Adventure, Ho!

Ya'll want to know about our Hawaii trip, right?  I'll give you some of the overall highlights.  After several tedious hours of travel, my initial impression of the room was "yay, flat landing surface," as expected.  It was dark, but we were close enough to the ocean to still hear the waves, even with the porch door shut.  

This was our view in the morning.

The morning view was much more interesting, particularly after some sleep.  We wandered down to meet with the family for some breakfast, and Andy and I eventually meandered to the beach.  We rented some snorkels, and I was happily diving under the waves, chasing after some fish.  I am at home in the water.  Andy needed a five minute lesson on how to use a snorkel, some gentle persuasion, and literal taking by the hand, but conquered a lot of fear in a short period of time, enough to start exploring a bit further out on his own before the end.  That was what I was looking for, that particular kind of difference and experience.

I came back to the shore for some water and then was made immediately aware that something was wrong.  When we got back up to the room, I threw up, several times.  A fever rolled in, the kind where I was burning up but could not seem to get warm.  A few voices assured me it was motion sickness which pisses me off still, honestly, because A) I'm a goddamn fish, B) a fever isn't part of those symptoms, and C) unsolicited voices telling me what I'm experiencing in my body infuriates me.  I had a bug of some kind, further emphasized when Andy picked it up about two days later, no ocean involved that day.  Soooo, unfortunately Andy and I spent a third of our vacation feeling pretty lousy, a level of nausea lingering for the rest of the trip.  

After my day inside, after the vomiting had stopped, I woke up in the wee hours of the morning to the WORST bag explosion I have ever experienced, as in waking up in a literal pool of shit.  I yelled for a towel and Andy was pretty quick to help me get over to the shower, where I jumped in pajamas and all.  He called housekeeping while I was hosing off.  Once I was finally clean with a fresh bag, housekeeping brought the sheets in.  And while I didn't need to explain, it was nice to have the opportunity to--I showed her my ostomy bag, and she immediately started asking if we needed gauze or any other first aid supplies.  She didn't really know what to do, but her concern was touching, particularly as we were handing over the poopy sheets and towels to go with her.  She did bring us some free detergent for the guest laundry services, though, and Andy got a load going while I sat upstairs feeling miserable.  For the rest of the trip, I kept my emergency bag change on my person rather than back in the room.

But that wasn't the whole trip, thankfully.  We had some good family time.  Andy and I had a few adventures down to the village.  We had a lovely massage.  Adam and I (above) saw several turtles while we were doing some kayaking in the bay.  We took in the landscape of Waimea Falls and swam near and in the waterfall.  Another adventure we took to the Dole plantation for about every pineapple treat you could think of, including Dole Whip, pineapple soft serve covered in fresh pineapple chunks.  

KNEEL BEFORE YOUR GOD, BABYLON
(That's coffee)

Andy only came home with two Hawaiian shirts, for anyone wondering.  And, yes, it was weird to come home where the house was quiet again, compared to the constant low thrumming of the waves.  

Yes, he is a strange beast, but I love him.

It was nice, too, to see family around and not be at work for a couple of weeks.  When we got back home, Andy slept for thirteen hours and I slept for fourteen hours--so glad that we budgeted time to recover from vacation into our schedules.  Our next major adventure is still probably going back to Scandinavia.  :)