All good things must come to an end. As with most vacations, I have a hard time saying good bye, especially when saying goodbye means leaving the 80 degree weather to return to cold, dreary, and gray Seattle. Sigh. Don’t get me wrong, I love Seattle; I just love it a little less in the winter.
Dan and I spent our last day relaxing by the pool at our resort. We were fortunate enough to stay at the Grand Hyatt in Poipu, totally out of our league, but beautiful none the less. The grounds were pristine, the staff courteous and friendly, and the rooms spacious. Although, I will be quite honest and demand that they reconsider their asking price of $50 for grilled tofu. Needless to say, we did very little sampling of the resort restaurants. Despite the overpriced edibles we developed a fondness for the Grand Hyatt that is likely to be unmatched. With a water slide, lazy river, multiple pools, and hot tubs, we remained fairly water logged for the entire trip. I also found the resort parrots to be loveable and humorous.
Before our red-eye flight back to Seattle we took the afternoon to explore the botanical gardens in Poipu. We could have spent days exploring the hundreds of acres of tropical flowers, plants, and trees, but the mosquitoes were abundant and my arms were beginning to swell up in masses of red lumps from dozens of bites.
As we were getting back into the car Dan noticed that my face looked a little funny. I shrugged it off as a mean joke, but a quick glance in the mirror proved this was no joking matter. The mosquitoes not only loved my arms, legs, and torso, but my whole face was covered in bites too. Now, I don’t know about you, but when I get bit by a mosquito I develop a pretty major reaction, the bites sometimes swell into baseball sized lumps, turn bright red, and are extremely hot to the touch. Oh and did I mention they itch? I’m surprised they let me on the plane looking as though I was infected with some strain of measles or mumps. I couldn’t help but slightly wish they would have detained me, a few more days in paradise would have been bliss – even with large red lumps all over my body.
But alas, there we were, shuffling onboard our Alaska Airlines flight with everyone else. I think I caught a few kids pointing at me; either that or they were alarmed by the 10 days of accumulated sunburn Dan was sporting. Either way, what a sight we were.
Now back in Seattle my mosquito bites are completely healed and we are in the process of putting together our next trip. We are thinking Central or South America sometime in late April, although I have to admit I worry what their mosquitoes are capable of. We are open to any advice or suggestions (either about where to go or how to avoid those blood sucking beasts!). We hope you have enjoyed our journey to Maui and Kauai. I wish the photos would have turned out better, but working around a faulty camera was difficult. In fact, after taking it into the shop it was deemed a total loss, so I upgraded to a Canon 50D – YES! Let’s see what this thing is capable of! Until then, mahalo for following my journey and until next time, Aloha!
80 °F
80 °F
