We Take Ourselves With Us

We arrived back in Oahu early in the morning and said goodbye to the Pride of America.  To take advantage of considerable savings on our airfare, we were staying another night on the island, so we headed back to the good old Doubletree, only to find out that we were not alone.  Rubiks Cubes, baby!! After looking at our flight plans, I decided to book an extra night at Rubiks Cube world headquarters because our plane wouldn't be taking off until about midnight the next day.  Checking out twelve hours before that didn't make a lot of sense.  (It turned out to be a very good idea.) After dropping our bags, we made a slow drive to our next adventure, stopping along the way to pick up lunch and admire another bright, gorgeous Hawaii day. Ned and the kids went parasailing, while I sat on the beach, reading. But, that was not enough adventure for the Kress-Davis family--half the day was still left! In researching things to do on Oahu, one un...

One of the best ways to experience the full scope of Kauai's beauty is by helicopter.  As we were planning this trip, we looked at a bunch of tour companies and decided upon Blue Hawaiian Helicopters .  It turned out to be a pretty popular choice, so we needed to boot our tour from the first day on Kauai to the second.  That's always a risk because Hawaiian weather can be a bit changeable, so we elected the first tour of the day just in case we needed to rebook for later.  Ah, logistics! Anyway ... we needn't have worried: look at that blue sky! Blue Hawaiian runs about five helicopters for each tour time, and while we waited, it was fascinating to watch them all zoom back out and in along the same path, perfectly in line as if connected by an invisible thread, and then float softly back to earth.  When it was our turn, we ducked our heads (for no real reason other than that's what people do on tv) and hustled to our helicopter, through the remarka...