How to Beat the Prices at the Pump

Yesterday I filled up the scooter after about 150 miles on one tank.  It cost a bank-breaking $3.45 to fill up, and I am good for another few weeks!  With gas prices as they are lately, the scooters have been getting a lot of attention and questions, just like the MINI used to.

We are camping tomorrow night at Taurage beach on the Air Force base.  We will be sure to take lots of pictures.  We have both been working sort of late this week after returning from Hawaii, and we both have work to catch up on this weekend too, so camping will be our fun activity for the weekend.

Hawaii

Tom and I had a great time in Hawaii. I worked on Wednesday afternoon, Thursday and Friday, so I suppose Tom got the better end of the deal. He body surfed all day Thursday and Friday and is still alive to tell about it. We had fantastic food in Hawaii, I think we both forgot how good fresh greens are. It is a sad state of affairs when a salad is one of the main highlights of a trip! We ate at my favorite restaurant in Hawaii (only once, even), visited some of our favorite places, saw a very fun contemporary dance performance in which the dancers (and some audience members) were covered with paint by the end of the show, tasted and drank good wine, hiked a splendid six mile hike across the ridges above the Makiki and Manoa Valleys, went to a Book and Music Festival and had an overall good time. Hawaii really is a lovely place, everyone should visit if they have the chance.


Here are some pictures of the hike and along the beach at Makapuu, where Tommy spent his days body surfing. Unfortunately, I did not think to take any pictures of the wonderful food we ate!

Here is Tom under the root of a huge banyan that crossed the trail:


A view across the Manoa Valley:


The view of Honolulu and Diamond Head from Tantalus Drive above the city. The air was very "voggy" due to the volcanic fog (vog) blowing up from the active volcano on the Big Island. During most of our visit the mountains were obscured by the vog, luckily it was fairly clear for the hike. You can see how hazy the sky was in the this photo, though:


Tom's favorite beach in Hawaii - Makapuu Beach - world famous for body surfing. I tried it again on Saturday after the hike, but for some reason a nose full of saltwater, sand scrapes on my body and face and loosing my bathing suit is just not appealing to me the way it is to Tommy...


There are a few more pictures over on the Flickr page.

Mother's Day Spelunking

On Sunday we went back to the Talofofo Caves with our neighbors. I was very impressed by how brave 3 year old Liam was and by Bea who climbed down into the caves with Jane in her carrier. We had a lot of fun in the caves, the biggest one extended at least 100 yards or more with two big rooms. Here is a picture of Tom and I - notice his appropriate Mother's Day attire:


Here is Bea with Jane in one of the caves:


We leave for Hawaii tomorrow morning. I already packed the camera, so we should have some good pictures to share when we get back.

More travel..

Sorry I have not posted in a while. I was preparing some coleslaw for a cookout we are hosting for our neighbors Saturday, and realized, hey, I have not been on the blog lately!

I traveled up to Saipan to meet Tom's ship last week and stayed up there for about five days total. We spent the weekend in Tinian for the village festival, and then we went over to Saipan for a couple of days. The ship was out working a few of the days, and I actually had work to do up there also, so it was a good relaxing and productive trip. Unfortunately, I forgot to take the camera (gasp), so the trip was not photo-documented. Sorry.

We did do a great dive in Saipan on Tuesday. There are three Coasties stationed in Saipan, and we went diving with the husband of the LT up there. We dove the Groto, a beautiful natural semi-enclosed cavern. It was fantastic! There were a lot of swim throughs and caverns to explore. It was like spelunking underwater, and, we saw a turtle.

The ship got back today, and Tom is quite tired from being underway. In fact, he is asleep on the couch across from me right now. He will be home now until the boat leaves for drydock at the end of June.

We are going to Hawaii for a few days next week. I have a conference on Thurs-Fri, so we are flying out from here on Wed to arrive in Honolulu on Tuesday night (dateline crossing). We will stay until Sunday there, and arrive home on Monday evening here! We are both excited about the trip. I was sort of bummed originally, because it was going to cut in to precious Tom-home time, but then he decided to come along to play in the surf all day while I am at my seminar.

Don't worry, we will not forget the camera this time.

Hopefully we will do some hiking this weekend, and I will get pictures up.

Another New Purchase

A few days before Tom left on this current trip, we stopped in a nice store where I happen to be on a first name basis with the owner and the Saturday clerk. We noticed a very similar coat rack to the one pictured below, and decided to have her set aside the next one she got in for us. I love it. Now, before you all think I am crazy for buying a coat rack in a tropical climate where the temperature never drops out of the the 80s, let me tell you that we have been in the market for a coat rack for a long time. We wanted one in Connecticut to augment our tiny front coat closet. It is amazing how many coats two people accumulate. So, here it is, our new coat rack....

And just because he is so cute, here is a picture of my buddy, Sylvester.

Chicago

After my conference in St Louis I was able to visit my sister Peggy, brother-in-law Russ, and niece and nephew, Hayley and Noah in Evanston, outside of Chicago. The pictures below were taken at the Nature Museum in Chicago.


Noah and I in a boat in his favorite part of the museum, a big treehouse.


Hayley's favorite part of the museum. Yes, that is an albino snake wrapped around her neck.

We all had a great visit, it was so good to see everyone. The kids grow so fast!

There are a few more pictures over in Flickr.

Home from St Louis

I got home earlier this week from my work trip to St. Louis and fun visit in Chicago with Peggy and her family. I think I am over the jet lag after four days of being back home.

I was out today for a while, and found out that Tom will be delayed coming home, so it will be around two weeks from now that he will be back. I was feeling sorry for myself, and when I got home this beautiful cloud and sky greeted me... so I felt better.



By the way, you may notice the new little gadget over to the right. That is a link to my Flickr page, where there are more photos. I posted several more there from our trip to Palau in December. There are still more, but I think you will get the idea from what is there.

I hope everyone has a good weekend. Mine is just about over, and I spent most of today inside, doing taxes... yuck.

XTerra!!!!

Today was the XTerra Triathalon! I was the swimmer on a relay team. The race had a 1K ocean swim, a 23K mountain bike and a 7K trail run.

We did awesome! All three of us were really pleased with our individual times and with our team time. I did the swim in 23min 45sec, finishing the swim #41 out of 81 total racers, not too bad for my first ocean race, I think.

The complete results are in a picture below.


Here we are stretching for the race:


The swimming start line. I have no idea where I am in there. My team mates had a hard time getting a picture of me, because all the swimmers had on green caps:


The swim:


Me running to the transition area to tag out Marcus (in the yellow jersey) for the biking portion:


Marcus (in yellow) coming back to tag out Bea (in black):


Bea finishing! I have to add here that Bea had a baby 5 months ago and has a three year old. Her time on the crazy trail run down waterfalls and through a river was 1 hour 8 minutes:


All of the Coasties who participated. Marcus and Bea and I were a team, the others all did it individually. CDR Rocks, the guy all the way to the left came in 3rd for his age group.



So, now I am going to start training for the Cocos Swim, and 1.5mile ocean swim in May.