not a how-does-my-hair-look vacation

friday was ... wow.  spoiler alert:  logan said the words "this is the best thing i've ever done in my life."

so friday we solved the rental car problem by, yep, you guessed it, paying ridiculously tooooo much for one because i don't turn 25 for two more weeks.  gods of irony, please stop making a mockery of my life and move on to someone else.  on the brightside, we get to drive a 2010 prius all week!  push button start and it turns off the engine in traffic.  between me and logan, i'm sure you can guess which one almost peed his pants with excitement at the chance to wield this new technology and you can guess which one of us was asked the read the owner's manual out loud.  from cover to cover.

and we're off!  hanauma bay snorkeling is the activity on deck for the morning.  the bay is breathtaking from above.  we geared up and dove in (p.s. the water is freezing).  the fish are like pets here!  they get so close to you - i know i touched a bunch of them without trying!  i kept bumping into them. 

we saw a massive sea turtle just nomming his way through the reef.  the waves were shuffling him around all over the place but he just contentedly nommed wherever the water landed him peacefully for a few seconds.  what an inspiration you are, mr. overlarge sea turtle.  i must learn this magic where one simply floats along in life, eating whatever's closest, and has no worries. TEACH ME, I SAY!  RIGHT NOW!  see, i can be laid back, too.

     

(pic of hanauma bay from the internet - way better than any i can do!)

after snorkeling, we drove around the edge of the island and found the halona blowhole.  for anyone who even remotely knows logan and me, you know what horribly dense and crude jokes i had to endure.  scott, i know your heart is melting right now, just thinking of all the fun you missed with the word "blowhole."  it was very neat - the violent ocean crashes into the rocky shore and the white surf shoots up through this little hole in the rock.

next we drove on along the island edge in pursuit of the oahu's dragon's nostrils.  this is a famous yet little known double-blowhole (scott, keep it together) at the very bottom of a very tall hike called makapu'u. 

thanks to our sneaky  insider's travel book, we hiked up the well-known makapu'u trail and at the educational sign about blue whales, we veered off course and began climbing about 450 down the steep rocky mountain.  though we found subtle hints of a trail, most of the cliff face was rocks that we climbed down.

(if you look in the center of the picture, then move your eyes up and left just a little, those are people. just to give you a little scale.  also, those tide pools at the bottom are probably 30-40 feet across.)

 

at the bottom of the cliff, the raging sea crashed against the rocks and created these cool little wading pools behind some bigger rocks.  logan and i got in the water there and climbing onto some of the rocks near the water so we could see the waves crash.  the spray went about 30 feet into the air when waves crashed!  so cool to see this up close.  we were mesmerized by how awesome the waves were until one crashed almost on top of us and i became terrified.  we climbed back down the rocks, waded through the churning pool, and started climbing back up the cliff face.  so fun!

then we came back to the hotel, showered and rested, and went to our hotel happy hour.  going down the list, we had hawaiian punch and "clear" margaritas. 


(we stopped and got some little chocolate treats - i got this cappucino truffle shaped like a coffee cup!)

we got some sushi at a little place then moved on to the sheraton resort where we at dinner at rumfire and sat outside next to torches right over the pacific ocean.  glorious!  the food was fabulous and the live music was just as wonderful.  logan and i danced to a hawaiian rendition of an eric clapton song in a little corner of the restaurant, in a little corner of the earth.