From Dallas to Home

After six weeks in Hawaii we flew back to Dallas and spent a night with our friends Jo & David.  Then we headed east stopping at Poverty Point Historic Site in Louisiana.  It is preserving an area where Native Americans lived and their mounds and living site was in the shape of an arc. 

We stopped a night in West Monroe, LA to visit with some good friends Joel and Melissa Williams.  It was a great evening and they introduced us to a new game, Ticket to Ride, which we promptly became hooked on. 

Then we went through the Battlefield at Vicksburg.  The most intriguing part was the USS Cairo, a gunboat that was sunk during the Civil War and has now been raised and is under cover near the river.  So much of it was preserved and it was very interesting seeing it.

We visited Brices Cross Roads National Battlefield Site, drove the Nachez Trace Parkway and spent the night in Tupelo so we could visit Tupelo National Batttlefield.  We visited Corinth Civil War Interpretive Center which was part of Shiloh National Military Park and drove through the Shiloh Battlefield.

Then we stopped for the evening at Marc & Susannah’s for a visit with them and the kids. 

We spent one night in Nashville with Deb and then drove on Friday to a timeshare close to Mammoth Cave National Park.  Deb drove up later that day and spent the weekend with us.  We went to Lincoln’s birthplace.

The resort was on a golf course and we walked the path most of the mornings.  There were some hills and some beautiful spring flowers.

As we left Kentucky we drove to Vincennes, Indiana for a night and stopped at Lincoln’s Boyhood Home National Memorial in Lincoln City, Indiana and then visited George Rogers Clark National Historic Site

as well as Grouseland, the territorial home of William Henry Harrison in Vincennes.

Big Island Hawaii 2012

We spent two weeks on the big island of Hawaii.  Vicki & Dan were able to accompany us from Kauai and spend a second week with us. 

  We stayed the first week at Kona Coast Resort and the second week at Paniolo Greens.   Vicki was very disappointed when we landed at Kona because all you can see is lava and you wonder what you have gotten yourself into.  But the island does seem to grow on you and then you can enjoy the differences. There is such a difference between Kauai and the Big Island but we really love both of them.  We were tour guides for the first week.  We attended worship at the Kona Baptist Church on Sunday.  We spent a day driving around the island.  We stopped at the coffee trees,

 a bakery and Volcano National Park. 

 There was a lot of vog in the area and part of the park area was closed.  The visitor center had fans blowing to try to get it out of the building.   We stopped at Mauna Lao macadamia nut plant

 and the black sand beach. 

 We went snorkeling one day and saw many fish and also some of the spinner dolphins.

  

 One evening we went to the cowboy barbecue and had a great time.  It was fun but I felt that it was way overpriced.  We had never done it before. 

  Dan played golf one day on the course next to the timeshare.  Vicki was able to ride in the cart with him.  We drove up the west side of the island to the end of the road on the north side and picnicked in Kapaau.   

 We stopped for shaved ice 2 different times. 

 We visited the "Painted Church"

and also went to 2 of the national parks.  We had a wonderful time and sure hope they did. 

The second week Bob & I really vegged out.  We had done so much driving and touring that I didn’t want to really go anywhere.  The unit up the hill at Paniolo Greens is great and we relaxed there.

Kauai 2012

We really had a nice relaxing time. We stayed at the Point at Poipu for 4 weeks.

Our flights arrived on time and we stopped at Costco to grocery shop before we checked in. We tried to walk each morning.

I spent a lot of time catching up on the blog and organizing pictures. I hadn’t done this since we got the new computers. We read and worked on our counted cross-stitch. I also worked on some crochet, trying to use up some of the thread. I did some dish-cloths and a couple of bookmarks. I also began to work on some coasters. We are really enjoying our e-readers. It is great not to have to haul a bunch of books along to read. Also it gives us more variety and choices. We did some snorkeling. What beautiful fish! We also worshipped each week at Kauai Christian Fellowship. The 4th week we were joined by friends from Florida, Dan & Vicki Alley on February 24 so we did a lot of touring.

 We visited Spouting Horn, and Old Koloa Town. We were interrupted with quite a bit of rain. In fact there was quite a bit of flooding. One day we toured the west side of the island taking in Waimea Canyon, the end of the road at Wailea Canyon.

 We ate a delicious lunch at the Shrimp Station in Wailea. We were following some suggestions in a book called Kauai Revealed. We stopped to walk across the hanging bridge in Hanapepe

 and then to get cookies at the Kauai Cookie. We also stopped at the Kauai Coffee Plantation and even walked the short tour through the trees. Another day found us going north, through Lihue, Kapa’a, Princeville and to Hanalei to the end of the road at the State Park.

 

It was cloudy most of the day but it didn’t rain much. We ate lunch at a Chevron station (it was recommended) and had some really good hamburgers. On March 3 we left Kauai and flew to the Big Island of Hawaii.