Valentine's in Hawaii

Hawaii was sooooooo nice! Marc and I were able to spend Valentine's week there. It was about 78 degrees with moderate humidity during the days and only rained twice - but for like only 5 minutes at a time.

I will post pictures maybe this weekend. I did to many Mai Tai's and Lava Flows (pina coladas with a strawberry swirl) drinks! Because of my platnium status and a little begging beforehand, we got upgraded to an ocean front room! (Remember Cancun Myles?) We had a big room with a king-size poster bed, a patio with wicker furniture which opened out to a nice little lawn area and beyond that were the waves crashing into the rocks. The beach area was about another 100 yards to our left.

We layed out most days. I got through over 400 pages in my book - I am reading "Pillars of the Earth" by Kenneth Folliet. It's from the Oprah Book Club and it's like a medival soap opera and I can't put it down!

Marc had a little trouble sleeping the first two nights - it was really warm. We had to resort to sleeping pills the last two days to make sure he got a good night's rest. One of the days we went on the Kalualua Trail - it's this famous ancient Hawaiian foot trail that goes along the Na Pali Coast (where they filmed Jurrasic Park, Lost, etc.). It was beautiful. It's usually a 22-mile rountrip, overnight hike, but since we were only there for a few days and it was raining a lot, we decided to just hike to one of the famous waterfalls which was 8 mile round trip. Well, about halfway through it, I was trying to get out of the way of a couple going downhill. It was a pretty muddy patch and I took a slip and fell. I bruised and scraped my left knee, my left elbow and my right leg. Marc tried to suppress a laugh and picked me up. I looked like I just mud-wrestled a wild boar... and lost! I was feeling very dirty, grimey and pretty pathetic.

We walked another 1/2 mile and folks were giving me a grin and I just replied, "Uhm... it's a *little* muddy back there!" All I could do was laugh, but my little scapes started to bleed and I was getting worried about them. We got to a rocky beach with a mountain stream feeding it. I washed the red, clay dirt off myself. I had to really scrub hard - that stuff just stays on like foundation! :) We couldn't make it back.. we were so exhausted, it took us 2.5 hours to hike 2 miles. The return was about 1.5 hours. I guess we were motivated to get back to the hotel!

We spent the last day lounging in the sun. A day after we got back, Marc was suffering the ill effects of sunburn - he had little mini-blisters on his chest. I felt bad for him, but I think the worst is over with.

Oh, I did a stupid thing on the way back on Sunday. When we went through the Lihue Airport, the lady at the TSA checkpoint asked to rescan my laptop. I said OK, packed my stuff and just walked to the gate. I totally forgot about my company laptop!!! It's been a nightmare since. After daily phone calls and emails, someone finally called me today but with little news just to say they were going to "look into it". My company is very strict about these things and now our Risk Management is involved. If Lihue Airport officials cannot find the laptop, I am required by my company to file a police report with the Kauai. Man, it's a big friggin' headache...but I finally got hold of a nice filipino working at the office and arranged for DHL to pick it up. Alls well that ends well, I guess!