Honeymoon Lesson #5

All Surfing Wounds Can be Healed by a Drink Served in a Pineapple

Well, sort of. Our guidebook said that contrary to popular belief, most people can actually catch a wave during their first lesson. Obviously they had not met me.  But I was feeling confident.

We decided to give it a go on Waikiki Beach. Our instructor took one look at me and took me under his wing. He clearly thought he should watch me because I look like the type that might be seriously injured - but I like to say he took me under his wing. He also took the 6 year old kid in our class "under his wing" - but whatever. It's all in the interpretation.

The afternoon consisted of lots of paddling, a few scarey moments, some wipeouts AND catching some waves!!!  (please excuse the crap pictures - they were taken with a waterproof plastic camera)

Honeymoon Lesson #4

You Are Never Too Old to Cannonball

I took the lead as tour guide on this vacation, which is a bit of a role reversal. TB can be quite overwhelming with his detailed itineraries and spread sheets - so we decided to do a "Leslie" vacation this time. He certainly had his doubts about my abilities (and rightly so when I was in charge of the map), but once I found the Queen's Bath on Kauai, he had complete confidence in me!

It took about a 5 minute hike to get to a lava field, then a short walk down the lava rocks and you found a hollowed out section of the lava where the ocean waves would crash and continually recycle the water. When we first got there, the first thing that popped into our heads was "This will be the perfect place to cannonball!" It was just the two of us so we immediately start our cannonball photo shoot. About 1/2 an hour into the shoot (I had to get just the right shot!), we realized quite a crowd had arrived and were looking at us funny...... Oh well.

Honeymoon Lesson #3

We Are Championship Spear Throwers

OK, so maybe that's an exageration. But we did learn how to throw a spear and we did compete in a spear throwing competition. All of this went down at the Polynesian Cultural Center (PCC) in the village of Tonga at the PCC. (Woo woo - shout out to Leka) Should I ever get trapped on an island and have to hunt for my food, no worries, I think I have it down.

After a taxing day at the "competition", we went to a Luau and tasted some authentic Hawaiin food - complete with purple?? rolls. Weird.

Honeymoon Lesson #2

A Convertible Does not Have an "Open Trunk" Button

One of the many things I love about TB is that he has the amazing ability to "hook us up". He can wine and dine and smooze with the best of them and always manages to find the best vacations, best apartments etc... - somehow, he always makes it work out. Hawaii was no different. We reserved a basic rental car, thinking who cares. When we arrived in Honolulu, I was given the task of patiently waiting outside the rental car agency with our many suitcases, while he handled all the paperwork. A short time later, TB pulls around the corner in a snazzy convertible. So, it wasn't the coolest convertible, but at the time it seemed better than the mid-size sedan that we would have had otherwise.

Oh, boy were we mistaken!!! A few days later we decided to take a trip to Wimea Bay. Apparantly, Wimea Bay is famous in the surfing world for huge waves - but only in the winter time. The summer is pretty calm and a nice little lounging beach.

We started to get hungry, so we then drove down the road a bit in our fabulous car to check out the shrimp trucks for lunch. The shrimp truck is just that. A sketchy looking 1970s van on the side of the road, with pictures posted on the side of the van of the various menu options, picnic tables and a gravel parking lot. Authentic as authentic gets.

As we are parking and gathering our wallets out of the truck, the car keys somehow get placed in the trunk. Once again, I will get blamed for this. Whatever. Then the trunk gets closed. Uh-Oh.

After a few seconds of staring at each other with panic in our eyes, we realize, no big deal. The doors are unlocked! Phew. We'll just go pop the trunk with the little button.

A few minutes of searching the car for this mysterious button, and actually referring to the user manual make us realize there is not an "open trunk" button in this car. WHAT?????? Isn't that mandatory? So what if it's a safety feature, you could at least allow the back seats to fold down so you can get in the trunk that way. Who makes a car without that button? Curse you Ford. Curses.

We did have several hours to mull over this "design flaw", as we will call it, while we waited for AAA to arrive. We also made some new friends with the AAA guys, as they had to fabricate us a new key. Yes, it seems that AAA cannot pick the lock to the trunk, they must make you a new key. Yep.

With our new key in hand, we ventured out to Shark's Cove for a bit of snorkeling and to watch the sunset. You may notice through the next few posts that TB is a bit of a snorkeling addict. I couldn't get him out of the water for the life of me, so I just took lots of pictures of him with his gear.

Luckily, Shark's Cove is void of any actual sharks, but it does have an abundance of sharp rocks resulting in the first injury of the trip. Ouch.

Honeymoon Lesson #1

I know everyone wants to hear about the honeymoon, so instead of going day by day through the entire trip, I'll share some highlights through valuable lessons we learned while in Hawaii. Starting with a very important lesson #1:

Ocean Kayaking is the Most Dangerous Activity in the World
(You may even think you will die)

We are not new to kayaking, so after perusing the Oahu guidebook - I jumped on the kayaking as our first big activity in Hawaii. Yes, I will admit that it was my idea. We found a reputable looking rental company that would rent you the boat for the day, point you in the right direction and see you when you were finished. Upon rental, we were given the option of single kayaks or double. We immediately turned our noses up at the double since we've done this before in single boats and the double always looked ultra lame. Do we look lame? I think not. After signing our lives away and watching a safety video, we were told to look at the the "map" of the suggested kayaking route. This should have been our first clue, as the map looked something like a cartoon. Hmmm.

A short time later, we drug our kayaks on the beach to the put-in spot, only to be staring at massive waves that we somehow had to get past while sitting in a piece of plastic and using a flimsy paddle. At this moment the panic began to set in. I have no pictures of this moment, due to our camera being safely tucked away in the dry bag, but it looked something like this:

Now, I may not look strong, but I'm tough. And even more important - stubborn. So, I wasn't going to let a little wave keep me from enjoying the day. TB and I both somehow manage to get past the wake. Phew. Crisis averted, right? Wrong. I then encountered the wind. My stubbornness and 105 lbs was no match for the trade winds of Hawaii. I was losing ground and quickly saw myself being smashed against a sea wall. My mind seems to remember something like this:

At this point, I may have panicked. OK, I panicked. Big time. I began politely asking TB to help me (although he'll say I yelled) and all he could do was stare at me blankly. I realized at this moment, that although TB can help me do lots of things, I was on my own here. Realizing this was a lost cause, we bailed, drug the kayaks back down the beach to the kayak store and quietly asked for a lame 2 person boat.
With the aid of my new burly beefcake husband (hehe), we were finally able to go somewhere with the kayak. Our destination was an island and bird sanctuary just off the coast. We had a little picnic lunch, snorkeled and enjoyed the scenery (please ignore the calm looking water, it must have calmed a bit from when I first attempted to go at this in a single kayak):

3 - 1

Yes, I realize that GA's record is really 1-1; however the stat that counts in our house is the number of GA victories over SC. Hence, 3-1. But, due to the large temper tantrum that ensued after the game Saturday night, I will speak no more of this subject. Moving on.

USC (no, not the good one)

Our first week back in real life was not exactly what I'd call relaxing. I had to jet off somewhere a day later for work, while TB left work early to attend the USC vs NC ST game. Although SC managed to pull off a win and TB had a grand time celebrating (evidence shown above), it was not a pretty or exciting win. But maybe I'm still bitter about the GA loss. Whatever.

I think TB is even more excited about football after our Hawaii trip due to the overwhelming presence of roosters in Kauai. Yes, I know. Who would think there would be roosters in Hawaii. But, they were everywhere. Beach. Pool. Road. Table. Everywhere. We also had several "photo shoots" with some of the more handsome roosters on the island. And, purchased several paintings of these roosters. Roosters will forever be in my life. I should probably get used to it.

It's getting late and I should probably finish packing up all our football gear to head down to Athens tomorrow night. TB is insistent that we fly the SC flags from the car for the entire 6 hr trip. I really must get a GA flag that I can put on my side of the car......

Where do we live??

I had all intentions of writing the next post with some flowery details of how great our honeymoon was. But all of that has been overshadowed by some great disappointment in our (well, at least mine) lives..... the UGA loss to OK St. Although the loss was a shocking blow, what was more shocking is that the game was not televised in our town. We live in the only small pocket of the US, where we were treated to an afternoon of Wake Forest vs. Baylor and Michigan vs. W. Michigan. What? Are you serious? Time to rethink this whole NC thing.

The good news is that we'll be making the annual pilgramage to the UGA v SC game this weekend, so no need to pay per view this one. Leslie is up 2-1 in the rivalry, so we'll see if John can make up any ground.

On a lighter note, our cats survived the few weeks without us, only causing us several hundred dollars worth of damage to our apartment and eating through several gifts. Worst cats ever. Sigh. But we love them.