again no good picots of this but we did get a good video.

Tuesday

We ate a delicious breakfast of hash browns, eggs and sausage! Then started our treck down around the south side of the island to volcano national park. 

on our way to the south side of the island.

Black sands beach where you can't ride the sea turtles.

 Scott was sad that he couldn't ride them.

We went to black sands beach on the way and saw a sea turtle on the beach. We missed the southern most tip of the US but made it to Volcanos! We stopped at the entrance and took a lot of fun pictures. We did an awesome 5 mile hike- Kilauea Iki trail. It went down in to the mouth of the volcano and back up. It was really fun and helped work the soreness out of the legs! We went and saw the cauldera with the lava flow and the steam vents and thirsten Lava tube. 

The stereotypical picture at the park sign!

We bought a $2 trail guide that Meredith read to us at each little stop. 

This was the ginger root that was talked about in the guide that was introduced and took over. They were actively trying to kill it all off. 

If you look upper close you will see Scott standing in the middle of the picture. This was the mouth of the volcano, where the Lava spewed.

Funny pictures in the Lava crack. 

 Lava lake bed.

Random stop at rainbow falls... with no rainbow.

 We stopped at the Macadamia nut farm that we did as kids. It was fun just to go back to a place I remembered as a kid on Hawaii. I wanted frozen yogurt so we found a place in Hilo. We had heard about Saddle road but heard it was dangerous to travel and we weren’t supposed to take a rental car on it. After some research and reading our rental car contract we decided we could go. On our way there we went to rainbow falls and a little Lava tube cave on our way up. There was a sign outside the cave that said “no lights.” Scott and I both thought that meant we couldn’t use lights but realized as we were leaving that it really meant there were no lights down in the cave! Ooops! We kept driving up saddle road which wasn’t that crazy. I think that passes in Colorado are scarier. We stopped at the visitor’s center and bought some space icecream from them!
 

This was a the beginning of saddle road, while we were below the clouds.

  We stopped at the visitor’s center and bought some space ice-cream from them! We ran up on a peak with our dinner and ice-cream. It was gorgeous! There was a couple up there that had come to Hawaii to volunteer at the race because they wanted to qualify for it some day. I think it’s crazy that there are some people out there like that! I just haven’t been involved with Ironman long enough to know how crazy people get about it. It was an amazing sunset on Manau Kea volcano with delicious Neapolitan space icecream and star gazing.

This is when we got above the clouds. Same day, just a couple miles apart.

 I wish that pictures did this place justice! 

Wednesday

            We packed all our stuff up in the morning and cleaned up the house a little bit. Meredith packed her bike AND my bike J thanks! So we bought the manta ray tour at the expo of the race. I had seen previous days there was a wheel with prizes you could spin and win if you bought something. Most of the prizes were not so awesome, like a hat or bag. I somehow sweet-talked them into giving us two prizes. One was a buy one get one free zipline and the other was a canoe rental for two. So we called the zipline people and scheduled for the afternoon. We first went to Waipio vally overlook and loved the view. We wanted to hike down to the beach but we got ½ way down and decided we didn’t have enough time so we had to hike back up L. We drove to Hawi and ate a packed lunch and went shopping a little. Scott and I got the idea to buy a ring in Hawaii so I could have a wedding ring again. There was THE BEST SHAVED ICE ever in Hawi.

Quick look at Waipio valley

 Just pretty with the sun spot on the ocean. 

            The zipline was cool and they had some supper long ziplines and fast ones, but I still don’t think it was worth as much as it cost! After the zipline we went a picked up our stuff from the house. Even though check out was earlier in the day the owner texted us and asked if we wanted to store our bikes and luggage there.  He was the best guy to rent from and an amazing house to rent! The house was awesome! It was huge! 2200 Sq Ft 2 bedroom 2 bathroom. The shower was a waterfall shower with jets. The kitchen was gorgeous and looked over the ocean. There were fruit trees every where that were delicious! The first time I ever tried passion fruit and it was AMAZING!

Ziplining!

            We went and ate dinner on the beach out at the energy labs and took Meredith to the airport. Scott and I had to drive 2.5 hours over to Pahoa area.

            When we got to our next house the host showed us around and Scott and I were holding back cracking up the whole time. Every room had a least one remote to the room for the lights, fans, clocks, etc. She was showing us a parrot fan and started petting it. At the end she told us about how her and the owner were married and how sad it was that they were divorced. It was a confusing and interesting tour of the house.

Yes, the house had Christmas lights...

Thursday

            I woke up and made us breakfast and packed up my Kona backpack for a hike. We drove two hours to Waipio valley to do the hike into Waimanu valley. Most people do this hike in a couple days. They hike into the valley one day and out the next. You need a permit to do that and all the equipment and we didn’t have either

A little rainbow before we started our hike.

 The hike starts with a steep decent and then a river crossing then steep ascent. It then turns into rolling and 13 stream crossings and then a very steep decent into the valley. After the descent my legs were shot! We only had about 30 minutes in the valley since we were on a time crunch to get back before sun set. I’ll let Scott write about our experience going back but it started to rain and we were soaked and tired but at least we didn’t get cold! We got back in record time and headed back to the house.

 We survived... soaking wet and exhausted!

Friday

            We slept in and went out to try to go snorkeling in the morning. The air was so cold and the water colder so I bailed. The ocean was pretty rough too since there was a hurricane headed our way!

Freezing!

            The host told us about the beautiful botanical gardens so we went there and sat waiting for them to open for a while. Eventually we called and their message said they were closed due to the hurricane! It wasn’t supposed to hit till Saturday! We were really bumed but went back to snorkel and saw some fish and 2 turtles and some pretty coral.

Turtle we saw.

 Rope lava, there were some pretty awesome lava formations.

            The nut factory was on the way home so we were going to buy some more macadamia nuts but they were closed due to the storm too! Then we stopped in pahoa to try to go shopping a little but there wasn’t anything too good so we just went home.

            There was a huge projector in the family room and in every other room too! We watched Avatar 3D on the big screen which was amazing!

            We went down to the ocean to watch the huge waves crash. They were 10 ft waves which were the biggest I’ve ever seen!

            We went back to the house after we thought we might get swept away by one of the waves and made dinner and watch more movies!

Beads leading into the master bathroom... the host said this was her favorite thing of the house...

 the random things on the master bedroom walls

 Two projector screens one in the kitchen and one in the family room area. Why do you need them this close?

Saturday

            We finished packing up and picking up and went off to Kona over saddle road again. We had two beach towels in our car that we had to take back to home number 1. The drive was all in the rain but went ok.

            We went shopping in the rain and bought a Ukelele and ooked at rings and dresses for me.

            We took Scott to the airport with a TON of bags! He was flying first class and got to check my bike for free instead of $150! That was very nice to have happen!

            I went back and shopped some more and watched the waves crash at the Kona Peir and watched some kids play in the ocean. I went back to the car and took a nap in the trunk with the seats down. I went back to buy the dress I found and then went to the ring shop and it was closed! I was so sad but I knocked at the door and the lady was still there! Yay! I bought the ring and then walking back to the car I saw the family that was playing in the ocean by the pier. I quickly grabbed the boogie boards I had in the car and gave them to the family. They were SO excited and greatfull it was so rewarding!

            I got to the rental car place and ended up leaving my phone in the car. Thank goodness I looked for it before I got too the airport. The bus driver was super nice and so I sent in a nice note about her to the company.

 My snuggles!

 Sunday

I was traveling Saturday night to Sunday afternoon. My dad picked me up at the airport and took me to my daughter. I was so excited and thought Emi would be excited to see me… I was so wrong! My dad videoed and my mom put her on the ground in the back yard. I though she would run to me but instead she looked at me and ran right past to grandma! After a couple hours she warmed up to me and was snuggly.

 Monday

We went to Blue bell ice cream early in the morning so we had ice cream as a mid morning snack! The tour was fun but Emi was in love with the ice cream and ate half of my pumkin pecan! We went home and both took a nap and then said by to grandpa! I wanted froyoyo for dinner so we went and bought some… twice!

She got her own seat on both flights!

Tuesday

Froyoyo was eaten again today for lunch! We played in the pool and napped and went to opas “Anything goes” at night while a YW from granparents ward took care of Emi.

Wednesday

We played and mom had to take a nap! Then we went to get froyoyo on our way to the airport.