Small U

Jeff and I talked about going to South Dakota for months. Jeff had never been and, although, I'd been to there and really enjoyed it, I'd never seen Mount Rushmore. So, one night over a bottle of wine, we booked our airfare for the weekend of the 4th of July. Our intention was to watch the fireworks there on the 3rd of July. We didn't wind up doing that (they recommend that you get there at 10 a.m. and we didn't want to sit around at the park for 12+ hours), but we had a lot of other great adventures. So, we'll take from the top: Day 1 - July 2nd, 2008 We arrived at the Rapid City airport at noon and picked up our little Mazda rental car and headed to our hotel. It was ... read more

We needed to check out at 11 a.m. I wanted to sleep in, but Mr. Morning Person was all cleaning and packing and making a ruckus. So, I got up and got busy doing the same. We checked out early and drove around. We did some last minute souvenir shopping. We went to the grocery store to stock up on food for the flight---$30 worth of groceries that I wound up accidentally leaving in the back of the rental car :-) We went to Borders to buy books for the flight. We got to the airport around 2 or 3 and kicked it in a bar with our books. Our flight back to Honolulu was lightning fast and our layover wasn't very long. We slept and read and drooled on ourselves for most of the red-eye ... read more

We woke up this morning to what I swore was a hurricane. Turns out it wasn't even close, but I haven't hear wind and rain like that ever. By 9 a.m., though, the whole thing had blown over and the skies were blue and the birds were going apeshit per usual. Since the surf was so rough that day ane we still had a day left on our snorkel gear rental, we decided to head up north to Ke'e beach which is protected by a reef. We stopped in Princeville on the way because we hadn't been there yet. That place was creepy. All rich, white people. It was like Bellevue on crack (well, minus all the sprawl and skyscrapers, but you get my drift). But, the shopping center there had a Leippert's...Jeff heckled me for ... read more

Slept in today and watched half of "Taxi Driver" while getting motivated to go outside. It was pretty windy and cloudy. The surf was likely to be rough all over the place so we decided to head down to Po'ipu to snorkel, since you're relatively protected around the Tombolo. We got down there and it just started to dump rain. Ridiculous amounts. There was a mass exodus from the beach and they had road closures in the area so traffic was a NIGHTMARE. We just kicked back and jammed to KSRF, which was our favorite radio statio while we were there (Editor's Note: When we arrived we thought it was the greatest radio station ever created...by the time we left we were going to kill ourselves if we heard "...everywhere I see beatiful ladies...everywhere I ... read more

3/11---Woke up early again (is this really possible??). I like to watch t.v. for a couple of hours in the morning, but by 8 or 8:30 Jeff is antsy to get out and get to exploring. Today is our Waimea Canyon day. We left at 9 a.m. and took a detour through Kaloa so that we could get coffee at Leippert’s (that’s where I had ice cream and Jeff had coffee the day before). Then we headed to Hanapepe, which was on the way to Waimea. Hanapepe is unremarkable and we only stopped there to cross the swinging bridge (as advertised in our guidebook) that is suspended over the river that dumps into the Hanapepe Bay. It was fun, but anticlimactic. I had to take a leak so we found this public park with ratty ... read more

3/9---We woke up early (6:30) and Jeff made coffee. We got ready and went shopping. We had to go to Wal-Mart because I had forgotten to pack underwear (really?) and my hairbrush. Jeff even bought a shirt and some personal items there, but don’t tell anybody. We hit the “Big Save” grocery store in Lihue next and stocked up on breakfast foods and snacks to the tune of $80. I bought some taro and sweet potato chips and they are good but very, very different from regular chips. I picked up two different flavors of Marlin jerky. That should be a real treat because I’ve only had jerky once (salmon) since I became a pesco-vegetarian and it’s one of the things I miss the most. Also, we bought a six-pack of beer that is brewed ... read more