Travelogue Day 6 - Chocolate Denied

I woke up to find a text on my phone from the chocolate farm/factory indicating that the planned tour of said farm/factory was - as expected - canceled due to unsafe weather conditions. High winds and rain are slated to pound the Hawaiian Islands for the next two days, before easing up on the day of our departure.

This news necessited some flexing of expectations and plans for the day. That being said, the morning played out in its fairly predictable and expected formula. I prepped us a breakfast of toast, cereal with fruit, and (for me) coffee. We farted around in the mid morning - Deborah reading and me catching up on podcast episodes I had gotten behind on.

Deborah proposed that we revisit the A'a Roots vegan cafe for lunch and so we prepped to foray out into the inclement weather. It was windy, but the rain had dissipated substantially since morning. We drove our rental car to the mini mall where A'a Roots was located. I ordered a vegan tofu curry bowl with veggies (the cauliflower was superb) and Deborah got a vegan bagel sandwich. We shared a vegan blueberry muffin as an appetizer and a tropical açai bowl for dessert. While eating, we noticed the cafe was selling tee shirts promoting a place called Honolua Bay. We did not buy a shirt, but we googled this particular bay and found that it was fairly close by and a popular snorkeling area. The weather was not conducive to any snorkeling, but we decided to check out the area anyway.

After stopping at the small market next to A'a Roots for some additional soy milk, we drove to Honolua Bay. It had a tiny parking area overlooking a very scenic bay and ocean view. There were some surfers braving the weather on the west side of the bay where some large waves were breaking. We snapped a few pics and then sought out a coffee shoppe, landing on the Bad Ass Coffee shoppe, where I got an oat milk latte.

We returned to the resort bungalow where Deborah turned on the Super Bowl (yawn!) peripherally, and I caught up on traveloguing and podcasts.

Then some EXTREME BOREDOM set in. I am the type of person who needs to stay physically and mentally active at the peak of the day. I can wind down and chillax in the later evening hours, but find that almost impossible to do in the early afternoon. The weather precluded doing much externally, so I was relegated to being stuck with my thoughts and it was kind of a bit of a downer.

However, I survived by making completely unnecessary culinary creations, most notably a stir fry to use up the excess tofu and veggies we had scored at Whole Foods earlier in the week. Deborah helped allay some boredom by pulling up some TV shows and movies that we watched. I also was not feeling the greatest physically. I think I picked up a respiratory bug from the snorkeling gear during our snorkeling excursion toward the start of our trip. I felt like I had "water on the lungs" and was coughing incessantly.

"Maybe we should leave a day early," I proposed to Deborah. We discussed this option and ultimately agreed to that, but did not execute until the following morning, after some email correspondence with our travel agent to ensure this was both feasible AND wise. It was...

Stay tuned!

Travelogue Day 5 - Taking it Real Easy Like

Today kicked off with no wake up alarms and no agenda items or specific goals to accomplish. When I awoke around 7 AM, Deborah and I spent some time engaging in "snuggles," before I eventually got all the way up and prepped us a breakfast of the usual toast, cereal, and fruit, embellished with some tasty kona coffee for myself (while listening to a bit of Ezra Klein's newest podcast episode on the ruining of the Internet by corporate interests).

It was raining a bit. Thus, the only foray into the outside world that I executed was a short walk to the resort's outdoor water dispensary to replenish my water bottle with osmotically purified and ionically enhanced (or whatever) water. After that, Deborah and I retired to the porch of our bungalow to read (her) and write (me) for a spell. I used this time to get caught up on these travelogue posts. After a time, the rain worsened, exacerbated by increased wind that blew raindrops into the porch area, so we retired to the interior of the bungalow to continue our respective reading and writing activities.

"Should we check out that A'a Roots Cafe place for lunch today?" I asked Deborah.

"Yeah," she replied, with no firming of details. 

So that got loosely added to the day's laid back agenda, and as noon neared, we geared up for a hopeful and positive lunch excursion.

"Let's also hit that grocery store near the cafe for some more cereal and whatever," I said. I had predicted we would encounter a shortage of morning victuals soon, and this would solve that conundrum. Deborah assented.

We farted around a little more and then at about noon, we donned rain gear (I wore a rain slicker and wrapped a resort beach towel around my waste to keep my shorts dry) and headed out. We drove the rental car to the nearby strip mall that housed the A'a Roots Cafe. The A'a Roots Cafe turned out to be 100% all vegan, not just vegan friendly. This filled us with glee and we ordered a bunch of tasty food...probably too much...and ate it at the cafe, which had a number of small tables and other seating in the small space. I had a delicious strawberry scone that I shared with Deborah and she shared a blueberry muffin with me. My main meal was a tofu scramble bowl, embellished with black rice and a side salad. I believe Deborah had a huge black bean tostada dish. Before leaving A'a Roots, I got a healthy smoothie and a cold brewed coffee, and Deborah got a freshly baked s'mores cookie, all of it to go.

I left Deborah in the car to eat her s'mores cookie as I went into the small grocery store in the mini mall to get a few things, including some cereal and granola, bananas, vegan ice cream, Triscuits, and an onion (for a future planned stir fry).

When I returned to the car, Deborah was "sugar sick" from eating the s'mores cookie on top of her giant lunch. I drove us back to the resort where she promptly collapsed on the bed to digest via power nap. I listened to podcasts and wrote a bit more, until I started to get bored.

"What do you think about going to the fitness room?" I asked Deborah when she woke up. She was on the fence, but leaning toward yes. So, we went to the fitness room and did a short 30 minute workout. They had Peloton bike trainers there, so I spent my 30 minutes on that, whilst Deborah split her time between bike and core work using an exercise ball.

When we got back to the bungalow after exercising, I realized I forgot my phone in the fitness room, so I jogged back over there and - thankfully - found it where I had left it in one of the water bottle cages on the bike. I was relieved.

Dinner was leftover salad. We chillaxed watching some TV before bed.

Tomorrow is slated to comprise a midday tour of a chocolate farm and factory, but the weather is slated to comprise high winds and rain, so we think the tour might get canceled by the purveyors of it. If we don't do the chocolate excursion, we will probably revisit the vegan A'a Roots Cafe for some vegan eats, because they were really good.

Stay tuned!

Travelogue Day 4 - A Whale of a Time

There was no urgency to wake up at any particular time today. Our only agenda item was a "sunset" whale watching excursion back at the Pacific Whale Foundation (PWF) where we had had our snorkeling outing yesterday.

After a breakfast of vegan cereal, fruit, and toast (and some fresh brewed kona coffee for me), Deborah and I walked the "beach walk" path in the opposite direction from that which we had walked yesterday. This southerly course was much less rewarding, as the view of the sea was obscured by large hotel buildings. But it was still exercise and ended up being about 1.75 miles in total.

We farted around most of the morning, incorporating some more beach lounging and vitamin D production (via tropical Hawaiian sun exposure). Getting a bit stir crazy around lunchtime, I suggested that we depart for the PWF about an hour earlier than planned and posited that we could get beverages at the Starbucks close to the PWF (that we had observed yesterday) if we got there early. It turned out to be fortuitous that we departed early, because there was a considerable traffic jam on the main highway from our resort to the PWF. This delayed us a bit, but we still had time to hit the Starbucks before checking in at the PWF for our whale watching tour.

The weather had begun to deteriorate and the sky was gray and overcast, so I already knew there was unlikely to be any observable sunset on the "sunset" whale watching cruise. The boat was a stylish catamaran and I always enjoy a good boat ride, regardless. After exiting the harbor under fossil fuel power, the boat's crew put up the catamaran's sails (mainsail and jib) and cut power to the engines, allowing the boat to proceed more quietly and fuel efficiently through the sea, tacking occasionally in search of the best whale observing vicinities.

We saw a few whales at a distance, though nothing super close to the boat or especially exciting. Still...whales are cool and I am perfectly fine with not needing to ogle them; just letting them go about their business of baleening krill and small fish and blowholing all over the place.

It started to rain. We were fairly well prepared for this wearing layered and somewhat water resistant clothing. It did not make for much quality photography though. This boat crew didn't devote nearly as much attention to offering vegan fare as did the crew on the snorkeling expedition yesterday, but we had planned to get pizza for dinner after the cruise at the Point Break pizza joint next to the PWF anyway, so not a big deal. I had a couple of complimentary Hawaiian branded cans of IPA beer, early in the cruise. By the end of the cruise, I was ready for it to be over. There were a number of annoying passengers on the boat, most of them white and privileged. In retrospect, the handful of minority passengers on the sloop catamaran were much more pleasant and modest, the way all humans ought to be in my opinion.

After leaving the boat, we did in fact enjoy a pizza dinner at the Point Break pizza joint. Then we endured a stressful drive back to the resort in low visibility dark and rainy conditions. I was not in a great mood when we got back to our bungalow, but I intentionally practiced mindfulness to restore my inner Zen and we watched a bit of TV on Deborah's tablet before retiring.

Tomorrow was slated to be a day free from obligations, and I was looking forward to chilling out and disconnecting, ideally with some sunshine. However, according to the Weather Bug weather app on my phone, the remainder of our tropical Hawaiian vacation is slated to be full of more rain and considerable wind (Sunday and Monday). That being said, our one remaining planned tropical excursion is a tour of a Hawaiian chocolate farm/factory two days hence, and weather is not a significant concern for this outing, in my mind. I am hopeful and confident that the chocolate farmers agree and welcome us to their world on Sunday (today is Friday).

I would much rather be experiencing Hawaiian "bad weather" than Wisconsonian "bad weather," as they are two very different animals, with the latter being far more miserable, generally. In the grander big picture scheme of things, I have determined that an intentional life goal and aspiration is to live somewhere more tropical that does not experience sub-freezing temperatures nor snow. Ideally, this place would be Melbourne Australia, where I was born. However, I may need to temper that "ideal" somewhat to accommodate Deborah's needs and life ambitions. She has said she is open to "snow birding" once we retire from the workforce in a few years, as her mom currently does - enjoying the mild and pleasant summers of Wisconsin and the mild and pleasant winters of Florida. I hope she is sincere in that regard. I am not a huge fan of Florida, but living half of the year there to avoid Wisconsin winters does fall within the acceptable parameters of the aforementioned life goal and aspiration. I shall begin the process of restructuring the Cosmos to that end forthwith!

Stay tuned for tomorrow's travelogue!