Big Island Wrap up!

I would have liked to have posted every day while in Hawaii but we didn't always have internet access. This is a wrap up of a wonderful trip...

We got to swim with turtles! We saw this guy at Kiholo Bay, along with several others:

We got to tour a private garden in Kona with our host at Tiki Island Hawaii. This 8 acre property was a tropical paradise:

The second place we stayed was the Adventurous Lava Rock Hale: http://www.vacationhomerentals.com/vacation-rentals/Pahoa-Hawaii-vacation-rental-cottage-proID-40680.html. This was a unique experience! It was waaaay off the beaten path, off the grid and very tranquil.

Champagne Pond is a geothermally heated tide pool accessed by a rough lava road. It is a mixture of salt and fresh water that was about 90 degrees in some areas. The mixing of salt water, fresh water and different temperatures made for some psychedelic underwater viewing...every time you passed into a different water field the water was wavering as if you were in the Matrix!

This was the closest we got to the current lava flow. The lava in the foreground is about 2 weeks old and still too hot to walk on. The steam in the distance is rising from the lava flowing into the ocean.

We saw several waterfalls, this one is Rainbow Falls:

One of the most amazing snorkeling experiences was at Kapoho Tide Pools. The picture doesn't do the place justice...it was acres and acres of large and small tide pools with crystal clear water and many, many beautiful fish and corals just waiting to be discovered.

On the last full day we stopped at the end of the northern road at Pololu Valley Lookout and hiked down to the beach below:

Altogether a fabulous trip!

Big Island - Day 2

Started the day out by snorkeling at Kahalu'u Beach Park. Swam with turtles and saw so many varieties of fish! I wonder if one could ever get tired of seeing the incredible variety of sea life and landscapes and colors under water?

Next we headed North hoping to find a good swimming beach. Stopped at the Old Airport park to eat and hike to a potential snorkeling spot. Turns out the lava was too crazy for the shoes we were wearing to make it to the snorkeling spot. Flip flops aren't the best shoes for lava walking!

Then we headed north in search of Kekaha Kai State park. Traveling North of the current airport, we turned off onto a road that was paved at one time. Now it is a roller coaster of bumpy lava...luckily we have a jeep, because this road wanted to jiggle the teeth out of your head! We couldn't believe some people had taken regular cars out there!

The beach was worth the jolting though...a postcard perfect beach, with thick white sand, shade trees, palm trees. lava in the distance and turtles! But not so great for swimming.

More exploring tomorrow...!

Big Island 2011, Day 1

So here we are on the Big Island, a mere 2 hour time difference from home, and weather pretty similar to home. We met some people last night who had barely made it out of Maine (via Boston) to get here, a true paradise for them!

We haven't planned anything in advance for this trip beyond our lodging. Our first 5 nights are at Tiki Island Hawaii, http://tikiislandhawaii.com/, a one bedroom apartment which is the first floor of a two story house on the hill above Kailua Kona. It's filled with tiki decor, a view to die for, a pool and lush gardens outside our door. We are a short 10 minute drive to the beach.

Day one, we visited Place of Refuge, ancient Hawaiian ruins, and snorkeled just around the corner at Two Step. It was an amazing snorkeing experience, we saw a turtle, many, many colorful tropical fish, many types of coral and I saw an eel. Then a picnic at the gorgeous, quiet, and somewhat secluded Place of Refuge picnic area.

Place of Refuge picnic area

In the evening we drove down into the tourist area of Kailua Kona and witnessed a beautiful sunset over mai tai's at Don the Beachcomber. I'm not too impressed by the tourist zone...but you can't beat the location:


Sunset at Don the Beachcomber's



Grapevine Canyon Hike, Laughlin, NV

Over Thanksgiving weekend we took a trip to Bullhead City, AZ to see some more Nu Wa 5th wheel trailers. I'm loving the Nu Wa Hitchhiker Discover America 345 LKWTB. This could be our next home!

Next day we went for a hike in Grapevine Canyon. About 6 miles West of Laughlin, NV off Hwy 163; take the Christmas Tree Pass dirt road a couple of miles North to the signed parking area for Grapevine Canyon.

Click on photo to enlarge and see lots of Petroglyphs!

Everything I had read about this canyon focused on the petroglyphs. And boy, there were a LOT of petroglyphs! Hundreds were clearly visible at the mouth of the canyon. Surprisingly, I had read very little about the canyon beyond the petroglyphs…because it was spectacular! The canyon was populated with boulders as big as houses, sandstone spires and lava ridges all around. This canyon would probably be difficult when the water was running and you wouldn't want to be in it if there was a threat of flash flooding. But at the end of November on a clear, cool, sunny day when the stream bed was virtually dry, the conditions were perfect.

We headed up canyon probably about two miles before we decided we could go no further. There was a fairly well used trail to follow which sometimes had to skirt the stream bed due to masses of dead grapevines. Sometimes we scrambled over large boulders. Always we had fabulous views of amazing rock formations and occasionally we were in a position to see for miles out to the Laughlin/Bullhead City valley. Being in remote desert canyons we were on the lookout for big horn sheep but only saw birds, rabbits and other small rodents. There were many trees scattered throughout the hike in the canyon bed and clusters of barrel cactus growing in the lava ridges.

The best part of the hike was the snaking, grapevine-like slot canyon about a mile into the trail. This slot canyon went a good quarter mile with smooth, curving walls, getting narrower with each turn. You could easily imagine the water rushing, banking and churning through those curves in a flash flood. At the narrowest point in order to get out of the slot we had to crab-walk up the sides, thankful for our super-grippy hiking shoes.

We decided to turn around when the canyon ended at some near vertical rock walls that rose at least 50 feet above us. We could have scaled the rock walls with our hiking shoes, but getting back down would have been very scary if we were unable to find another route down.
This was a fantastic hike that we highly recommend when conditions are dry but cold. You could easily add on more miles of interesting terrain.

Pomona RV Show and Hiking Mt San Jacinto

Gotta love a long weekend that includes lots of RV’s and a big hike!

Last Friday we attended the Pomona RV show, the biggest RV show in SoCal. After touring 5th wheels for 6 hours (!) I’d say our top 3 are now: Nu-Wa Hitchhiker (Discover America or possibly Champagne Edition), Heartland BigHorn, and Carriage Cameo. Here’s the floor plan for the Discover America 345 LK WTB that we liked:

Really, when it comes down to the final choice, all 3 of these manufacturers make a good, solid product that is well regarded for fulltime living. Ultimately it will come down to price and availability of the floor plan and amenities we want.

After the RV show, we headed to Palm Springs for the weekend. As we entered downtown we were surprised to see hundreds of bikers in town for a motorcycle rally weekend. It all looked like fun...really crowded and noisy with the hundreds of bikes noisily zipping around and the bars and restaurants full to bursting. Luckily we were staying at a small hotel on the South end of town, away from most of the noise.

Saturday morning we picked up a sandwich and headed for the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway. It’s a fun ride on a rotating tram car from the desert floor up to about 8,500 feet in the mountains. From the tram station we hiked to the top of Mt. San Jacinto, at 10,834 feet, one of the highest peaks in the continental US. At 11 miles round trip, this peak is very accessible for being over 10,000 feet. The trail has a couple of steep sections but if you take it slow and steady it is an excellent day hike.

By the time we got back to our hotel we were tired and hungry and not in the mood to be around the crazy crowds in downtown Palm Springs. We ended up going to the best rated restaurant (on Yelp) in PS: Palm Greens. What a joy it was to find this place, thank you Yelpers! Located in a strip mall on the South end of town, this small, casual restaurant has a serene atmosphere, with delicious, healthy, mindful food…it really was an oasis at the end of the day. We liked it so much we went back for breakfast Sunday morning!

It was great to get an RV fix this weekend. We can’t wait to be in the position to actually buy one!

August means visitors in San Diego

August is usually a busy month at our house; friends and relatives stay with us for the beach and for music events. This past week we had Hans’ cousins, the Mohr family, in from Seattle. Luckily the weather finally cooperated and they were able to enjoy the beach, plus we enjoyed a terrific family get together in Poway, as well as a nice dinner out at Proper Gastropub.

The Mohr’s left on Friday and Frankie and the Pool Boys arrived Friday afternoon. (BIG Thanks to the Mohr’s for readying the house for the next guests--you rock!!) Frankie and the Pool Boys is a five member surf band on a California tour. They played Friday night at the Soda Bar, along with Secret Samurai and the Space Cossacks. Great show! Loud venue! Late night for this early bird! :p

Before they headed off to the Surf Guitar 101 convention in Los Angeles on Saturday we filled them up with some healthy muffins and fruit. I’d like to share the recipe for these muffins because they were exactly what I was hoping for: reasonably healthy, fruity and not too sweet.

Blueberries have been fat and juicy this summer and I was imagining them as hot, gooey pockets of moistness in carrot muffins. I found inspiration on 101 Cookbooks, an excellent vegetarian blog; Heidi’s carrot cake recipe was the perfect starting point and didn’t take much adapting to come up with what I had in mind.

Here is my take on Carrot Blueberry Muffins. This recipe probably would have made about 15 muffins but I only had one 12 slot muffin tin and I poured the remainder of the batter into a mini loaf pan. Also, I replaced the chopped pecans with some ground pecans I had on hand. These were wonderful served warm.

Carrot Blueberry Muffins

2 cups whole wheat flour
2 ½ teaspoons baking powder
1 ½ teaspoons cinnamon
¾ teaspoon salt
¾ cup finely chopped pecans
4 ounces unsalted butter, heated until just melted
½ cup dried cranberries, finely chopped
3 ripe bananas (about 1 ¼ cups) mashed well
1 ½ cups grated carrots (about 3 medium)
½ cup plain Greek yogurt
2 eggs, lightly whisked
¾ cup fresh blueberries

Preheat oven to 350F. Spray a regular size muffin pan and a mini loaf pan with non-stick cooking spray.

Mix together the flour, baking powder, cinnamon and salt. Stir in the pecans and set aside.

Stir the cranberries into the melted butter.

In a separate bowl combine the bananas and carrots. Stir in the cranberry butter mixture. Whisk in the yogurt and eggs. Add the flour mixture and stir just until everything comes together. Gently stir in blueberries. Spoon into prepared muffin tin. Any leftover batter can be poured into the mini loaf pan. Bake muffins for 20 minutes, or until a toothpick tests clean. Bake the mini loaf for 30 minutes, or until a toothpick tests clean.

Not the Status Quo

The reactions you get when telling people you are considering doing something outside the norm are interesting. This lifestyle change we are working towards includes both early retirement and fulltime RVing…two things that just don’t make sense to many people.

Early retirement entails taking a leap of faith. Faith that you have saved enough money to get you through the rest of your life…quite possibly another 40 or more years. Faith that you will get beyond the butterflies in your stomach and go for it…knowing that the freedom that lies ahead is exactly what your soul craves.

When you go to work every day and find yourself all tensed up, frustrated and stressed out fulfilling someone else’s needs you begin to wonder, what’s the point? If I can afford to remove the greatest source of stress from my life, what’s stopping me? I know that life will always have stressors, some quite challenging, but I’d prefer they relate directly to my life, instead of in support of some anonymous company. Selfish? Perhaps. But like I said before, if I can afford to change my circumstances, why the heck not?!?! Hans’ view may be a bit different than mine, but it is similar.

Hans and I have scrutinized our financial situation to death. Hans is eligible for a pension at age 55 that we could live on, simply, for the rest of our lives. Our house is paid off and is worth a nice bundle and we don’t want to be landlords. So we sell the house…big influx of cash right there…and gain the catalyst for this next phase of our lives. We’ve worked hard to save a sizeable amount of cash, plus we have several 401k-type plans, and eventually, Social Security.

Ultimately, good financial habits and being lucky in San Diego real estate will allow us to make this leap of faith into early retirement.

As for fulltime RVing, you’d have to have a bit of wanderlust in you to understand that desire. Many people we’ve talked to think we’re crazy to give up a nice house in a great neighborhood in San Diego. San Diego is, after all, known to have possibly the best climate in the US. But when you’ve got a bit of wanderlust in your blood and you feel like you’ve explored every corner within a hundred miles of this city, you begin to wonder what the heck you’re going to do with your time when you’ve retired.

Then you realize that this house is not a house you want to grow old in. And that you really are more comfortable in cooler climates. But most of all you think of all the places you want to explore in depth…the green, wet rainforests of the Olympic Peninsula, the surreal landscapes of Utah, the North West coast, the wide open spaces and gorgeous mountains of Montana and Wyoming, the regional food experiences…the list goes on and on and you know there are places you haven’t even thought of left to discover.

But who wants to explore these places from nondescript hotel rooms, paying for meals out all the time, with your kitty shacking up with your friends? Not us! As fulltime RVers, we’ll have our home with us everywhere we go, our beloved cat right by our side. I’ll still be able to cook, something that’s important to me, and that will save us a lot of money and be a lot healthier. We’ll be able to change our location on a whim, following our little wanderlust-filled heart’s desire.

I am sure life on the road won’t be without its challenges. But what in life is not?