Goals met in Hawaii; A little Christmas fun

It's supposed to be hot and sunny in Honolulu, so of course Santa and the Mrs. would put their feet in the water, and Santa would unbutton that furry jacket for a little cool air.

But it was neither hot nor sunny -- 

It rained hard, cats and dogs,  poured, deluged, and sometimes let up a little on December 14th for the JAL Honolulu Marathon.  Here's Bill's traditional night-before-marathon picture, plus before, during, and after pics, and an extra snapshot of trying to dry his shoes that were worn out from the inside and weighed a ton during the race.

From our 9th floor Air BNB balcony overlooking the Ala Wai Canal at 4:30 AM -- that race started at 5 am.

At ~ Mile 5, already soaked, but still able to pick up his feet!

After, finished, and just needing  to be wrung-out.

And later that same week, after the blisters healed, we walked  our 

51st/51

🏆

US capital city!  Perhaps just as admirable a goal as that marathon.   GOAL MET! It took years to walk all of them, and we can't honestly say we did all the Volksmarches because we altered the routes sometimes to see things that weren't on the routes like The Lynching memorial in Montgomery, Alabama, or the Ioloni Palace in Honolulu.  Nonetheless, we did meet our personal goal of walking a route in each and every one of the US capital cities, including Washington, DC! 

Gotta' comment a little:  Our favorite walks were in Providence, RI, St. Paul, MN, and Olympia, WA.   Special mention to Juneau, AK, Carson City, NV, and Cheyenne, WY.    Least favorite walks were Jefferson City, MO, Augusta, ME, and Pierre, SD.  

 

A 5K race to support cancer research forming on the capitol grounds in Providence, RI.  

Our favorite capitol buildings were Albany, NY, Lincoln, NE, Des Moines, IA, and  Bismarck, ND.  Special mention to Little Rock, AK, and Santa Fe, NM. Least favorite buildings were Tallahassee, FL, and Trenton, NJ. 

These two events book-ended some very rainy sightseeing-- lots of fun:

The Ioloni Palace-- the only royal palace in the US 

We were lucky to taste chocolate made from the Cacao from several different farms.  And tea that was made from the bark of cacao plants... and buy some to take home.   

A friend and former colleague, Ilse Silva Krott, invited us to her lovely home in Hawaii Kai,  set on  a bay, and just a kayak paddle away from the open ocean.  

We spent more money than we needed to just to  eat in beautiful places like this in the Royal Hawaiian hotel on  Waikiki beach.

We explored around the island of Oahu

A visit to Pearl Harbor and the USS Arizona, which is still buried under the memorial.  The names of those who died are listed on the back wall of the memorial, as are the names of those who survived and who have since elected to be buried at sea with their shipmates.  

Then off to the North Coast of Oahu -- Past coffee growers and the Dole pineapple Plantation (which we skipped, but sort of wished we hadn't) to the North Shore, famous for its big surfing waves.  We saw some beautiful beaches for sure:  

While we saw lots of surfers, we didn't see any surf like this surf, but this is what makes the North Shore of Oahu famous.  These are  Internet pictures from HaleiwaTown.Com  

This  store in the town of Haleiwa typifies the North shore.  It seems a great town that has beaches famous for its surfing waves and, as if that isn't enough, somewhere in the neighborhood of 90% of the world's macadamia nuts are grown there.  We surely could imagine living there.

Leaving the gorgeous coastline was hard, but we did it by climbing a winding, narrow, and under-construction steep road to a little piece of  Native Hawaiian history. Now a National Park Service Historical Site, Pu'u o Mahuka Heiau in Waimea Valley functioned as a center of spiritual and political power in early Hawaiian history.  It dates to the 1100's and was used until 1817 when the then-reining king, Kamehameha's son, ordered all religious centers in Hawaii destroyed. Legend has it that there may have been human sacrifice there and that may have had something to do with the disappearance in 1792 of explorer Vancouver's ship mates.   

The Byodo-In Temple welcomes you to another spiritual experience  by inviting you to strike a bell with this giant log called a shumoku.  The sound echos through the  koi-pond gardens and is said to rid visitors of evil spirits and instill happiness.  We're all for that. 

A golden Buddha greeted us in the temple by presiding over lotus flowers. 

We did a little rain-filtered overlooking of the center of the island.  

And circled our way back to Honolulu via Hawaii Kai.

And we learned about the Aloha Spirit on the back of a Honolulu bus! After sort of involuntarily letting a bus into traffic the bus driver flashed us a shaka sign and a 'malaho' (thank you).

That shaka symbolizes the Aloha Spirit, definitely something we can all practice.

We left Honolulu on the first sunny day we'd seen there to return to Austin for a little bit of Christmas before heading on.  All our flights were on time and fine.

Got to do a little Christmas Eve shopping with our granddaughter, Laura.  

After doing laundry and resetting a difficultly located breaker so we could continue to make power...

... we spent Christmas morning with my brother Joe and his son and daughter in law, Jeff and Barbara.  Joe was very interested in the cinnamon rolls that Barbara made likely because  they were really good!

We had a lovely time in Manvel, Texas with Jan and Gregg Lacombe, parents to our daughter in law, Lindsay.  They were oh-so-gracious.  

Here's Jan and an ever-growing William

I was convinced to try shooting 

Then a few sunny days on the Bolivar peninsula, just east of Galveston, and in Galveston itself.   A fun ferry ride connects the two places

WOYAYA