Our first trip of the new year went off with just a small hitch! We went to Hawaii in January on another Geocaching Cruise with Norwegian Cruise Lines and Geocaching Adventures. We met up with some old friends from the other cruise and met some new people. We almost didn't make the cruise after our flight broke down here in Billings. We had to take a later flight and spent the night in Seattle. It was a pretty posh motel that we stayed in. The next day at o' dark thirty we were on the plane to Hawaii and managed to just make the cruise with a few hours to spare. We checked into the ship and then took off for a few hours to do some hunting. I had a goal of visiting Dog the Bounty Hunters' digs there in Hawaii which we made our first stop. I have a new travel bug doll named Walter who wanted to log his first stop at the Dog House. They were off filming so it was pretty quiet. We then went around the corner to the Dog Shop where we purchased a few items.
We made our way back to the ship to leave at 7:00 pm and meet up with the other folks in our group of 15. We went to four islands on this cruise, spending overnights on Maui and Kauai where we rented a car and geocached around the islands. It was great and on the last day, we took an 8 hour tour of Oahu where we visited the Dole factory and a couple of other areas. Of course I got some great photo's which I hope will win an award or two at the Montana State Fair. Last year, I won a Best of Show for one of my jewelry designs which blew me away. I also was able to get a second place award for my sand collection. I have more to add to that so I can put it in again for this coming year. I hope to take home another ribbon!
We both enjoyed our first adventure of 2011. We were able to go around the end of the Big Island where the active volcano was putting out some hot lava. The ship turned out all the lights so we could see the glow of the lava running into the sea. The food was pretty good and I especially enjoyed our cabin which was not in the basement of the ship this year! We did a lot of walking and saw a great deal of beautiful things. We were pretty tired when we came home and I was glad I took an extra day off to rest.
The government of this country is so messed up! No one knows what the other hand is doing and it is just too complicated. Unless the Republicans get a good person lined up to take the presidency, we will be stuck with the one we have now and then...God help us! I don't want to imagine what will happen! Do you realize that we are more in debt money wise than there have been stars counted in the sky? It is hard to believe! We need to cut spending but they have to watch out a little. Why not cut spending from the Space budget? We don't need to be fiddling around with going to Mercury or Mars or beyond. Lets put all of that money back into the budget and pay off some of the debt. Instead of paying out so much to other countries, lets start helping our own people. For God's sake, lets get the hell out of Libia
Well, enough of my ranting. I just had to get this out as it was just eating at me. We have one more trip planed this year and are not sure when we will be going yet. It is to the South East where we will pick up the rest of the states. After this, we will have gotten caches in all 50 states! It will be soooooo coooool to put that on our finished "bucket list".
