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!