I just celebrated a milestone birthday.  The way I figure it, I’m probably about half-done with this whole living thing.  So as this birthday approached, I knew that I wanted to do something to make it truly memorable.  My actual birthday was back on November 23rd, therefore it seemed only fitting to stretch the celebration into January and have a Ron-a-thon.  I can’t take credit for the name though, that belongs to the best wine guy in the triangle area.  Celebrating my actual birthday with my girls in Charlottesville, Virginia was great.  We went to Monticello, visited a winery, and had a great dinner.  But, I knew I’d need more.  With that in mind, I began to plan my true birthday escape.  I knew I had to get back to the islands.  Not just any island.  My island.  Kauai.  The boss (heretofore known as Margeaux) reluctantly, I mean very reluctantly, agreed.  Plans were made.  Time had to pass.

Time passes.  The week of the trip approaches.  The weather forecast isn’t looking very promising.  The day we are to leave, the snowpocolypse is supposed to descend upon the southern US.  Raleigh is supposed to be ground zero.  Anxiously, I checked every weather website around to figure out when the weather would get rough.  Every one had the timing where we would be safely flying west when the stuff got real.  Hence the name for the post, escape.  We made it.  The day dawned gray and nasty and we were out of RDU on time.  Our connecting flight in Atlanta was flawless, and we settled in for our short hop of 4,500 miles to Honolulu.  I tried my best to stay entertained on the flight, but one can only watch so many movies.  I’ve also never been on a flight that was entirely during daylight where every single shade on the flight was pulled.  It was weird.  Soon enough (10 hours later) we were making our approach to the airport.  I tried to comfort myself with the fact that we just covered in 10 hours a trip to a location that used to take months.  So score one for technology.

An update on Honolulu traffic.  It is still bad.  An hour to travel about 6 miles to the hotel.  Moving on.  We checked into our hotel, The Vive Hotel, on Kuhio.  I really can’t recommend this place enough.  It is exactly two blocks from Waikiki and a super easy walk.  I booked directly through the hotel and signed up for their loyalty program.  That gave us the chance for a room upgrade and one that we got upon arrival. We were assigned room 2004 on the 20th floor with an ocean view.  We dropped our stuff and headed for the beach.  I had a real need to put my feet in the ocean.  Once that was accomplished, we headed to Duke’s at the Beachcomber and had a couple of drinks.  By this point we were beyond exhausted so we went to the room and died.  Actually, we just fell asleep.

A funny thing about flying 5 time zones away is that you wake up on your normal time.  It so doesn’t matter that it is 4 am where you are, your silly self thinks that it is 9.  So we were up.  I had thought that a trip to the top of Diamond Head might be a good way to take advantage of our early start.  We took a cab to the gate and were dropped off around 5:30am.  We were not alone.  There were 5 or 6 tour buses full of tourists from Japan.  Eventually, we two walkers, were joined by a college swim team on their morning run (silly kids, a cab would’ve been so much easier).  About 5:55 the security guard allowed the walkers a head-start to the crater and we were off.  Seriously, the kids started to run and Margeaux tried to keep up.  And she did.  For about a quarter of a mile.  We paid our 2 dollar entry and were heading up the trail in absolute pitch-black darkness.  Our only light was the light on our phones.  I think, that had we seen what we were about to do, we might have been a bit less enthusiastic.  Up we went.  First on a paved path, then on a path that was a bit more less-developed but every bit as steep.  We entered a 200 foot long tunnel (also sloping up) to some stairs.  Eventually, after a mile of walking steadily uphill we made it to the top.  We did the entire climb in 20 minutes.  A time I am proud of accomplishing  We were among the first 30 on top.  Those darn kids beat us and we were passed by about 8 people on our climb.  The best thing is we beat all of the tour buses.  This was crucial.  Go early if you are going to go.  We took our time coming down enjoying the views and stopping for pictures.

A happy coincidence was that the island’s most popular farmer’s market was happening across the street from Diamond Head, so we went.  We looked at all of the amazing offerings, sampled a few things, bought a couple of things, and then ubered back to the hotel.  All told, by 8am we had covered 10,000 steps, climbed a mountain, and visited local farmers.  A full day for sure.  We packed and headed to the airport for our flight to Kauai.  All was simple on this with no need to delve further, and at 1:10 HST we landed in Lihue.  We picked up our rental car (complete with chickens in the rental car store) and headed north to Princeville.

We decided that a stop a Chicken In A Barrel in Kapa’a was needed.  We stopped and spilt a plate with pulled beef, pulled pork, some chicken, and a rib.  Delicious.  They do their meats right.  In fact, we were so full from lunch we split a frozen pizza for dinner.  We got to our home for the next week, Wyndham Bali Hai, and checked in.  I politely listened to the sales pitch while waiting for the parking pass.  Margeauz called the girls back home (20 degrees and gross) and I picked up our keys.  We settled in to the room, went to the Foodland and got food (duh) and brought our provisions home.  There were free mai-tais and music at the clubhouse so we decided that sounded good.  After a bit we came home, cooked our pizza and hit the sack.

So far, my return to Hawaii has been great.  I actually slept to a reasonable time this morning.  Honolulu is still kind of eh.  I can’t wait to see where my time in Kauai will bring.  We have absolutely no plans.  We may go to a beach today, we may paddle board, we may have some lunch.  We’ll probably do all three.  Happy Ron-a-thon everyone!