Day one on the island...

     Our plane left from Oakland at 8:20am. Oakland is a 2 hour drive from our house in Yuba City, which meant we had to leave the house at 4am. (From traveling so much with Kenna, and to different time zones, we've learned a few things about how to make the trip a little easier, and get her on a decent schedule. Rule one: Always dress them for bed in what they will wear the next day. Waking a 2 year old up at 3am and expecting to dress them without a fuss is pure ignorance. We also try to completely destroy her schedule the first day of the trip, so that it erases her sleeping patterns and nap schedule.... And then work really hard the next day on establishing a routine.) When traveling with Kenna, we always plan to arrive at the airport two hours before take off. Everything takes more time with a child, so we always plan for the unexpected. This trip, the unexpected was super thick fog halfway to Oakland. (Driving in that was NOT fun.)

     Once at the airport, we boarded our plane for our 5.5 hour trip to Maui, then caught a connecting flight to Oahu.  They served breakfast on the plane, a wonderful tray of fruit and cheese with pineapple juice.

^^The view of Honolulu from the plane^^

     Once we arrive at the airport, we met an old friend of Logan's from high school (Jason) and his friend Matt. Jason greeted Kenna at the airport with a Lei and they became fast friends. When we were planning the trip originally, we had settled on Maui. Logan remembered that Jason had been living on Oahu for almost a year and called him to see what he recommended seeing in Maui... after hearing about how awesome Oahu was we quickly changed plans and headed to spend the week with him there. Knowing a local helps TREMENDOUSLY in Hawaii. Jason and Matt showed us all the local spots, the great places to eat, and we even avoided 99% of the touristy places. Knowing someone on the island also saved us 200$ on a rental car, and since we were doing this trip on a budget, that was a huge plus. (If you don't know a local, and want to save the money on the rental car, you can get a four day unlimited bus pass for 40$, or each ride on the bus is 2$ if you want to go that route.)

     We packed most of the stuff we would need for the week, (all breakfast and lunches would be eaten at the campsite to save money, with one meal out per day.) but TSA doesn't allow you to fly with camp fuel. We headed to Wal-Mart to pick some up, and to our surprise, they didn't have any. This proved to make our trip hard, since most of our food relied on boiled water. (Backpacking meals, cream of wheat, oatmeal, macaroni for Kenna....etc.) I was SHOCKED to see that the Wal-Mart prices weren't much higher than ours in California/Kentucky... and some things were even cheaper. (We brought our own sunscreen, peanut butter, backpacking meals, etc. All these things were no higher in price than on the mainland. Next time, I'll save the space in my pack and buy those things once we arrive.)

     After the Wal-Mart run, (which we got nothing...) I got to meet up with my good friend from photography school, Rosco Wuestewald who I haven't seen since summer of 2009. (His band was playing a show in Honolulu while we were there, and it just happened to work out for an awesome mini reunion. Check out his band Onward, Etc. on facebook HERE. We also got to meet his beautiful fiancé.) We hung out on Kaimana Beach (near Waikiki, more local and way less crowded) keeping updates on the SuperBowl (go Pats!) and laughing, soaking up sun, and watching Kenna run around in the sand.

 

 

     After laying at the beach for a few hours, we packed up and headed for the campsite. The drive was out of this world. Everything was a lush green, soaring mountains everywhere, awesome Banyan trees- the beauty is indescribable.

 

     We stopped at a local grocery store to grab a loaf of bread... and I checked out prices of some other things as well. (All we've heard is how Hawaii is unaffordable, which is incorrect. Yes, milk is more expensive, but lots of things are very comparable to our prices here.) Gas was also about .75 cents higher than we have here in California, with the highest price being $2.99/gallon, and the lowest price we saw was $2.64/gallon.

 

 

     We spent the rest of the evening laughing and planning tomorrow's adventures.  Our campsite for the night was Kualoa B, which has an amazing view of Chinaman's hat... and is steps from the water. (We were site 24, which was awesome.)  Clean bathrooms and showers are available here as well.  (Sites are just under $11/night.) If you camp here, be sure to bring your hammock. There are perfectly spaced palm trees to hang an Eno.

 



 

 

     What an amazing day!