Bringing You Bentley

Booker, the sweet little pooch I introduced you to the other day, wasn't the only four-legged fellow I hung out with on my Idaho-Wyoming adventures.


Bentley was there too--and he wants you to know it.

He's older. And wiser. And exceptionally slobberier. (Yes, I know that's not a word. But if you've ever seen this bulldog drool, you'll understand that he deserves his own word.)


Bentley doesn't move as quickly as Booker, so he couldn't accompany us on our snowshoes like the little guy did. But it didn't stop Bentley from joining us outside on occasion.


Of course, everywhere he goes, he shakes his head and says, mournfully, "Don't hate me because I'm beautiful."

It's a terrible burden, isn't it, Bent?

A Question

Look at this face.


Now tell me: What would you do if you spent the weekend with this little fellow?

If you answered, "try to steal him," I wouldn't blame you. That's what I tried to do when I finally got to meet Cousin BH's little buddy, Booker, for the first time.


How could you not love this little angel?

I mean really. Look at that tongue.


Don't you just want to scoop him up and take him home with you right now? I sure did.

Returning to You (And the West, In Spirit)

Pardon the interruption. Things got a bit crazy over here. But what's new?

I realized today how long it's been since I said hello. I also realized I still haven't finished sharing snapshots from my Idaho/Wyoming adventures. That's just not right.


So here are a few from our trip up to Grand Targhee on my last full day out west. It was a snowy one, that's for certain.


Which reminds me of something I've been meaning to tell you Midwesterners. Next winter when a decent snowstorm hits and paralyzes your town/city, just remember this: It snows more than that on a regular ol' winter day up here.


And people rejoice and get out in the snow when it happens rather than buckling down for Snowmageddan. I'm just sayin'.

Backyard Snowshoeing

After everyone else headed for home or went back to work, Auntie L and I donned our snowshoes in the backyard and headed toward the Tetons. We didn't make it that far, of course. But we made it all the way to Ski Hill Road, and that was quite a trek. It was the most beautiful day yet.

Saying Goodbye to Maui

It's hard to believe, but at this time last month Conservative Hubby and I were still in the middle of our honeymoon adventures in Hawaii.


Now, after weeks of sharing the highlights of our time in Waikiki and Maui with you, it's time to close out the Hawaii portion of the blog.


And so I leave you with a few shots of the sunset on our last evening in Maui, when we sat on our balcony and watched the sun sink behind the islands for the last time.


If you're devastated that the scenes of sun and shore are coming to an end, never fear. An entirely new set of posts--this time, focused on scenes of sun and snow--are coming up next.

I live a rough life, don't I?

A Food Update

You may have noticed that a lot of my blog posts focus on food--food I make at home, food I eat when we go out, food, food, food.

Yet you may also have noticed that my blog posts about Hawaii have not focused very much, if at all, on food.

It's not that we didn't have good food. We had some great food, actually. Fresh fish for almost every meal. The most amazing, mouth-watering pineapple. Great local brews.

But the thing is, with such amazing scenery, I didn't bother focusing on my usual food photos. I was too distracted by the blue skies and the ocean and the green foliage that surrounded us everywhere we went.

However, I will share with you the few photos I did snap.


Of my first delicious mai tai in Waikiki. (I had at least one tasty yet very overpriced cocktail each day before switching to not much more affordable wine or beer.)



Of the Elvis Fudge (think peanut butter, milk chocolate fudge, and guava jelly) we had at Rum Fire at Sheraton Waikiki, which made us swoon.


Of our exceptionally expensive room-service breakfast on our last morning in Waikiki.


Of the wonderful treats--an incredibly pleasant surprise!--we found waiting for us at each hotel we stayed at on our trip.


Of the fare at the luau.


And, though it's not a food photo, a snapshot of Tropica, the restaurant at our hotel (directly below our room) where we had a fabulous meal on our last night in Maui.

As for the rest of our dining escapades while in Hawaii? I'm leaving that up to your imagination.

Surfing, Hawaii-Style

On our last full day in Maui, Conservative Hubby only had one goal: To surf.


Fortunately, that was easy to do just down the beach from our hotel. So that morning he started out with a refresher lesson on the land.


Then, once he had the basics down again, it was time to hit the waves.


I don't know whether it was the fact that it was his second time out or that the waves were easier to surf, but for whatever reason Conservative Hubby did considerably better this time than he did on his first surfing outing in California.


He was able to get up on his board quickly and stay on it much longer than he did last time he surfed.


In fact, he looked like he knew what he was doing. (Especially compared to the two people he took a lesson with who were ... um ... struggling a bit to say the least.)


It was fun to sit and watch Conservative Hubby on the beach, but I have to admit after seeing him surf this time I even got a bit of an itch to try it myself.


So maybe next time I'll be out there too. We'll just have to see.


(Oh, one downfall to Maui surfing: Coral. This spill resulted in some massive bruises. But it looked good!)

Whale Watching

We visited Maui in the middle of humpback whale-watching season.


This meant we could sit at the beach or on our balcony and spot their tails and fins and the water shooting out of their blowholes. (If you look really hard in the photo above, you can even see a whale jumping.)

But we decided we wanted to get a bit closer to the whales, so we decided to take a sunset whale-watching dinner cruise.


Based on a recommendation, I booked a reservation with the Pacific Whale Foundation, because they not only do fun things like whale-watching tours to educate people about the marine environment, but they also use the funds they raise from the tours to conduct marine research and address marine conservation issues.

Plus the tours themselves are more environmentally friendly than others you'll find in the area, because they use whale protection devices, low-emissions engines, bio-compostable products for food and beverages, and more.


So Conservative Hubby and I headed down to the dock in Lahaina for our sunset cruise. It was a small crowd that day and we got a great spot on a bench right in front of the cockpit, with unobstructed views of the ocean all around us.


A musician sat in the cockpit serenading us with traditional island music. The food we had actually turned out to be quite delicious. But the highlight of the cruise was, of course, the whales.

And boy did we hit the jackpot. Near dusk, we came upon a mother, her baby, and their escort frolicking in the water. The stayed very close to our boat for quite some time. I was amazing to watch them up close, to see their tails and fins and their backs rise out of the water.

We even got to see the mother of all whale-watching sights, something so impressive (and not that common, particularly on sunset cruises) that even the captain was excited: One of the whales did a full breach, so her entire body came out of the water and we had an up-close view of her underside.


It was amazing.

I wish I could say I got photos of the whale activities, but it was too close to dark and the whales were moving too quickly for me to catch everything on camera. I'm not well-versed with my camera enough yet to know what I should have done.


So after a few futile attempts, I just put it away and enjoyed the show with my eyes instead.

And a wonderful show it was. Conservative Hubby and I agreed that we would definitely do a whale-watching cruise again--and with the Pacific Whale Foundation too, no less.

The Banyan Tree

On our trip to Hawaii, I fell in love with the banyan trees.

(Yeah, go ahead and say it. I'm a tree hugger. Or a treehugger. Or maybe both. I'll admit it.)


I didn't think it got much better than the big, beautiful tree in the courtyard of our hotel in Waikiki.

And then we moseyed around in quaint little downtown Lahaina on Maui and came across this monster of a banyan. (Or "magical Avatar tree," as Conservative Hubby prefers to call it.)


Yes, this is one tree. (Sort of.)

After we gazed in wonder at this monstrosity, Conservative Hubby hopped on his magic phone he carries with him that has the answers to all the world's questions to find out what the deal was with the banyan.

That's how we learned it's a fig. Its seeds germinate in the cracks of a host tree and then send down roots toward the ground, which can end up taking over the host tree (hence the moniker it sometimes has, "stranger fig").


This particular banyan happens to be a rather greedy fellow that has taken over all the other trees around it in the park.

And it's pretty darn cool.

Driving to the Blowhole

You won't believe me when I tell you this, but the day after we attempted traveling the Road to Hana, Conservative Hubby was ready to get back in the car for another morning cruise.

I kid you not.


I think it was the convertible that did it. And the fact we were still waking up so darn early we had plenty of time to kill each day before we were ready to don our bathing suits.

Whatever the reason, I was glad he was game for another cruise, and I promised to find a drive that would be relatively brief and easier, yet equally scenic.


Not surprisingly, the scenic requirement is an easy one on Maui.

We decided to head north past our resort, which is in an area called Ka'anapali, past the resorts and golf courses of Kapalua, and along the coast around the northwestern tip of the island.

Conservative Hubby wanted to stop at the Plantation golf course, which is where the Hyundai Tournament of Champions was played about a month before our arrival.


I wanted to check out the Blowhole, a scenic spot past the golf courses where, when the tide is right, water is pushed up through a hole in the rocks to spectacular heights (hence the name Blowhole).


And so we set out, oohing and aahing at lovely scenery as we did on every day of our trip. (OK, so I oohed and aahed while Conservative Hubby took a more stoic approach.)


Although this drive was curvy and the road did narrow considerably once we got past the resorts, it was still an improvement over the Road to Hana. Plus there was minimal traffic, so as he drove Conservative Hubby was able to enjoy the scenery a bit more than the previous day.


It didn't take us all that long to reach the spot where we parked and hiked down to see the Blowhole.


It was a neat spot but, unfortunately, the tide wasn't right, so the Blowhole's blowing was rather lackluster.


I would've stayed a while to watch the water start shooting higher, but Conservative Hubby needed his breakfast, so after a few minutes we headed back to the car and back down the road the way we came.


We were so hungry by this point that we stopped at a roadside stand for banana bread.


One would think buying banana bread from a place like this would be a bit questionable. And it is. But the guidebook we read recommended banana bread places all along this drive and the Road to Hana, so we figured it couldn't be that dangerous.


(Needless to say, the banana bread was tasty and did not make us sick. It also helped tide us over until we could get back to the hotel for an early lunch, so it was worth it.)


We made one more stop after banana bread to check out the views and discovered a wonderful area for snorkeling. I made note of this fact for the next time we're in Maui (yes, there will be a next time, I'm quite sure of it).


I plan to put snorkeling at the top of my list then since we ran out of time to do so on this trip.


On our way back, we made a stop at the Plantation golf course for Conservative Hubby, as promised. It was beautiful, and the houses we could see were ridiculously large. This made Conservative Hubby happy and led him to visions of being rich and famous and actually being able to live in a place like this.

And then he came back to reality (well, sort of) and we hopped in the car and headed back to the hotel, just in time for lunch and some pool time.