Hawaii, kids.
It's a love/hate relationship.
I love the ocean, but hate the beach.
I love islands, but hate the people that flock to them.
Meryl has family living down here for a year,
and she had never been before.
And she's also moving out to Oregon just for me,
so......Hawaii for the holidays!
You know I don't even own a pair of shorts,
but so far we're doing well.
Day two and I already have two different lighthouse visits.
This first photo is at the top of a mountain Meryl and I climbed to get to Makapuu Point Light the really hard way.
There's a two mile paved path winding around to the lighthouse,
or an unmarked, not-at-all-legitimate super steep climb up to the top and then over.
It got dark before we even hit the top,
it was scary windy,
and some Hawaiian dude kinda told us we were screwed.
But we did it,
and it was so rad.
Here's a view of of the Makapu Point Light from partially up our hike.
At our destination we met this couple who were both biologists working in Hawaii.
We bonded over our shared love of dead birds
(i was wearing a 'dead birds are sexy' shirt)
and they brought us out to dinner and drove us home.
And since their jobs include working with sick and dying birds,
we're about to have some amazing additions to the I love dead birds blog.
So awesome.
This morning I woke up early
(which isn't hard to do with a four hour time difference)
and took a bike ride with Meryl's mom, Colleen,
out to Diamond Head Lighthouse.
Then a few hours later,
Meryl, her sisters, and I hiked the Diamond Head crater,
and got to see the lighthouse from above.
We then ate lunch at the top in a coastal artillery bunker built in 1908.
Tomorrow we fly to Maui,
and get to see some stuff out there for a while.
Rebecca and the Cucch are living on that island these days,
so we'll have some hang out time with them.
And New Years happens while we're there.
Luckily, I was prepared,
and shipped those 30 Japanese floating lanterns to myself.
I don't know who else will be there,
but I will be saying my goodbyes to 2011 in style,
and making sure 2012 gets kicked off right.
