The good, the bad, and the ugly. And the trip of a lifetime!

 

Hi, friends. Long time no see! Sorry that I seemed to up and disappear.

Here be the good, the bad, and the ugly of it.

The Good: Two weeks ago, my best friend Terri and I flew to Oahu, Hawai’i and had a hell of an awesome time visiting good friends and club mates. (We were gone for 6 days, but 2 of those were spent on a plane.) I’ve never been off of mainland USA soil and planes aren’t my friend, so it was a commitment and the trip of a lifetime for me. The open-air shopping malls and hotels were lovely and the sites and scenery to die for, even on a rainy day. I loved being called “Auntie” by folks younger than me, and being referred to as “family” by our guide as he gave our group a canoe ride through the Polynesian Cultural Center. Terri even got to horseback-ride through scenery where Jurassic Park and other movies were filmed. ↓

I never in my life thought I’d see Diamond Head with my own eyes, but there I was, sleeping right down the coast from it. The ancient volcano has been extinct for around 150,000 years, and I was praying that it would continue to be extinct for 150,000 years plus one week.

My Diamond Head pics all sucked (unbelievable). So I’m borrowing this one from Wikipedia.

I took a ridiculous amount of pictures. You can check some of them out on Instagram. I’ll be sharing the others here in the days to come.

The Bad: Since I got back, I’ve been sick as a dog. Online time, shut down. (It’s my fault. Let’s just say my body finally got damned tired of me running it on all cylinders all the time and decided to kick me in the ass pretty hard.) I’m not back to 100% yet, but feeling a lot better now. Slowly on the mend.

The Ugly: While our plane was on its approach to Honolulu, I was snapping pictures of the most amazing clouds and sky… ↓

…when a strange, opaque gray cloud bank came seemingly out of nowhere. ↓

It was massive and stayed with us for a good while, but eventually petered out.

After a smooth landing and getting settled in Honolulu, we were warned by our hotel concierge and our friends that folks with respiratory problems needed to be careful that day because a Vog Alert was in effect. One of the volcanoes on Big Island was erupting.

*crickets*

*gulp*

Needless to say, I did not include that news in the texts to my family and we partied like it was 1999. O_O

Have a soothing weekend, all.