Guest, Fireworks, More Travel Plans

Note: This is another blog based on my weekly emails to my family on the mainland.]

7/6/24

 

Aloha  Folks  -- 

Happy 4th of July!  We spent most of ours whacking a golf ball and feeding the course peacocks atMakalei.  For the first time in quite a while we did all 18 holes -- aspirationally, that is.  On a few holes

Kona's Little Big Bang

we cut the frustration short, but otherwise it was an enjoyable outing. We wanted to get in as much as we could because we'll be gone on our Canada/Utah trip coming up and won't play until we return.  Doing all 18 was rather tiring (remember, this represents A LOT of strokes for us duffers) but the effort gave us a sense of accomplishment. After dinner we made a quick trip down to the waterfront for the town fireworks display -- all 7 minutes of it.  Though very short, the display was surprisingly good, with a few giant ones that filled to sky above Kailua Bay.  This was certainly a low-effort outing.  It took about 10 minutes to drive to the Lowe's parking lot above town, then we managed to avoid any heavy traffic returning home after the show.  Round trip was about 30 minutes!

Earlier in the week we had a short visit from our friend from France, the expat we visited last year who moved to Nimes after the 2016 election,  She only stayed a couple of nights, but it was great showing her around a little bit.  We first met her when we crossed paths on our tour of Bhutan.  Like us, she had a guide and driver, and was going to areas less frequented by tourists.  The limited infrastructure of the country meant that we followed the same route and sometimes wound up in the same hotels.  She's an avid independent traveler, an approach to travel we definitely share.  We've stayed in touch all these years and it was great fun to compare travel notes from adventures since we met in Bhutan.

 

Speaking of travel, we are continuing to make arrangements for upcoming trips.  It probably sounds like a lot of planning because for various reasons we've found ourselves making plans for three trips at once --usually the planning is much more spread out. Our Thailand/Cambodia trip in November is nearly done.  We have decided to stay in a coastal resort area called Khao Lak, about an hour north of Phuket. Just off the coast there are a couple of National Underwater Parks that have highly rated snorkeling and diving. We've booked a hotel in Khao Lak and we'll soon book one in Bangkok for a few days upon arriving in Thailand.  Still left to do are the flights from Bangkok to Phuket, and from there to Phnom Penh and finally our international flights between here and SE Asia. Whew!  We're also going to be making our yearly quick trip to Ohio to visit friends in September, with a stopover for a few days in Colorado on the way back. This one doesn't require quite as much planning, but it needs to be done soon.

 

Ok, that's about it.  This may be the last missive for a while, depending on how busy we are during our trip. In the meantime, carpe diem and resist the gaslighting attempts all around us these days.........