Jimmy Buffett 7.28.2007

This past weekend we went to Wisconsin with some friends to camp and see Jimmy Buffett in concert at Alpine Valley. We had a great time! Friday everyone made it to the campsite, we stayed at Kettle Morraine State Park, it was a beautiful park. The people were friendly and the campsites were large and somewhat secluded. John and I arrived earlier than everyone else and had some time to set up our tent (in the rain of course!) and then get some ice and firewood. By the time everyone else arrived the rain had stopped and we had a nice night sitting around the campfire.
The next morning we had a very nice breakfast of eggs, bacon, potatoes, toast, and coffee- all cooked on our campfire! The weather was great Saturday and we had a good time getting ready for the concert.
In the early evening we drove to Alpine Valley ready for some tailgating. We had decided to do it in style much like a lot of other Buffett fans. We had a baby pool to sit around and put our feet in, complete with palm tree and umbrella's in drinks.
Now once we got everything set up in was great, but getting about 30 gallons of water to the concert for the pool was a feat in itself. Everyone was a great sport about making my ideal tailgating scenario come true. We really had a good time. Walking into the venue we got a great view of all the crazy things that other Buffett fans do for tailgating. I really think that going to a Jimmy Buffett concert is like nothing else in the world. There were slip-n-slides, pools, sand, big floats, sharks, bars set up, people dressed up in anything and everything-it was great! I think I enjoyed the tailgating just as much as the concert. I'm already thinking of what I want to do next year!
Jimmy was great, he played some things we hadn't heard yet, some covers (a great Springsteen Glory Days) and of course the classics. It wasn't the best show I'd seen him do but it was close. I also like the venue, it was the first time I'd been to Alpine Valley and I like it better than Tinley. My only complaint for the whole weekend was that the line to get a drink and the people working at Alpine were terrible. It just took way to long and the vendors were confused.
Overall I had a blast this weekend and I can't wait to see Jimmy Buffett again, if you haven't seenn him yet-you should go.

Out of Town

We are getting ready for a weekend away to Wisconsin for some time spent relaxing with friends. We are going to camp for the weekend at Kettle Morraine State Park and then on Saturday we are going to Alpine Valley to see Jimmy Buffett in concert. I am very excited for the concert. If you have never seen Jimmy in concert you need to, his shows are unlike any concert you have ever been to, it is such a fun and lively atmosphere with people of all ages. I am sure on Sunday I will have some great pictures and stories to post about the weekend. While I am away I hope you all enjoy your weekend, and do something fun too!

Home Sweet Home

Well here we are back home, and trying to get back on schedule. We have been home for a week now and we are still trying to get caught up on life and sleep. We had such a fantastic time on our trip to Hawaii, and really can't wait to go back again. We have decided that Kauai is the most beautiful of the Hawaiian islands, and that when we go back we'll go there. Out of all the islands this is the one that I would love to live on. Right now I'm thinking that this won't happen anytime soon, maybe when we retire someday. Anyway for now it's back to reality.
The new job is going well, for those of you who don't know I recently quit teaching and took a job as a nanny for a family in Glenview. I just needed a break from teaching, and since John hasn't earned his first million yet I still need to work. The family is really nice and so far I am enjoying it. It is definately a change of pace from teaching, which I needed. This is the first summer that I have worked in 3 years and that part isn't fun, but it's not like it's a hard job, and I'm outside playing all day. I can't complain.
This weekend John and I went to the Cubs game, unfortunately they lost. It was still a great day to watch a ball game. Each year we try to get bleacher seats to at least one game, it's a nice change from the upper decks that we sit in all the time. The weather was perfect although a little warm in the direct sun for so long, but overall a good day.
Hope everyone else has a great weekend! It's good to be home.

The Big Island: Day 6 & 7

On Thursday we left Kauai and flew to the Big Island of Hawaii. John had been interested in seeing Volcanoes National Park, and I fearfully went along. John had been checking frequently and up until mid-June Kilauea had been erupting, unfortunately then it stopped. We weren’t going to see any lava flowing, secretly I felt a little relieved. Thursday was a whirlwind; we woke up, flew to Hilo, and checked into our bed and breakfast. Here is our room, we had a lovely view from our private lanai (balcony).

We then rushed out to the park to look around. Now while I do think that volcanoes are neat, I don’t share quite the enthusiasm for them that John does. The whole time he is saying, “Isn’t this cool, we’re walking on lava!” Meanwhile I am thinking …Um, well it looks like a lotta black rocks. We decided to do a short 4 mile hike (uh oh I’m starting to refer to 4 miles as short) through the center of an old volcanic crater. By now I was kinda sick of hiking, however it ended up being more interesting than I anticipated. The crater looks very smooth from up high, but when you are walking on it, it is very bumpy and uneven. That faint white line through the crater is actually the trail we walked on.
There were spots where steam was coming out of the ground, neat to see! Overall a good, but tiring, hike.



The next day was our last day in Hawaii, and so we thought we’d cram as much into it as possible. We woke up to a lovely breakfast on our lanai, and then set out for the day. We were not going to be able to see everything so we narrowed it down to a few favorites. We started by going to a beautiful botanical garden that had a lot of unique tropical flowers, birds, etc.

A large tiki named "Ku" carved from a single monkey pod tree.

A pineapple bush.

We then we drove to 2 pretty falls in the area. This one was the largest drop we had ever seen, 420 feet from top to bottom! This was a different one that we were able to stick our feet into, however had to be careful b/c the current was so strong.
After those stops we headed back over to Volcanoes National Park to see some things we hadn’t seen the day before. There is a road that you can drive on to see all of the most current lava that has erupted, so we thought we’d check it out. I have to say that this was much more interesting to me, and seeing where new land was being formed when the lava flows into the ocean was pretty cool.
Here is a geological phenomenon, a sea arch formed by the ocean hitting the lava rock.

Even though I was initially not too crazy about being near lava when it was erupting, I do think that it would have been a neat thing to see, and maybe sometime we’ll be able to go back and visit when it is erupting.

Kauai Day 4: Tuesday
We woke up exhausted from the previous days hike, we had used muscles we weren’t used to using. We slept late and had a leisurely morning. Today we needed to check out of our first hotel, the Aloha Beach Resort, and move over to our next hotel, the Hilton on Kauai. That's John with our jeep for the week, a really fun ride!

In the time in between we decided to check out some falls that were right down the road, Wailua Falls. When you drive to the overlook this is what you see, pretty but we like to get closer. Our guidebook told us that there was a trail down to the bottom, so of course we had to check it out.
The trail was steep but thankfully people had put in some ropes to help you. When we go to the falls we were glad we had made the trip. This was easily one of the best falls we had been in. Unfortunately we hadn’t worn our suits so we just waded in, but it was still great.


Kauai Day 5: Wednesday
Today was our day to relax, we spent the day doing some shopping on the island, eating, swimming, and relaxing by the pool. To end our day we got a massage, we sure needed it after all of the hiking we had been doing. Weir does this sound more like a vacation to you?

The Hilton


Of course we had to try out the waterslide!

Friday

Sorry I have been to busy to blog lately. We are trying to cram in as much sight seeing as possible. We wake up early, and come home exhausted, it's heaven! We are now on the big island.

We finally got to have our hawaiian treat, shave ice! It's ice cream on the bottom, with shaved ice, (different than a snow cone) on the top and then flavored syrup, so good!


Relaxing at the jacuzzi at our hotel.

Kauai Day 3: Monday

Okay this is our big day, a LONG hike. Originally we had planned to take a kayaking trip to see the Na Pali coast. 17 miles of ocean kayaking in one day; after some serious though we decided to hike the trail instead and not do the whole thing. In hindsight this was a good idea. We woke up early and had a big breakfast and made sure we had all of our supplies for the day, water, snacks, and band-aids (we both have blisters from our new water/hiking shoes). We drove even further north past Secret Beach to the very northernmost place you can drive to, Ke’e Beach. During the drive up you go through the best part of Kauai, the part where I would want to live. It is more remote, less touristy, and just so beautiful! After parking at Ke’e Beach we started the Kalalau trail, the first 2 miles of the trail lead to Hanakai’ai Beach. Those 2 miles of hiking are straight up for 1 mile to the top of the lookout, and then a steep winding down to the ocean level.


It is a tough hike, muddy, slippery, and steep, but well worth it, the scenery is great. John says that it really shouldn’t be called a trail, it’s not like it’s flat and easy it’s more like rock climbing. We arrived at a river just before the beach, a great place to swim and cool off.
Just past the river is the beach, and while it was pretty, it wasn’t fantastic. There was a sandbar that left a nice place for people to swim protected from the waves.
After some discussion and evaluation of our muscles, we decided to continue further up the river on a 2 mile side trip to the Hanakapi’ai Falls. We started the trail thinking, oh… this looks easy. Boy where we wrong! It was a VERY strenuous hike. You are lead through some beautiful forests with huge bamboo trees, and lots of great scenery. For the first mile it is an easy hike, but the last mile is a killer. There are several stream crossings. It is muddy and downright treacherous! You’ll notice there are no pictures, that’s because we were trying not to die! Maybe I am being a little over dramatic, but it was tough. One time we thought we had made it, we saw these smaller falls, we were not impressed for all of that work. Then a fellow hiker, told us to keep going, we were glad we did. We were at the wrong falls. When we finally made it, the falls were amazing, my pictures don’t do it justice. You get to a huge semi-circle of rock that is so tall, and a huge pool that the waterfall empties into. The water is probably the coldest thing I have EVER swam in, but after 4 miles of tough hiking, it feels great.

After resting and cooling off, we had to hike another 4 miles back to the car, not something our bodies were going to do willingly. We were definitely feeling the pain now, and return trip was not as pleasant. By this time it was getting late and we decided we needed to hustle to get back before the sun set. You don’t want to be walking on this trail in the dark. We made it back in plenty of time and fell into the car for our ride home. We were exhausted! Even though we were so tired, it was our favorite day of the trip so far, where else can you do hiking like this and see so many different things in one day? On the drive home we passed by Hanalei Valley and I had to stop to take a picture. This area is full of farmland and it is quite breathtaking

Kauai Day 2: Sunday

Thanks for all of the comments, it's nice to know you guys are reading and enjoying the pics. As I'm sure you can tell I am a few days behind, but I'll catch up!

After hiking quite a bit on the first day and knowing that day 3 would be a BIG hike we decided to take it easier on day 2. John found a way to watch the Cubs game in the morning, now this is when you know someone is truly obsessed! Meanwhile, I spent some time lounging around. We had a leisurely lunch and then drove to the north side of the island to try to find secret beach. The drive through the north side of the island is spectacular! Unfortunately I didn’t take any pictures, I think I was in shock. Everything is so green and so lush. After following the directions of our wonderful guide book we found secret beach with no problems. It turns out that secret beach is really no secret, there were plenty of people there. However, the beach is so big that you don’t feel like there are a lot of people there.
We had read about some lava pools a short walk from the beach and decided to take a look. To get there you had to walk over all of these lava rocks and boulders, not an easy task.
All around you are huge lava rocks carved out by the ocean. Some of them have water in them and some of them are dry. Finally we get to the end of our walk to see a few larger pools that you can swim in. There were quite a few people there, and even a dog was enjoying a swim. The water was very warm, and felt great to swim in.

After the lava pools we spent some time relaxing on the beach, the waves were perfect. A great day in Kauai!

Vacation

Waimea Canyon
John and I at the scenic overlook of Waimea Canyon
Hiking up the backside of the canyon
The falls that we couldn't swim in
The Kalalau Valley

Welcome to my blog! What better a time to start a blog than when you're in Hawaii. John and I are currently in Kauai on vacation and I thought I'd post some pics to make you all jealous. We are having a great time! Kauai is a beautiful island, very lush and tropical. Everywhere you look there is something beautiful to see. We have been keeping busy with lots of hiking through some of the most breathtaking areas you have ever seen.

On day 1: Saturday, we went to the west side of the island to the top of Waimea canyon. It is like a more colorful and smaller version of the grand canyon. There is red dirt everywhere, you get it all over yourself. There is a scenic overlook and then we decided to hike up further to try to get to some waterfalls we read about. The hike up was pretty steep, but the view was well worth it. When we got to the falls we were disappointed that you couldn't swim in them, they had a bacteria we think was called leprocytis, not something we wanted. Overall, a good hike. Then we hopped the car and drove a little further on the west bound road to get a view of the Kalalau Valley. What a beautiful thing to see, pictures don't do it justice. I'll be posting more tomorrow for now we are exhausted and going to sleep.