Hawaii

Our trip to Hawaii didn’t exactly go according to plan. To be fair, traveling rarely does, but usually, it’s little things here and there.

It’s not usually hurricanes cutting a trip short.

The vacation started out without a hitch. A wonderful lunch, drinks with family overlooking beautiful Waikiki Beach, a pleasant evening walk, and then an early bedtime, recovering from jet lag.

Our first full day in Hawaii was my brother’s wedding day. I was a groomswoman, but my duties didn’t start until that afternoon, so Anthony and I hit up the beach first thing before the crowds arrived.

The water was beautiful, and Anthony and I took turns swimming around while the other kept an eye on our stuff. Diamond was a lovely backdrop to the beach.

Once we got bored, we walked around town and ended up at Peace Café for brunch. The fresh meal was exactly what I needed before an evening filled with carbs and wine.

We went back to the AirBnB we were sharing with my parents and brother so that we could get ready. I put on my dress, heels, and about the most makeup I’ve ever worn in my life, and felt like a brand-new person. My brother Trent and I grabbed an Uber to meet up with the rest of the wedding party, and then off we went in the limo, down along the coast to the opposite side of the island at Waimanalo Bay.

The ceremony was held at Pukalani Falls with sweet Hawaiian touches mixed in. We had pictures and more pictures afterward.

Anthony and I crossed the street to the beach for our own pictures while the bride and groom continued theirs, and then it was time to drive back to Waikiki.

The wedding reception was held at the rooftop at Tiki Iniki. There was some confusion as to which rooftop when we arrived… but then we were placed on an elevator to go alllll the way up. From there, we were seated at a table on the balcony with the most beautiful view of Waikiki.

The sun set while we wined and dined, and the city lights shone instead.

It was a wonderful evening spent with family, dancing and enjoying the evening breeze.

We got home late, but I was still unable to sleep in the next day. Exhausted, I didn’t leave the apartment until it was time to grab some brunch and then get to the airport.

We had a short, uneventful flight to Kauai where we were met by Kauai Overlander, who drove us to our new truck for the week.

Our rental came equipped with a pop-up top tent and mattress, pillows, blankets, cookware, cleaning supplies, dishes and cutlery, water filter, YETI cooler, propane, first aid kit, extra tent and air mattress, as well as numerous other gadgets. It was an old, beat up Toyota Tacoma 4×4 that we were encouraged to get dirty and take off-roading. It was everything we wanted.

We picked up groceries and then some takeout from Duane’s and ended at Kumu camp at Anahola Bay. We picked our spot, ate our food, and then went for a walk down the beach and a short swim before settling in and having a couple drinks. We had a pleasant ocean breeze through our tent windows that night and woke up to a lovely sunrise.

We got an early start for our boat tour of the Na Pali coast. We went with North Shore Charters. Their office is in Kiluea, but they depart from Anini Beach. It was a small Zodiac boat, and the ride was much more adventurous than I had anticipated. By the end of the tour, my hands were calloused from gripping the rope, my muscles were sore from stabilizing myself, my ankle and knuckles were raw from rubbing against the rubber of the boat, my sunglasses were saltwater-blasted, and my hair was a mess of a million tangles, despite the French braid I had carefully arranged. But I’d go through it all again for those views of the Na Pali coast.

We had some fun detours during the boat ride, going into caves, behind waterfalls, bouncing along beside a large pod of dolphins.

We also had a chance to snorkel and have a snack.

Once back on land, we drove to Princeville to meet up with my family at the condo they were renting. I took the opportunity to have a nice, hot shower and to charge up all our gadgets and wash our laundry. Once those chores were over, we went to Happy Talk Lounge to have a couple drinks with a stunning view.

After that, we back-tracked a bit to Anini Beach. Supposedly, you’re not allowed to car camp at Anini, so we grabbed our extra tent and pitched it right at the edge of the beach.

It was a lovely evening for a walk along the beach and an easy swim in reef-protected waters. Our walk back to our site treated us to a misty rainbow.

We rinsed off and headed out for dinner right as the rain started. By the time we got back to our camp, it was dark out, making airing up the air mattress and getting ready for bed a tad more challenging, but before long, we were dozing to the sound of small waves lapping the shore.

We were awake in time to see the most spectacular sunrise begin from our tent. Anthony decided to take a morning swim, and I decided to take the opportunity for beautiful sunrise pictures on the beach.

We joined back up with my parents in Princeville and went to Makana Terrace for breakfast where the prices were insane, but so were the vistas.

At this point, talk of Hurricane Lane was heating up, and I was coming to the realization that we may need to look into leaving Hawaii earlier than planned, or at the very least, getting out of a tent. We went back to the condo to start researching and making phone calls.

After awhile, I decided I needed more time for a more accurate forecast before deciding how early we should fly out. Thus, we put it off and headed back east to get some beach time at Anahola Bay again.

The waves were even rougher than they had been a couple days prior, the northern swell coming in. Anthony got in anyway. We rinsed ourselves off, cooked some lunch at our truck, and just relaxed and enjoyed the sunshine for awhile.

We met back up with Mom down in Lihue for our helicopter ride. However, we were told that the wind had picked up, and it would be a bumpier ride, though we were assured it’d be perfectly safe. They gave us the option of rescheduling to the next week, cancelling, or flying anyway. Since we were only there the one week, that left cancelling or flying anyway. Mom decided to cancel, and Anthony and I hesitantly decided to fly anyway.

We were flying with Mauna Loa since they offered doors off flights where everyone has a “window seat.” It was our first helicopter flight, and it was definitely pretty terrifying at first with the bumps and the lack of doors and how high up we were. Anthony gripped the bar in front of him, and I gripped my camera and started snapping away. I quickly started to feel safer due to how calm our pilot was, and it was hard to think too much about it anyway when there was so much to look at all around me.

We saw all of Kauai on that short flight, the highlights being Waimea Canyon, the Na Pali coast, and Hanapepe Valley.

An hour later, we were slowly descending to our landing pad. For me at least, it was the highlight of the trip.

After all that fun, we drove down to Shipwreck Beach, the start of the Makawehi Lithified Cliffs hike, a relatively short walk along the cliffs watching the ocean waves crash below us.

Once we had our fill, we went into town to eat dinner and then drove out to our campsite for the night, at the top of the cliffs in a little clearing between trees.

We walked the short path down to the coastline, watching the sunset and exploring the area.

Afterward, we got out our chairs and sat down for a drink before tucking in.

The wind was very strong that night, and we did not sleep well. We still had to wake up very early, though, as we had scuba diving at 7. But when I woke up, I immediately saw that we were officially in a hurricane watch, and Hurricane Lane was now a category 5. I freaked out, decided it was time to find a flight out of there.

But I couldn’t. Everyone else had had the same idea, and flights were booked. No matter how many times I refreshed the page, no matter how many airlines I looked at, no matter how many people we called, we could not find any flights to the mainland that didn’t require a long layover in one of the other islands for less than $1,000 per person until after the hurricane was supposed to arrive.

We skipped out on scuba diving while trying to figure all of this out, which was a bummer. Instead, we spent the morning in the parking lot of a grocery store, researching while the locals bought all the water and toilet paper they could.

Eventually, I came to the conclusion that we were getting nowhere and were just wasting the last bit of beautiful weather we were going to have. We decided to roadtrip up Waimea Canyon to Koke’e, where we had initially planned on camping for 2 nights at the end of the week. We knew we weren’t going to be able to do that anymore, but we decided the drive would be better than nothing.

And fortunately, the drive was better than I expected. I hadn’t realized there would be so many easy look-out points the whole way up. It would have been wonderful to have a full day and a half to do some hikes, but even without that, we did at least get to enjoy the views of the area.

We slowly drove back down into town for lunch. I still couldn’t get the approaching hurricane out of my mind, and we decided we at least needed to book a hotel for our last couple of nights since it didn’t look like we’d be flying out early. We called a few, didn’t find any that weren’t ocean-front and told ourselves that as long as we weren’t on the first floor that ocean-front would be fine. Finally booked one in Kapa’a, relatively close to the airport.

While Anthony was booking that, a flight finally showed up for Friday morning that would get us as far as Phoenix, with just a brief layover in Honolulu. It was unlikely that the flight would go, but the price was right, so we went ahead and purchased that too.

Finally having accomplished something, we headed off west to the beautiful and isolated Polihale Beach. Most rental car companies don’t allow you to drive down the road to get there, but ours practically insisted we do.

After a long drive down the potholed gravel road, we cruised onto the sand, looking out over the most beautiful beach I had seen, a long, wide stretch of fine sand that backed up to the gorgeous cliffs of the Na Pali coast.

The waves were too powerful to get in the water, but I let the sand burn the bottoms of my feet as I walked along the edge, loving the fact that we had this massive beach all to ourselves.

We sat up at our campsite, letting the sights, sounds, and smells slowly eliminate my stress from the day. We hung out, listened to music, cooked some dinner, and I took a shower, feeling so much more refreshed.

Once the sun started to set, we decided to see how far we could get down the beach before it got too dark to find our truck. Facing west, we had the most beautiful sunset over the water.

We slept relatively well that night and then woke up to somewhat more promising sounding hurricane forecasts. Starting that day, the state was closing the parks in anticipation of the hurricane, and we had been told that guards would be at Polihale to escort anyone remaining out. We didn’t wait around, though, and started our drive back along the south coast. It seemed like as soon as we got away from that peaceful beach, we ran into rain. Nothing terrible yet, just a steady rain the whole way back to the east coast where we met up with my family for a late breakfast before their flight out that day.

We got some last groceries to hold us for a few days if we were stuck there, and then headed to our hotel, hoping for an early check-in and got it. I spent most of that day simultaneously watching the local news and checking my phone for updates. I was still unsure if I even wanted to try to catch our flight the following morning since we would be flying right into where the hurricane was supposed to be hitting at that time, for our layover. But no one knew exact timing, so I tried to push it out of my mind for the rest of the evening so that we could enjoy ourselves for possibly our last night on the island.

The hurricane got down-graded to category 2, and by the following morning, it was still moving very slowly and turning west. It looked like we were going to beat it afterall.

We sat outside at the beach, watching the waves and the clouds roll in, the strong wind hitting the palm trees next to us. It started pouring after a few minutes, so we headed back inside, got our coffee, and went back up to our room to pack up.

We didn’t check out of our hotel or cancel that night until we knew for sure our flight was taking off… which we didn’t trust was going to happen until we were actually boarding the plane.

A short, bumpy ride later, we were landing in Honolulu, wondering if we were going to get stuck there instead now. But an hour later, we were boarding that plane too, officially saying goodbye to Hawaii. I had about 15 minutes to make plans for Phoenix, booking a rental car and an AirBnB that looked nice and had all 5-star reviews.

Phoenix had a storm system moving through, causing our plane to have to circle overhead for an extra half hour, but then we landed, got our car, and took off to find our last minute AirBnB.

We arrived very late to a gorgeous home. But then the hosts opened the door, the man wearing just a robe and drinking wine, and the woman wearing some black lingerie. It seemed really weird, but we followed them inside… where we were met by red lighting, mood music, mannequins, and naked women decorating the walls. The hosts gave us a tour, and once we got to the gorgeous backyard, they emphatically informed us that the whole backyard area, including pool and hot tub, were entirely clothing optional, and we should feel more than welcome to nude sunbathe or skinny dip.

Instead of that, we went back out to a nearby vegetarian restaurant and got a delicious dinner out on the patio, enjoying the evening breeze. We went back and went to bed, and the next day, we left on a grand road trip up north through Arizona, after eating some brunch in town and seeing a little more of Phoenix.

As soon as we got outside of Phoenix, it started rain, and my phone started going off with Flash Flood Warnings and alerting me to heavy thunderstorms. Not what I expected for Arizona.

But we trudged on, and after a few hours, we made it to Flagstaff, a beautiful town in the mountains, where the smell of pine permeates the air, and college students walk the streets, laughing and loving life, visiting one of the many breweries or coffee shops. We walked around downtown, went into a couple shops, and then settled into a coffee shop to sip some tea.

We got back in our car and drove back south, this time winding down through a canyon and Coconino National Forest to get to Sedona.

It was still raining, but the scenery around us was just gorgeous, much better than I had expected.

We made it to Sedona, but it was getting late, so we went straight to Red Rock State Park to drive around and stare at the beautiful red rocks.

We were there the evening that Senator John McCain passed, and on our way back to Phoenix, we inadvertently passed his family ranch where he had died and where news crews and state troopers were waiting to accompany his body back to Phoenix.

During the drive back, I decided to call American Airlines to figure out how to check in for our flight home the next day. Our original flight home from Hawaii had a layover in Phoenix, and since coincidentally the early flight we booked out also brought us to Hawaii, we didn’t think there would be any issues catching that second leg of the original one still since we hadn’t cancelled the flight. Turns out we were wrong, and we spent the entire night dealing with all sorts of drama with American Airlines who refused to be helpful and insisted we needed to buy new tickets home.

Frustrated but unable to do anything about it, we sucked it up, got a delicious dinner, and then spent our last night of vacation hanging out at the pool at our strange AirBnB, swimming under the stars.

It was an unusual vacation with plenty of stress where things just didn’t seem to go right, but it was certainly one we will never forget, and the majority of the memories will still be good ones.

I now have unfinished business in Hawaii, so we will be back. Just probably not during hurricane season.