The Rowe Family Blog

Our trip home was, thankfully, pretty uneventful.  We left Maui at about 5pm Hawaii time.  From there we flew to Dallas Fort Worth and arrived at about 5am Dallas time.  I didn’t sleep at all on the 7 hour flight which is strange for me, especially on a red-eye flight.  From Dallas we flew to Chicago O’hare. Finally we flew into Rochester at about 1pm eastern time.  I didn’t sleep at all on the flights and took a nice long nap.
I think that this was the best vacation I’ve been on as an adult.  I think that Mary will agree with that.  We loved Hawaii so much that we decided that we want to dedicate more money to travelling.  I had been planning, for quite some time now, to build a dedicated theater in our basement.  I now would rather do a much less elaborate setup and spend the money on travelling.  We will be going back to Hawaii, we just aren’t sure when.

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Overall we spent only 1 day on the beach. We were so busy doing other things that we just didn’t end up on the beach much.

One night/morning we awoke at 2am to drive to the top of Haleakula Crater, a dormant volcano, to view the sunrise. We arrived at the summitt at 4am so we slept in the car for an extra hour. It was cold up there at about 50 degrees but we dressed for it so it wasn’t too bad. We saw the sun rise over the clouds because we were at an elevation of just over 10,000 feet.

Near the end of our stay we drove “the road to Hana.” The road to Hana is a road that goes around the east side of Maui. It is a twisty and narrow road with one lane bridges and a 15 mile per hour speed limit (which you couldn’t exceed if you tried). Along the way there is a ton of scenery including multiple waterfalls and strange vegetation from the rain forest. We bought a CD so that we could have a self guided tour. That worked out very well because we got a lot of interesting info from the CD but we also could spend as long as we wanted when we stopped at places. Read the rest of this entry »

Maui was our final island to visit.  We stayed there for 6 nights.  We arrived for our first night after having spent most of the day hiking through volcano national park on the Big Island.  We arrived in Maui in the evening.

We drove for what felt like forever to get to our hotel.  It was dark and we didn’t have good directions and the hotel was across the island.  We ended up driving beyond the hotel.  When we found the hotel it was already 9pm.  The hotel itself seemed nice…at least in the dark.  The lobby was nice and they had someone take us to our “garden view cottage” via a golf cart.  They showed us around the room (to give me enough time to dig money out for a tip I’m sure) and then left.  Being exhausted we pomptly went to sleep.

At 2am we awoke to the LOUD sprinkler system right outside the bedroom “window.”  It wasn’t really a window as it was just slates of glass mounted on an angled sliding mechanism.  Most of the the window adjusters were broken.  Even if they were there is no way that those things could have kept the sound out.  In the morning we awoke and got ready for our day.  That was when we started to get very disappointed.  The bathroom was very dingy.  It was NOT what we were expecting as the hotel cost a fortune.  The shower didn’t drain well, nor did the sink.  The toilet was leaking.  The room smelled musty.  The closet in the bathroom was badly in need of a paint job (at least).  Even the carpet needed replacement.  The metal room key should have been our first warning sign. Read the rest of this entry »

We almost didn’t go to the Big Island. When planning the trip I was a bit shocked at the price and we thought about trimming out our stop at the Big Island to save money. I’m very glad that we didn’t. We did trim it back from 2 nights to 1 night which I wish we hadn’t done but it’s OK that we did. Our entire purpose of going to the Big Island was to see Volcano National Park. I hate state parks (generally) but this was fantastic.

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I finally finished editing the photo albums.  It took a long time to weed out boring pictures and edit captions for the 500 pictures that we took!  The final album is all of our shots in Maui.  We spent the most time there and took the most pictures while there.

We awoke early for the start of the third day of our Hawaiin trip. I can’t remember for certain but I believe the tour bus picked us up outside a neighboring hotel at 6:45. We allowed plenty of time to get ready so that we could stop at the Burger King, located directly across the street from our hotel, for a quick breakfast.

The tour bus arrived on schedule. Someone on their list wasn’t waiting for the bus so they delayed the bus for a short while at the hotel. Eventually they gave up on the missing people and moved on.

Our tour guide was very nice. She wasn’t the best tour guide in the world but she was nice. She mostly read the tour information from note cards but it didn’t really matter. The drive to the memorial was very short and traffic wasn’t bad. When we arrived there was already a massive line. Apparently the memorial draws a huge number of visitors each day. Admission to the memorial is free which is probably at least part of the reason as to the crowds. If you have a rental car don’t bother buying buying a tour. If you don’t have a rental car tours are a convenient way to get to and from the memorial.
When you enter you get a ticket with a number on it. This is a group number because they have to get you to the memorial via a boat. While waiting for your boat you wander around an indoor/outdoor museum. We rented the audio-tour for a couple of dollars. I think it was worth it for us because we would have quickly become bored with the displays otherwise.

When our number was called we boarded the ship and went out to the memorial. We headed to the back of the memorial where the names of the fallen are. It’s a very nice display there. We spent some time looking down on the sunken ship and then headed back to the museum area when the boat was leaving.

Our tour didn’t hang around. Once all were accounted for we hopped on the tour bus to depart. After you see the memorial there isn’t much point in hanging around. Unless you are the first group of the morning you’ll have plenty of time to examine the museum area.

The ride back was unfortunately terrible. The AC was broken on the bus and it was very stuffy on a little bus in 80+ degree weather and no windows open. By the time we arrived back at the Waikiki area most people on the bus were miserable because of the heat. Mary and I elected to depart the bus before they got to our hotel because we were so uncomfortably warm and because we could walk back to the hotel faster than the tour bus. It’s not that the tour bus was slow, it’s just that they were making a large number of stops and traffic is slow in the urban area of Waikiki.

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I’m still working hard at getting are pictures organized.  I am also still working on trip report posts.  I made some progress today.  I was able to complete the post about our days on Oahu and I’ve now completed the photo album for the Big Island of Hawaii.

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After a decent night of sleep we awoke early to be picked up by 7:45am for our breakfast briefing. The breakfast briefing is a “free” breakfast where a company makes a sales pitch to get you to buy activities/tours from them. The breakfast is free in that you don’t pay any money for it, instead you pay with your precious vacation time.

Diamond Head Vacations is the company that provided the breakfast briefing. The food was pretty good and the salesman was entertaining. The salesman was an older man who claimed to be recently divorced and retiring soon. While it seemed believable at the time I wonder now. I find it hard to trust this man in any way.

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I’ve finally gotten the first photo album posted.  It’s most of our pictures from Oahu.  I removed the boring, bad, and duplicate pictures.  For most pictures I even added a summary and a full fledged description!

I’ve also added some features to the gallery.  You can get RSS feeds of the albums now.  For the Hawaii albums I’m using the Google Maps module.  When you view the album(s) click “View Album on  a Map.”  It will bring up a google map with push-pins for where the locations associated with each album.  Since we have about 500 pictures I’m not going to associate a lattitude and longitude for each photo but I will for each album.  Each album represents a location in Hawaii anyhow.  It would be really nice to have a digital camera with GPS in it so this module would work seamlessly.  It’s fun to play with anyhow.

I almost have the post about Oahu complete.  I need to edit it a bit more before I post it.  It should be coming in the next few days.

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The Nameplate went with us to Hawaii.  The story of the nameplate, as best I know it, goes something like this (one, two, and a three)…

A long time ago at a University not too far away Mark T. Valites accepted a job.  He had a nameplate special ordered.  A friend from college visited him at his office and plate-napped the beloved nameplate.  He held it for ransom.  The ransom has not been fulfilled and the Nameplate is doing well and travelling the world.  It was last seen with us in Hawaii.

…And for those waiting for our Hawaii pictures this can serve as a preview.  Mary and I are working on the pictures and are close to making them available.

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