It's A Blowhole!

On Tuesday morning, Ryan and I set out to see the Nakalele Blowhole. To get there, we had to drive the Kahekili Highway which was a narrow, windy little road to say the least. We zig-zaged back and forth through the rainforest for quite some time. We attempted to video tape a section of it, but it ate up too much of Ryan's cellphone memory {I had forgotten to put the memory card back into the camera the night before after loading pics onto my computer - oops - darn it!}. So all of the pictures in this post are cellphone pictures unfortunately.

The road got pretty narrow!

A wall to one side and a complete drop off on the other side.

Dinner?

I don't think they really needed to post this sign. We were well aware there was no shoulder!

We drove down into this little village about halfway through the single lane, winding road and they were selling breads, fruits and vegetables.

We stopped and bought banana bread. It was so good eating it when it was hot :)

A little further down the road from this banana bread stand, one of the locals was dancing in the middle of the street to make you stop and buy his stuff. It worked! Ryan and I bought some sun dried mango which was sooo good. {we actually stopped on the way back and bought more - ha!}

Even though I had to keep my eyes on the road for a majority of the drive, the area we drove through was beautiful!

Maui is so lush compared to the big island!

What a fine road huh?!

Once we made it to the right area, we pulled over and started our hike to the blowhole. The terrain we were walking over seriously reminded me of mars.

This is the first, small blowhole we came across on our hike.

This is the Nakalele blowhole.

You can get to the blowhole from two different ways. These are the people that didn't want to hike (the easier) path down to the blowhole. Ryan and I hiked the scenic path.

These rocks were described as 'acid-washed' in my guide book.

We came across a meditation labyrinth on our hike out. It brought me back to being at KokoLulu a few weeks back.

LOL - on the way home, I asked Ryan to fill up my water bottle with one of our larger bottles of water. The large bottle of water was seriously filled to the brim and this is what happened when I put the brakes on to make a turn - lol. Ryan is such a good sport!

~Ashley

Saturday, Sunday and Monday

Saturday {2-26-11}
Move out day from the med student house. Got up early and started cleaning, packing and cleaning some more. Here are some pictures of the house my classmates and I stayed in.

The kitchen. We had way more than enough stuff in this kitchen including about 50+ plates, 75 glasses, and hundreds of spoons and forks. I'm thinking that the owners of this home tend to not throw anything away...it probably keeps accumulating here - ha!

The "master bedroom" that Kelsey and I shared. We had a fantastic view of the ocean!

Our living room. {Hi Ryan!}

Part of the lanai which wrapped all the way around the house.

A view down the driveway to the ocean.

View of the house from the road.

Once the house was pretty much cleaned, Ryan and I headed into our rental house in Kona and hung out with our parents for the rest of the day. {I took a snooze when I got there....it was a good thing - ask Ryan}. Later in the evening, Wade and Sean came over for dinner prior to Wade checking his flight off the island. We made steak and veggie kabobs on the grill. It was delicious.

Sunday {2-27-11}
We loaded up the SUV and headed out the explore the south part of the island. I had my trusty Big Island Revealed book to guide us. My intention for the day was going to a green sand beach. The first green sand beach on the map was six miles down an unpaved 6 mile long road which according to Big Island Revealed needed a 4WD vehicle to access. No problem - we have 4WD! After missing the turn the first time, we turned around and started venturing down a road which I wasn't completely sure was the Road to the Sea but I figured we'd give it a try. Well, the road kept going and I was pretty sure it was the right road as I could see it leading to, well, the sea! We averaged about 5 mph. It was a bumpy ride to say the least. We got half way there before we stopped the vehicle and got out to inspect the road ahead of us. Unfortunately our 4WD vehicle didn't have enough clearance to make it over some of the spots in the road and we had to turn around :( Bummer!

Dad and I headed to check it out while Mom documents the adventure!

I was so bummed. I could follow this all the way down the the green sand beach but we just weren't able to make it {at least not without damaging our rental}.

 So we turned around. At one point we all had to bail out of the car as we got stuck on a rock and happened to burn a little rubber attempting to get over it. Once we were all back in the car we headed back up the bumpy little unpaved road. Meanwhile, we met Jeep Wranglers headed down to the ocean with their surf boards :( How much to hitch a ride? When we were almost back out onto the main road, we saw these two animals up ahead. They were big, like pigs but with huge tails. We figured they must be dogs. The disappeared into the woods. That is until we were driving past them when one of these ferocious puppies came running after us, barking like mad. I bolted to the window switch as there was no way I wanted him jumping into the window. It would have resulted in multiple stitches. I can't even image what this dog would have done had someone been walking by - yikes!

On the {regular} road again. We were on our way to South Point - the southernmost point in the United States {not Key West as many people assume}.

There was interesting landscape at South Point...

...and huge waves

This is the southernmost point in the United States.

Looking at something cool {I think it was little crabs running around}.

There is a little trail just to the north of this beach which leads to another green sand beach but we weren't able to hike there as everyone was with. Oh well, I'll put a green sand beach on my bucket list.

Look out Ryan!

After leaving South Point we stopped for lunch at the Southernmost bar in the United States in Na'alehu.

The service was slow, but the food was good. After eating we continued on to Punalu'u Black Sand Beach. Once there I saw this sign...

and then I got to see this...

Hello Mr. Sea Turtle. I'm happy to see you sunning yourself.

My dad and me checking out the sea turtles in the water.

This one hung on to the food it was eating while the waves came through.

It was nice to watch this sea turtle until this tour bus full of Japanese people came and literally swarmed us :( They, all of a sudden, were everywhere with there cameras going nuts. Time for us to head out because they were taking over the beach.  On our walk back to the car, there was karaoke going on in this little pavilion. O.M.G. there was someone singing who 1) didn't know the words to the song 2) sounded like they could have been consuming a fair number of adult beverages as the pitch was so incredibly off and/or 3) did not speak English as their primary language. lol - it was worth a good laugh :)

Monday {2-28-11}
Goodbye Big Island. Hello Maui!

We got up somewhat early, cleaned and packed up our stuff prior to heading to the airport for our flights to Maui. We were all on three separate flights which left at varying times. As Ryan and I were getting dropped off at the terminal by the rental car company, I got a call from our airline notifying us that our flight was going to be delayed 1-2 hours :( So after hanging out with our parents for a bit, we decided to check in and wait in the airport terminal since we were already there. There was a super long line for Ryan and I. We were behind this guy from Alaska who had a terrible sunburn on his upper body. He was a little odd as well. Anyways, one of the flights to Maui on our airline had been canceled that morning so getting to the ticket counter took f.o.r.e.v.e.r! Once we were next in line, one of the employees asked if we were on the 1245p canceled flight. Nope, we were on the 115p flight. She gave us a look, asked our last name and then told us she'd be back. Ryan and I figured something bad was going to happen, like the flight was canceled or something and we were going to be stuck on the big island {not that that in itself is entirely bad by any means}. She came back and told us we needed to go to the commuter terminal which was about a half mile away. Once we got to the commuter terminal we saw our plane...

Woo hoo - gotta love little puddle jumpers!

While waiting at the "ticket counter" we were joined by some military servicemen...

They meant business I guess - ha!

There was absolutely no security at this terminal. Once the flight was ready to leave, they called us by name to get onto the plane. The plane was a little 9-seater. Once we were all on, the pilot jumps in, turns around in his seat and said "I just need to go over some safety information with you guys. The exit is where you came on the plane." He then turned around and we were on our way. lol

The view from my window.

I was pretty darn close to the wheel.

Once we landed, we got our luggage....

...went to Alamo to pick up our rental van, met up with my parents, stopped at K-Mart to pick up a few groceries and then headed to our rental house where we had to enter a code to open the gate to our private estate. Talk about feeling like a VIP.

The view to the ocean from our lanai.

The private pool and hot tub!

More on the rental house here in Maui and what we've been up to since we got here tomorrow. I'm hitting the hay.

~Ashley

Picking up where I left off

Thursday {2-24-11)
I had the day off for presentation preparation. I received a book from Dr. Martin on acupuncture in pregnancy when I was at her office. So I spent a majority of the day at Mauna Kea Beach reading this book. It was a really interesting read. To get to the beach was rather interesting. There is a large German software company which has been on the big island for the past week and they rented out four of the really large resorts for their people. Anyways, beaches are all public access but the Mauna Kea resort would not let us access the beach through their property. So, to get there, we had to drive down the road to Hapuna Beach, walk across that beach and then hike a little trail to the Mauna Kea Beach. The hike was right along the ocean which was so beautiful. We walked past all of these huge multi-million dollar homes with their infinity pools and floor-to-ceiling windows on the way there. What it must be like to have a huge vacation home on the beach in Hawaii *sigh* maybe someday - yeah right. I'd rather just vacation here than own a home here. Once we got to the Mauna Kea beach, it was gorgeous! Check out my view...

Excuse me - I just vomited a little - ha! {No seriously, this really was my view - lol}

I laid out on the beach and read my acupuncture book for a few hours...

...until I got a call from Ryan's mom that their flight had landed {oops, I thought it wasn't supposed to land for another 2 or so hours!} So I picked up all my stuff and started the 15 or so minute hike back to the Hapuna beach parking lot. I was a little bummed that I was going to miss an awesome sunset. Hands down, likely the best sunset we've had since I've been on the island. And not to mention, the air was so clear today unlike must days which are voggy {volcano smog}.

This is the only picture I got of the sunset which I captured on my cellphone :(

One of my classmates sent my this picture mail to let me know what I was missing out on :( Isn't it gorgeous?! Oh well, I was picking up family which was more important.

Once I picked up Steve and Renee, we had some time to kill before my parent's flight and Ryan's flight got into the island. So we drove into Kona and I took them to get Hawaiian Ice :-) Mmmm. After we finished eating, we headed back to the airport as my parent's flight had just arrived. My parent's picked up a {supposed} four wheel drive vehicle so we could do some things a regular car would not be able to take us to. We met up with my parents and waited for a few minutes in this little dirt parking lot until Ryan's flight arrived. Once we picked him up, we drove to our rental home on the south side of Kona.

Wanna see pictures of the house? It was gorgeous and right on the ocean!

This is the view from the lanai!

Here is a picture of the living room. Unfortunately I didn't take pictures of the bedrooms/dining room/lanai/kitchen. I'm hoping my mom, Ryan or Renee got pictures. If so, more picture to come soon.

I hung out with Ryan, my parents and my in-laws until 9pm or so and then made the hour and fifteen minute trek back on to the North Kohala coast to the house I was staying in to work on my presentation for the next day. When I got home, all my roommates were in the living room with their laptops working on their presentations. So I joined the club and got to work. I was exhausted so I didn't quite finish the whole presentation but I got a fairly good start before heading to bed while the roomies watched Austin Powers.

Friday {2-25-11}
I woke up, worked on my presentation, packed some of my clothes, cleaned up a little, worked on my presentation until it was finished and then left for the hospital to give my presentation. The presentations over all went fairly well. I was second to go and was glad to just have it done and over with. The only thing that kind of irritated me was this little speech we received from one of our course directors {for the second time none-the-less} but he had to give it to us again in front of all the other faculty {secondary motive? maybe? possibly? I think maybe so.} Anyways, when we went to the south part of the island, we packed our lunch {which consisted of turkey sandwiches, fruit and diet coke in addition to some snacks for the car ride including cheese balls and animal crackers} since it was a long car ride and we never know when food is provided or not. Anyways, one of my classmates got the bright idea to show the course director our snack food {minus the sandwiches and fruit mind you} for reasons I don't know and the course director kind of freaked out and told us that food will kill us. Yeah, maybe he is right, but it is what it is. Anyways, he brought up our stupid snack food again at the presentation and told everyone there that he was appalled we would make such food choices. Ok - what was the point of bring this up again - to make us all feel about an inch tall? Anyways, moving on. I'm over that. Presentations and course is now done.

On a more positive note, it was great to see some of the instructors we had throughout the three weeks. These people really did make a difference in my life by opening it up to several other possibilities in medicine. Overall the course was fantastic! I would recommend it to all of my classmates. It's too bad that they only take six students a year and even with that, with budget cuts all, that might be going lower in years to come. Which is a shame really but the things I've learned on this rotation, they just don't expose you to in medical school. I feel this experience has contributed to making me a more well-rounded person. I have made some of the best memories these past few weeks which will last a lifetime.

On our way to our final presentations in good 'ol K'hol!

After the presentations were over, we headed back to the house so that Nick could pack his stuff as he had a Friday night flight off the island. Once he was packed, the whole crew headed down to my families place in Kona for dinner. We had steak, Ono fish, and potatoes on the grill which were all excellent! Once dinner was done and the dishes cleaned, it was time for Nick to be dropped off at the airport, so we all piled into K'hol  with Ryan this time and headed back up to the coast, dropped Nick off and then went back to our house.

Nice Hawaii....most places call them bumps, but Speed Hump? It's definitely worth a good chuckle. These signs were all over the airport and the island.

We spent the night hanging out, having some drinks, looking at pictures and playing dice. When Ryan and I went to bed, Kelsey, Wade and Sean were still up so I knew Ryan and I wouldn't be getting a full nights sleep. Sure enough, I heard the Tiffany "I think we're alone" song come on and knew the three of them would be in our room very shortly. I think it was the second night in the house when Wade taught us his Tiffany dance and every day/night since that night we would all do the Tiffany dance. So once I heard the song, I knew the three of them would be barging into my room for a dance party. Lol. What it would have been like to have cameras in that house - ha! Good times!

Saturday {2-26-11}
To be continued...

*sigh* I'm tired. We are headed out early tomorrow morning on the Road to Hana. So I'm going to go to bed. I'll update {and hopefully make it all the way current} tomorrow.

~Ashley