Travels in the Sunlight

A celebration of Long Time Friends - Nancy & Dave plus Chris & Bob
My girlfriends have been there to support me since the year 2000. I will be missing them as we travel the USA; yet it is in the plan to have more vacations together....

We stayed at a house in Kona (it's on the big Island) We arranged this through Vacations by Owners (VRBO)
You can see pictures of the house at: Website: www.Hale-Hina.com

Nancy -- Bette --- Chris

The Boys
Dave -- Steve -- Bob

Here are a few pics of the house that I took --

The front door.....There are 3 bedrooms with 3 baths,

the living area provided great viewing for the March Madness games.... Even though Iowa State and Michigan State lost, we enjoyed the games
---- Chris & Bob are from Michigan and are HUGE Michigan State fans...

The Kitchen and Living Room was one
open room... we shared many wonderful meals, the outside grill and the Grill Master Dave provided some good eating... We kept the meals simple yet delicious...


a nice covered sitting area - a great place to relax, with a view of the ocean

also part of the patio area

View of the ocean

Time for a dip in the pool......then the hot tub

Pololu Valley
We drove north of Kona to this beach, stopped at a cute coffee shop - the plan was to hike down... it rained on our drive to this lovely place, so the trail; which was steep was slick, plus we needed to be back in Kona for a dinner cruise, so Nancy, Chris and Dave hiked for 20 min. - well...... we were almost back to Kona, and they called and cancelled the dinner cruise due to the rain.... (this was the only day that we received rain; otherwise the temps were in the 80's during our 6 day stay).

Bob and Chris -- beach in the background

Kealakekua Bay

To get to this beach, one needs to either hike the 2 mile trail down to the beach - and of course hike back up ... or take a boat. Chris, Nancy and I hiked to the beach - this is a good place to snorkel.. Lesson to be learned -- do not take blood pressure pill before long hike when the temperature is above 80 -- I had a tough time hiking back up, due to the heat and I felt dehydrated. I was happy that I had to skilled RNs with me. We had plenty of water it just took me longer to hike back up due to needing to stop more frequently; plus there were trees only the path for a respite spot. Captain Cook arrived in the Hawaii Islands in 1776 - the monument is to honor him.

Picture as we're hiking down to the beach

I love the trees in Hawaii...

Monument - Captain Cook

The main beach was in a cove, a good place to kayak or snorkel

Hapuna Beach ----A great place to go swimming... the water was perfect..

There was a cave that you could walk into, until the tide came it, then you needed to swim to it..

Here are some photos of beaches near Kona, group pics at restaurantsand some fabulous sunsets.....

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We had a fabulous Time It's All Good

We decided to give up our apartment on March 6th, and spend 3 weeks in Iowa.. Most people did not believe us when we said we were homeless....
* Steve's Dad, John, needed surgery on his elbow. He had fallen a few days prior to our arrival and developed an infection in his elbow. He breezed through the surgery, his wife, Linda became an expert on packing the wound. It is healing nicely; and after a month is almost healed..

We had a gathering at Chris and Dave's -- Zane (Grandson #2) spent 2 weekends with us -- always a joy to be around him...

People not in the picture.. Bob & Mary, Allison & Joe

Dad went with us to Lincoln, and we spent 2 days with Jacob -- of course there was limited time to see Jacob; as he had college classes, and had to work; but we had 2 very nice evenings with him...