The North Shore is a route I was very used to taking friends along to do, but this time we used the Shaka guide and we stopped at a couple new to me places. According to many I do the route backwards… but it’s my favorite way to do it.
So you start with Dole plantation and see all the pineapples. I liked my dole whip, Charisse did not. Crazy, I know.
Then you get up to the North Shore and see some turtles.
We stopped for a sandwich at a local fave, called Waialua Bakery. I remember only being mildly impressed myself but I may have bought the wrong thing.
And a stop at the North Shore soap factory! We had a great conversation with the worker- we talked about sustainability and they’re working on shampoo bars but apparently it’s a tricky recipe to master.
Then drive along the shore and basically sightsee. Maybe stop for shopping or foodie spots. Then we went to a new-to-me spot, which is a location where Forgetting Sarah Marshall was filmed. It’s called Kawela Bay Beach Park. There was a giant Banyan tree. I weirdly don’t have a picture of the bay. Oh well.
I weirdly don’t have any more pictures from this day, usually I’m beyond exhausted at this point, but regardless it was a good day adventuring around the Oahu perimeter as usual!
I’ll take any opportunity to bring someone to Manoa chocolate in Kailua so we went for a “tour” and chocolate tasting. The tour is in one room, but you do move around the room! Everyone’s really there for the chocolate tasting. This reminds me all my chocolate is packed up, and I’m praying it makes it to our destination ok. I digress. I invited the officer spouses’ club gang to join and some did! We had a great tour guide.
And then we went to Goen that night for dinner, another local to Kailua favorite spot.
We visited the beach for sunrise (always a fan favorite)
And I took her to my favorite Botanical Garden, Ho’omoluhia. I have plenty of pictures from that scenery, so I’ll add a few personal ones.
And that night we went to my favorite Luau on island, Nutridge. Always a pleasure joining them for the night! They are my favorite because the scenery is unbeat, the food is authentic and really good, the drinks are really good, and their max capacity is something like 70 people. There’s a great overlook of Waikiki on your drive up.
Well, well, well look who we have here… yup, it’s me, making an attempt at finishing out our time in Hawaii blog. And yes, life update, we are no longer in Hawaii… and we sorely miss it. But that’s not what this post is about!
Maybe we should start with why I stopped blogging. Well, I got pregnant, and, as they say, the rest is history. I wasn’t feeling super great so frankly I wasn’t doing much anyway. But there are some great memories here that I captured and I shall capture them in a blog, gosh darnit!
Charisse planned the trip perfectly as she arrived the day before Brian left for deployment. I went to my usual spot, waved my goodbye, and focused on the week ahead of hanging with a good friend from back home!
I said Bye to Brian and then met Charisse for dinner that night at Duke’s. We enjoyed a great meal on Waikiki.
We started the next day with a tour of the East Coast which included Halona blow hole, Haunama Bay, Koko Crater, Makapu’u lighthouse.
I feel like I have plenty of pictures of these spots already… so I will reserve some photo space for other adventures!
Will be chipping away at catching up gradually. Hopefully it won’t be too long because I lived a pretty “dull” life while pregnant. Thank you, nausea!
Bottleheads is a wine tasting venue with small plates available. They graciously hosted a huge crowd of us from KOSC. We sampled five wines including the first “palate cleanser”. It pretty much affirmed my already known taste which is I prefer really sweet wines. I really can’t remember the wine that I loved… will have to come back and edit once I know. But anyway, it was a fun night out with the crew!
I had not yet been to HoMA and there was a new installation of flower art that recently opened, so when a KOSC event was organized I decided to join! Awakening is a long tunnel of hanging flower (and microplastic) art. We weren’t allowed to take pictures until the end, which I think is a good thing, so this is the end and one short portion of it.
You can view a video of her creative process here. I’m pretty confident all the flowers came from Oahu, but I’m not 100% sure. I couldn’t take pics of the part with microplastics, but you get the point. The color gradients were so beautiful.
And now you’re asking what’s up with your foot? I’ve had pain in my foot for greater than a year. The strangeness of this pain is I’ve been able to stretch it away, meaning if I put the ball of my foot on a stair and stretch my calf, I could walk fine, and it would only hurt after I was stationary for a long time (think in the morning, and after a long car ride). Movement actually helped the pain and since, well, I move a lot, it wasn’t a biggie. However, it started getting more painful and lingering around for a while.
This is a long story…just preparing you. Skip to start here if you don’t care for details.
So I went to the orthopedist. And that’s when a whole slew of medical care issues started. She told me that the insurance would likely not reimburse an MRI without PT first. She said I wouldn’t hear from the imaging place unless it was approved, and she told me not to schedule a follow-up appointment until after I knew the course of action. After walking out of the appointment without scheduling a follow-up, I got an email that a follow-up was scheduled (weird). She also put in a refferal for PT.
The imaging place called nearly two days later, and I asked whether it was approved and would be reimbursed. She said she didn’t know, she was merely the appointment scheduler, but likely yes because that’s how she got the info. She told me to call the approval department. I called the approval department three times over three days, and it went straight to voicemail. Finally I figured out that it was a non functional extension, so I dialed straight to the receptionist. She told me that it was approved by tricare, but that’s not a guarantee it’d be reimbursed. And I said ok… well who can guarantee that? She told me to try Tricare (my insurance company). I called tricare, and she told me she can’t guarantee it’ll be reimbursed.
What kind of absolute CHAOS is our medical care system. How the heck am I supposed to not know how much a service will cost me before going to it? In what world does that make sense?? Yet here we are paying off student loans instead of medical debt.
Exasperated, I called the imaging place back asking worst case what it would cost, and she told me she couldn’t tell me. (This, I’ve later found out, is now illegal).
I talked to Brian and we both decided it was worth plowing ahead. Thankfully we’re in a position to handle this type of expense, but golly. What if we weren’t?
I also posted to a submarine spouse facebook group I’m in, and it turns out there are people fighting to get reimbursed for an MRI they did before going to PT. I haven’t seen a bill yet, but interestingly enough Tricare sent me a check for money, and I have no idea why.
In the meantime, I called my ortho asking why I had an appointment if I didn’t schedule it, and the receptionist said you must have scheduled it. Fine, I did, whatever, but should I keep it on the calendar? “I don’t know, do you want to?” Me: FORGET IT. Leave it on until I get MRI sorted out.
I went and got the MRI.
I show up to the appointment I did/n’t schedule and lo and behold someone else shows up for the exact same appointment time. She’s not on the calendar…The ortho is running TWO hours late. They give me the offer to reschedule, which I do. At which point I pointed out that there was a lady there not on the calendar and that it must’ve been what got confused and how I had an appointment I didn’t schedule (They used my info instead of hers). The receptionist says, no way, never could’ve happened. Me, ok, sure. I walk away thinking I’m just trying to make you aware that this could be an error, it’s truly not an ego thing.
An hour later I get a call from the receptionist: I wanted to call and apologize and tell you you were right, I scheduled her appointment under your name. Me: Wow, I am really impressed you’d call to admit that.
Start here again if you want the results.
I’ve went for an MRI and finally show up for my followup ortho appointment that I scheduled. She confirms there is a tear in my foot, plantar plate partial tear in the second metatarsal. She is optimistic I don’t need surgery. The prescription is two full weeks in the boot, the third week boot just at home, fourth wean off depending on pain. PT starts after two weeks.
As of this writing I am into week 2. I’m hopeful this resolves completely, and am generally very happy that it was diagnosed. I can still lift and stationary bike is encouraged. I can move, just more slowly, and stairs are a pain.
It’s slightly annoying but it was a long time coming. I honestly thought I might go and they say they don’t see anything wrong, or it was a stress fracture.
I am confident it’s an overuse injury that’s been festering for a long time. I am so happy I’m on a path to resolve it.
Last thing about the museum- we tried to eat at the cafe that had approximately 10 empty tables but were turned away because they’d been spoken for via reservation… my friend who asked was speechless. It’s supposedly a really great cafe but we were turned off by their inhospitality. So instead we went to the Food Company and ate traditional Hawaiian food.
Last year I took the course to get certified to drive a pontoon boat to the sandbar. You can rent these from MCBH and Brian wanted to take the wardroom out for some fun in the sun. So, I, Sarah, drove 5 Navy Sailor officers out to the sandbar.
We had a really great day of snorkeling, throwing the football, snacking, etc. We saw an incredible number of turtles, the most I’ve ever seen out there.
Since it had been a year and the ocean is huge, I had to re learn to navigate to and from the harbor, but I managed! We got there and back safely.
It was great to enjoy some relaxation time and celebrate Brian’s promotion together before a period of high intensity work for them.
In line with Navy operations, promoting to O4 is a weird journey of steps. First, you need to be looked at by some board with a lot of important people on it. If they say you should get promoted, then your name gets submitted on a list to congress who then needs to approve the promotion (this is called being selected). This happened on 28OCT21 You can (try) to read the formal communication about it here.
Finally, on Sept. 1st, 2022 he started being paid the O4 salary. Then, about a week later, we had the “formal” pinning ceremony and he finally gets to wear his oak leaf. Brian repeats an oath to serve the country to his CO.
I got to remove his old rank and put his new rank (oak leaf) on.
And we stay and celebrate with a couple beers after.
I am really proud of him for promoting. He’s very non chalant, “everyone promotes to O4”, but I don’t think he remembers all the people who don’t stay in this long to get promoted.
It was his last big goal in the Navy (beside retirement) and he made it. Proud of him!
Life’s been hectic trying to prep for deployment so I have been MIA. Brian and I made our slow way back to Paia town and stopped at any spots we missed along the way. Which included a small arboretum and a couple more beaches. There happened to be a red sand beach nearby and the path started right outside our hotel room. It was a quick walk, but there were signs all over the place warning of landslides and it was raining… so we worked quickly. I really just wanted to be able to say I’ve seen a red, black, and green sand beach.
The arboretum had rainbow eucalyptus, but we have them in our backyard so… not so impressive. Ha.
We arrived in Paia Town around lunch, and there was no parking… so we stopped at this place called My Thai Maui and holy moly the food was amazing. I would fly back to Maui just to eat there again.
We still had time to kill before our flight so we visited Maui Ocean Center. 10/10 recommend! The have one of those tunnels through their tanks and the sting rays are HUGE. We felt a little too hurried to get back to the airport, I would’ve loved to spend more time here, but it was a great stop.
This was an experience to remember, driving the road to Hana. I’m glad we did it once but likely I won’t do it again without a tour guide.
I’m glad we ended up going back the way we came. I have heard the road gets worse past Haleakala, and that’s where we ran into the most trouble with other cars anyway. I will also add that I have not felt more unwanted in an area of Hawaii than here… some local drivers gave no craps about the tourists driving their road and showed it. All in all, a great last trip to fill my cup before Brian leaves.
I somehow managed to wake up early enough to catch the sunrise and even though it wasn’t all *that* spectacular, I’ll take it. Brian sat with me for a few minutes and then went back to bed, that was allowed. We lazily made our way to breakfast at the hotel and then hit the road to Haleakala National Park. The road to Hana back here gets way worse, incredibly. Significantly curvier and more narrow. Still a spot to pull over to catch a waterfall. This one is Wailua falls.
It was about a 20 minute ride to Haleakala. We then hiked the Pipiwai Trail, which I had incredibly high expectations for and was looking to be the highlight of the trip for me and I’m happy to report it far exceeded them.
About a half mile in you reach waterfall number 1. Again it had rained over night so there was an awesome flow.
You come across a really big Banyan tree a little bit further.
Another small-ish waterfall.
A beautiful bridge leading into a bamboo forrest with, you guessed it, another waterfall.
Then you treck for what had to have been 3/4 of a mile through a bamboo forrest. It was incredible and the wind made the sound of the bamboo so cool.
And eventually you get to this sky-high waterfall called Waimoku falls. Because of the recent rain I imagine the falls on the left started flowing.
The picture of course doesn’t do it justice but it’s 200′.
And we made our way back down stopping for more pics to savor the moments and to listen to the bamboo. So incredible!
Toward the start of the hike there’s another scenic loop that brings you to the Seven Sacred Pools. There are actually a lot more than that but chop it up to marketing to use a catchy name. The pictures, again, don’t do this justice. It’s really beautiful.
That about wrapped up Haleakala, so we made our way back to Wainapanapa State Park. We stopped at one beach somewhere and got a better pic of the offshore island. It has a coconut palm on top, it was rumored to be planted by a father who lost his son in a war and planted it in his memory.
On our way back things got dicier on the road- we were finally kinda opposing a lot of traffic since we got to Pipiwai early since we were right in Hana and left relatively early. So we encountered a ton of cars going back, and the parking lot was nearly full. There was one point where these 2 20 YOs and us were stuck and they refused to go in reverse. Brian claims he was in the right and went through first, I was too busy looking around… we somehow managed to squeeze by but after that I pretty much made the decision we’d go back the way we came out of Hana as opposed to completing the circle.
Anyway, that was our only mishap, crazily and thankfully. Besides other people clearly not yielding… We found our way to Wainapanapa!
The Shaka app raved about this park, but to me it was kinda like eh just another black sand beach. There were some cool features, like this rock arch and lava tube to the ocean. Those people were in there for at least five minutes trying to take the perfect Instagram photo, so I just took a photo of them and left.
We did a walk around the coast for a bit, but we were already a bit tired from all the hiking earlier so we didn’t do the full thing. Just enough to get a taste and a better view of the bay.
And another small black sand inlet.
We also really weren’t wearing the right shoes for a long walk. So we called it and it was already around 3pm at this point and went back to the hotel to enjoy drinks at the pool.
