Yes, yes, yes, you’re seeing correctly. SHE’S BACK. Or, was back, rather. I waited months for this second trip to paradise.

Some people get a little ballsy and say stuff like ‘you’re still in the U.S. why wouldn’t you go to some other tropical island? Plus you’ve already been there.’ Well, sir, firstly, had you ever visited Hawai’i in the first place you would know that Hawai’i feels nothing like a state in the U.S. Natives still dislike us… Second, had you ever met me you’d know that I DO WHAT I WANT. It’s a set of beautiful islands in the middle of the pacific six time zones away from this place. [perfection] So don’t bitch about my tropical choices when you’re sitting on your ass in your living room eatin’ cheetos.

MOVIN’ ON.

I introduce to you, paradise.

Days 1-3 Oahu

I met my man on Oahu toward the end of his conference. Most of this time I spent by myself, which was great because since I was an Oahu pro by now I could navigate the entire island and knew exactly where I wanted to go and what I wanted to see/do.

I landed and immediately picked up my convertible. 😎

I was greeted with a love note  😘 which was followed by some beach time and of course a brewery.

On the second day we adventured a bit together before he had to work. We drove to the south west side of the island and hit a small empty beach, then climbed Diamond Head on the way back.

After getting my Honolulu fix, on my third day I basically went around the entire island. (Yes, there’s more to Oahu than Honolulu…)

I woke up at 5, top down, music on, on the road at 5:30, sunrise in Kailua (east side of Oahu) at 6. It looked something like this:

I went north from there and it all looked something like this:

Around 4pm I ended up in Haleiwa. I was BEAT. I headed back down the center of the island to meet my man for dinner.

& that was that. Goodbye Oahu…for now. 😉

Next morning, 6am…time to get my ass on a plane and head to the Big Island.

The crater below is Diamond Head.

I’m still in disbelief of how much I did on this first day. So this first picture above is literally most of the big island; volcanic desert nothingness. I drove through this for well over an hour, diagonally across the island to the east side, to get to the second photo. Worth it completely.

The rest of my day consisted of snorkeling with the turtles, a brewery tour [amazing] and chillin’ on this roughly 30 yard beach area on the side of the road in downtown Kailua-Kona. This by far was the most magical thing I experienced. This local woman was dancing in the crashing waves, in this little deep pocket of the clearest water I had ever seen. I was hesitant to join her for a while. I watched for a bit and then mother nature decided my fate. A huge wave wrecked my fully clothed ass. So I went to the car, changed into my suit and got in. There was really no room for anyone else to join us, that’s how small this pocket was. There were volcanic rocks all over the place, too, so you always had to be watching. Sometimes I wrecked on one but I couldn’t even care. This was paradise and I swear to you I was Moana. I then started talking to this lady who had been sitting on the beach the entire time and she offered me a beer and we chatted a long while while the sun set. I learned that at 36 she dropped her two kids with their dad and came to live on the big island about a month earlier. She sits on the beach almost everyday and makes jewelry while staying with her friend. She was absolutely hilarious.

The next morning we slowly awoke from our slumber and went to a coffee farm for a tour. Then I took Arv to my snorkel spot. 😉 After that we headed to the most southern point of the U.S.

Finally, we got to our air b and b around 9pm and we were exhausted. When we woke up we realized that we were literally on a resort on the black sand beach. What a pleasant surprise!

We spent most of that day in Volcano National Park which just so happened to have a winery in it…so needless to say we enjoyed our time there. 😜

The National Park was pretty much this barren crater land. ^

We took a light hike through a lava tube and then waited for the sun to set to see the active lava flow. Arvind was the photographer for that. It’s pretty hard getting photos from like a mile away, esp at night.

On our last day we found a man made swimming hole, cleaned up and then began our 4 flight trek home.