Pete's Blog

Bye to the Sands hello to the Marriott

Sorry, haven't posted here recently. Been having too much fun relaxing the Hawaiian way (doing nothing). Mike and Lisa wore us out with their hiking, flying, diving, hiking you get the point.

We attended a timeshare from hell presentation to get dinner cruise tickets on the Quicksilver. This was what greeted us when we went down on Front street to pick up the tickets. These big guys belong to Ruby (yes, by) Mazur, you will see more of him later. Wednesday, 11-12-08

Katie talking to Laura, a friend of Mikes that provided the tickets.

Wednesday, 11-12-08

A little blurb on Ruby (might have to click on it to make it bigger). He's a nice guy that has been doing album designs for many many recording stars for many years. His most famous trademark is the mouth that he designed for Mick Jagger. Wednesday, 11-12-08

The little Poodle that Laura is babysitting for... Wednesday, 11-12-08

Here is Ruby, Pete, and Katie in front of the big mouth and tongue that he designed. (He made us stick our tongues out!) Wednesday, 11-12-08

Mike and Lisa as we depart the harbor on the dinner cruise. Wednesday, 11-12-08

Pete and Katie about to leave the dock on the dinner cruise (note the Coast Guard boat in the background). Wednesday, 11-12-08

Sunset during the dinner cruise

Wednesday, 11-12-08

The moon peeking throught the clouds during the cruise, with the Khei lights below.

Wednesday, 11-12-08

Dinner is over and we're headed back to the harbor. Wednesday, 11-12-08

Mike and Lisa shooting a few hoops at the Sands after their SCUBA diving day. Thursday, 11-13-08

Pete and Katie (self portrait - shooting into the mirror didn't work - good thing Pete has long arms). We had just checked into the Maui Marriott and received our Leis.

Friday, 11-14-08

View from our room, 8109, this is the fancy pool area. Note the Volleyball activity in the foreground. Friday, 11-14-08

Right below our room, this fellow was shouting "Aloha" with every Propane powered Tiki Torch he lit. Here he is having a little assistant help him with one.

Friday, 11-14-08

The entertainer at Longboards (where the fellow was lighting the torches), he was great, now if the food was only as good... (purple mashed potatoes). Friday, 11-14-08

Pete and Katie (or at least their feet) relaxing at the pool.

Saturday, 11-15-08

Another self portrait of the lounging two.

Saturday, 11-15-08

Pete getting drenched in the hot tub.

(photo by Katie)

Saturday, 11-15-08

Katie catching up on her reading!

Saturday, 11-15-08

Spectacular sunset off of our deck.

Saturday, 11-15-08

Snorkeling

Super rainbow as seen from our balcony Monday, 11-10-08

Mike and Lisa trying to duplicate my excellent rainbow picture (they didn't!)

Monday, 11-10-08

Kaite headed toward Black Rock. Mike and Lisa had not snorkeled here before.

Monday, 11-10-08

Self portrait of Pete while off Black Rock.

Monday, 11-10-08

Mike climbing up the actual volcanic rock..

Monday, 11-10-08

Mike on his way down from the rock, he was the first to jump off this high while we were there but shortly after about eight more did it. Jumpers had to be careful of the swimmers below who were not paying attention to the jumpers.

Monday, 11-10-08

Mike snorkeling beside Black Rock.

Monday, 11-10-08

Pete saw this Turtle on the way back to the beach, only one he saw. Mike and Lisa said that they saw three near the rock.

Monday, 11-10-08

Previous picture enhanced with the photo program to better show Mr. Turtle. He swam right under Pete.

11-10-08

We're on vacation again....

We're in Hawaii for two weeks. Our first week is at the Sands of Kahana. Here Katie is looking down at the pool and hot tub with the beach to her left.
Friday, 11-07-08

The pool at night (if you look carefully you can see the "Sands of Kahana" logo on the bottom of the pool.
Friday, 11-07-08

Pete and Katie at dinner. We tried out the "Black Angus" that was a block from the Sands. This is where the Outback used to be (they moved closer to town, darn!).

Photo by Mike Toft.

Friday, 11-07-08

Pete at our "must do" Cheeseburger in Paradise. Having lunch. Not too crowded, we were able to get a table right away.

Picture by Katie Bickerdike

Saturday, 11-08-08

At the craft fair, this fellow was carving a giant Octopus "Tiki"

Saturday, 11-08-08

Tiki carvings in front of the theatre (across from the park), carver must have been on break
Saturday, 11-08-08

Lisa Toft showing off the flower she found at Whaler's Village. A shop owner said the "available" ear is the right one (left is for married - like the ring on the left hand). She had to chase the flower several times when the wind blew it off her ear.
Saturday, 11--8-08

Lisa and dad, Mike enjoy a Hula Pie at Leilani's where we all ate dinner. Lisa goes nuts over this desert!
Saturday, 11-08-08

Rainbow seen off the balcony (we had seen another on Friday but didn't have enough contrast to get a decent picture).

Sunday, 11-09-08

Last Sea Doo'ing for 2008!

Today we headed out to Long Beach for our last Sea Doo adventure of the year. Its time to put them in the garage for the winter. We had a super season this year.

With Kaitlyn, we went kind of late - left the house at 2 PM, but heck its about having fun!

Here Grandma and Kaitlyn await Grandpa parking the truck so they can get going.

Note Kaitlyn in the command position, she didn't leave that until we put the boats back on the truck two hours later.

Grandpa helping Kaitlyn steer, we were just off of the Long Beach Yacht Club property. Nobody out on the water.

Air temperature was 91 and the water 68 (12 degrees cooler than our last time in the ocean, but didn't feel too cold unless it was hitting you in the face).

Katie headed out of Alamitos Bay ahead of us

Kaitly working on coloring the Kid's menu at Lone Star.

We found out when the bill arrived that kids eat free! Not bad!

We're HOME

We arrived Tuesday at Laughlin, NV around 4 PM after leaving Page, AZ at 10 AM. We "gassed" up (diesel actually) in Flagstaff and ran into a real thunder and lightning storm in Kingman.

This was the view out of our room, if you look carefully you can see Davis Dam right in the middle of the picture (just over the top of the left side of the Riverside).

This was some of the stormy weather at Laughlin (never did rain, though).

Pete out on Lake Mojave Wednesday with Davis Dam over his left shoulder.

We stopped at the "jumping rock" inlet of the lake and found these guys interested in our Potato chips.

Katie headed out of the "jumping rock" canyon. The rock to the right is where people jump off of all levels. There was nobody around this day, the first time we've been in there without a party going on.

The cloud formations over the lake on Wednesday. Note that there are no other boats in sight. We counted only 10 other boats on the lake that day, a new record low for us. Water was super flat too.

Katie about to zoom off on the lake.

We headed back to LA on Thursday, arriving about 4 PM

Trip was over 5,100 miles, two days short of a month and no major problems

Our last day on Lake Powell

We headed off to Lake Powell again this morning after a big breakfast at Denny's

This is looking at the dam and lake as we drove over the bridge to launch at Wahweap today.

Launch ramp at Wahweap, no wait at all for launching or retrieving. We were able to park the truck in a "no trailer" lot that was close by.

Katie headed down the glassy water toward the dam

Heading up the river channel we found a neat canyon. This is Antelope Canyon that is just before the place we launched yesterday. Above where the water ends in the canyon is an area that there are lots of tours. The dry part of the canyon is very photogenic with all sorts of shadows.

Katie headed down the canyon. We went a long ways up until we ran into lots of "junk" on the surface of the water, don't know how much farther we could have gone but didn't want to plug up our jet pumps (been there, done that).