Amoeba and the Quill are in Kailua-Kona on the Big Island. He gets to work everyday in a laboratory with his algae specimens and a microscope. She is having to enjoy the beaches, shoreline drives, and beautiful scenery. I know it seems unfair, but she is making do.
Kailua Bay
Humpy's Big Island Ale House
They went out to dinner the other night and walked back to the condo together along Ali’i Drive. She took a couple of photos of the sunset.
I’ve been doing internet research on Cheap Flights. It is time for a trip east to see Amoeba’s family. We were there last February for Amoeba’s mom’s 80th birthday, but it looks like we won’t make it back until April this year.
I am all up for visiting in April. I recall very well that February was cold! I’ve had enough of that now, thanks. I’m looking for warm and All Cheap Fare is helping me! They offer up to 65% off the price off regular airfare!
At any rate, Amoeba wants me to score the Airline Tickets asap. The earlier we buy the cheaper they are.
I am excited to see Tilden! I am also excited to see the Atlantic up close and personal. I saw it last year, but I didn’t get out of the car. It was way too cold!
Speaking of being warm, All Cheap Fare also sells vacation packages. You suppose Amoeba would notice if I booked a vacation for two in the Caribbean? I can see me on the beach with one of those little umbrella drinks in my hand.
I need sunshine! It has been raining here for days. Yesterday I saw a bit of blue sky and the sun peeked through for a minute but my friends and I at the coffee shop all ran outside to see it and I think we scared it away. Alas!
After New Years Amoeba and I are off to the Big Island again. Of course it is a vacation for me but he has to work. Taking me along makes the trip a little easier on him, too. Then he doesn’t have to worry about cooking, cleaning, laundry and such when he is working 12 – 15 hour days and making charts, graphs and reports half the night.
Still, cooking and cleaning only takes so much time and I’ll have hours I am alone to fill with … something. I cannot just sit on the beach ad nauseum. I am a lily-white haole and I will burn to a crisp. That’s why I decided I should build an itinerary. I found this great vacation ideas website designed to feed me ideas and detail the best features of vacation destinations of choice.
I also looked up some vacation tips. I wasn’t looking for the usual “pack sunscreen and take a hat” stuff. I wanted to know best places to eat — good food, little money — and sights to see. Funny thing is, I was looking in my hometown rather than Hawaii. Imagine my surprise when I discovered Coeur d’Alene, Idaho featured on the site. In the course of reading about it I also discovered CdA appears in Patricia Shultz’s book ‘1,000 Places to See Before You Die’. I always knew my hometown was special with it’s huge blue lake, green mountains and year-round sports options, but I guess it will always be in my heart as the sleepy little mill town it hasn’t been in a long, long time.
I’ve been busy visiting with my family. Amoeba seems to be holding up well. He has even admitted to enjoying himself a couple of times.
I am keeping up with all of your comments on my blog via my phone. I can’t actually read my blog — operator error I am certain — but I do get your comments emailed to me. The reason you haven’t heard from me more is two fold: busy (I already said that) and stupid. I packed my mouse and my keyboard, but I managed to leave my computer at home.
I am currently using Amoeba’s laptop. That means my time here is limited. I am sorry I can’t get around to visit all of you. Likely I will see you soon. We are traveling home tomorrow.
We didn’t buy tickets to the luau. Luaus are for tourists. We’re not. Unfortunately, I forgot that Ella was. When the drums started she got all excited. I took her outside on the balcony and told her we could watch it from a bird’s eye view. Oh boy, you should have heard her shriek and whistle when the torch bearers came in.
Sorry the photo is blurry. Ella was jumping around and jostled my arm. I thought for sure she was going to fall off the balcony — or jump! She wanted a closer look at those hunky men.
The torch bearers circled the spectators three times. Truth to tell, I was enjoying my look at the hunky men, too. that’s probably why I didn’t notice until too late that Ella was no longer on the balcony. In fact, she was no longer in the room!  I shot out the door and headed for the elevator.
Of course she had quite a head start on me and was already on th4e ground floor before I got into the elevator car. I didn’t know what she would do or how she would behave when they wouldn’t let her onto the luau grounds because she didn’t have a ticket. I needn’t have worried.
She’s an eleven inch tall plush elephant. She walked right in under the radar. Problem was, I couldn’t go get her!
She climbed up on a chair, then she climbed up on a table. Then she started wiggling her ample elephant ass-ets! Oh my! I thought about going back to the room and pretending I didn’t know her.
About that time the bus boy showed up at the table and said no pets were allowed because of the food. Of course everybody denied knowing Ella. The bus boy picked her up and escorted her to the gate — where I was waiting for her.  I told her I was going to take Melli’s advice and buy her a leash!
Ella promised she’d be good if I would please let her stay close to watch the luau, so we went to the terrace.
One of the tiki gods was kind enough to share a planter with her. Unfortunately between the shrubbery and the other non-paying watchers standing around, Ella couldn’t really see much and I didn’t get any decent photo opps. Finally she said my idea of watching from our balcony really was the better choice, so we went back upstairs.
We missed the female hula dancers and only caught the end of the men’s performance, and then the luau was over. Ella was pretty upset about that, but I reminded her who it was that wasted all of our time and insisted on going downstairs to see the show. “Oh,” she said. Pft.
