One door closes, another opens

I would like to wish a Happy Birthday to my Grandma Marian and also to one of my old college roomies Jen!! I hope you both had a marvelous day!

The weather continued to be beautiful here. After the hike on Saturday I spent a lot of time resting and relaxing. Today we went to a beach on the windward side of the island. It was pretty busy at the beaches because of the long weekend. We had planned on going snorkeling but the Bay was packed so we kept on driving. We drove by a lot of campers and even a local surf competition at Sandy Beach, but once passed all of that the beaches were a little less crowded. We enjoyed the turquoise blue waters and the sun. Surprisingly it wasn't too hot in the sun.

We found another wonderful hike this Saturday morning. We departed around 9:45am for a short trip across the mountains to the windward side. Just after a hair pin turn on the Pali Highway is a small lookout. We parked there and walked a short distance to the trailhead (see picture at left) to begin our journey. We seemed to be moving at a rather quick pace over some rough terrain. It was really very beautiful. After about an hour of hiking into a valley in the mountains, we came across the sign for a trail to the waterfall. Down a ridge we went the whole time wondering how we were going to get back up...... after a while and many steps we made it to a stream. We actually had to walk across the stream down a bit to a beautiful waterfall with tons of people swimming and diving off of rocks. After about 20mins, we headed back. The journey back almost killed us with all the stairs. Luckily we had a fanny pack with a first aid kit, cell phone, keys, etc. and Alexis was carrying a bottle of gatorade. All in all, the trip was four hours long. It was an amazing adventure. To top off the hike we went to Foodland and bought popsicles.

Saturday we went on a hike to Makapuu Lighthouse. It was just shy of 3 miles roundtrip but well worth it. For a while we weren't sure we would make it but at last, we did. The views were amazing. We were able to get up close to WWII bunkers (I'm standing on one in the picture attached). It was amazing, we could see two sides of the island.

Today we went to the beach with Heidi and then to the Old Spaghetti Factory for dinner. The food was great and the milk was even better. Heidi and I (the two midwestern girls) decided to see how much milk we could drink ( it was $1.50 with free refills instead of $7.50 a gallon). Needless to say, I wasn't feeling well after dinner.

I am finally done with my first semester of graduate school. Thank you to all of you for your patience with me during my final weeks of school. I know I have been pretty busy and cranky, but it's over now.

I am including some pictures from our day hiking yesterday. It was pretty crazy. We drove around Tantalus Drive which is in the mountains and it connects to Roundtop Drive to come back down. To our dismay, we were unable to drive all the way down Roundtop Dr. because of landslides. The road was actually closed with large cement barricades. So back up the mountain we went with all of the hairpin turns. It was a bit sickening by the end.

We also finally went bowling at this really retro bowling alley in Kailua. We actually signed a petition in hopes to keep the bowling alley open.

It's finally done... I purchased my plane ticket home. I will be back in the wonderful state of Wisconsin from Saturday July 22nd until Sunday July 30th. More details will follow soon....but one thing is sure...I will be celebrating my birthday at the RED SHED on Thursday July 27th... everyone is welcome!!!

As for school, the semester is almost over, I have a couple papers left to write and then I am free for a little while at least.