4th Of July

We were invited up to our friends (Stephen who presided over our wedding ceremony) lake house just over the border in Connecticut for their 4th of July party.
For once I was off work and didn't need to go searching for someone to cover shifts, which will be more difficult now that I'm the shipper until I can help train someone else!

We caught the train from Grand Central Station, heading an hour and 20mins north east to Brewster, NY.

We got picked up at the station and driven over the border and to their weekend getaway which is an amazing house by Ball Pond Lake. All the properties around there are pretty spectacular and very American! Even more so yesterday as nearly everyone had their stars & stripes on display. Especially the new neighbours with their giant flag and range of lake inflatables, etc.

Apparently the new neighbours were disturbing the peace with something called "kids" and had $6000 of fireworks lined up for later.

Our place was a little classier, ha ha.

The boathouse

Fire it up!

Finding the shade

Totally relaxing, good food and it also happened to be someones birthday so some amazing homemade coconut cake and some patriotic cupcakes to finish the day.

We were offered the chance of a lift back to the city so given the choice between a car ride or fireworks & the train we took them up on their offer. So unfortunately we missed most of the firework display although when we drove home there were random fireworks going off on either side of the road behind the trees for a lot of the trip.
Also by the time we hit Manhattan we got stuck in the traffic from people leaving the Macy's fireworks display on the Hudson River!

Update

A little slow finishing the blog on our Hawaii trip but work gets in the way when you get back to normal life!

Speaking of which, I got a promotion of sorts. I had interviewed for a sideways promotion just before I left for Hawaii, a sales lead role instead of regular sales. All it would have meant was a $2+ an hour increase in pay and just to be a goto for the regular sales staff.

They had also talked about giving me some shadow shifts in the shipping & receiving department as the regular shipper was leaving on a year long cycle from Alaska southwards, that gives you an idea of the type of people who work here!

When I got back to work they called me in as they were going over the interviews and instead went and offered me the job of shipper. So I still get the same pay rise but it does mean a job shift.

I had roughly four days training and then armed with my manual that the shipper guy kindly made up for me, I was let loose last week on my own. The main change is that ALL the shifts are 1.30pm to 10pm but it does pass quickly as there seems a lot to fit in each day.
It also requires a bit of good time management, starting off with receiving the internet orders, staff orders and returned items, then shipping same things the other way out.

Then later on I get a bicep and quad workout as I receive the nightly truck with all the pallets laden with boxes, wheeling it up a small slope, occasionally grinding to a halt during this process! Dealing with everything from small boxes containing one bottle of insect repellant to lifting a kayak downstairs.

I'll still get some footwear shifts (at the same pay rate) so we'll see how it works out.

I have been commuting to and from work by bike all last week. It was so hot and humid that having a shower at work beforehand and then avoiding the sticky underground wait for a train home by cycling back home works better.
It is a thought to do a bike ride after working until 10pm but the weather is so warm plus I'm home in about 35 minutes as I take a more direct route due to less traffic on the roads, I just need to buy some more sets of padded bike shorts though!

Waimea Canyon

Out last trip involved a drive uphill to the top of the Waimea Canyon lookout.

There were some good sights on the drive up. The view out the back window over to the last island in the northern end of the chain, Niihau.

A cool banyan tree as we passed through a village and then the amazing roadside red dirt landscape.

The road was constantly uphill so pretty soon it changed from green to red by the roadside.

The view once we reached the top was up there with all the views we've had on this trip for sure.

This wasn't the top as such, so we drove upwards and around.
There was a mini stop at another viewpoint where we seen some of the islands wildlife. Some mountain hugging goats and another chicken just hanging out in the trees.

Can you spot them?

They get everywhere

Then we drove up to the last viewpoint, the Kalalau lookout.

Once we got all the way back down to sea level we made a short stop to see the spouting water feature.

A bit of shopping on the way back and we were most definitely done for the day.

We had the next day to ourselves after the family left so just another couple of supermarket trips for supplies and then spent the rest of the night and nearly the entire morning of the day we left trying to pack everything! We ended up taking a whole box as extra luggage filled with food supplies and wedding remnants. Which just reminded me that we have four ziplock bags full of the pulled pork in the freezer...... hmmmmm.

Wilelua Falls

Today was a short drive for some long-overdue waterfall action.

A small car park at the end of a road led to a nice view down over the waterfall.

For most of the tourists there, that was as close as they got. For the more adventurous among us there was a short steep muddy trip down to the waters edge.

We went as far round as was safe but we'd been warned against going near the falls themselves just in case!

The famous Hanakap'ai Hike

The hiking trail along the northern Na'Pali coast of Kauai is a very well known trail among hikers. It is regularly listed amongst the must-do trails in the US.
Of course, that is for the whole eleven mile trail which due to the amount of ascent and descent and the underfoot conditions normally means people hike to the beach at the end and camp either overnight or for a few days before coming back.

So we just did the taster hike which was a two mile walk to the first secluded beach. Obviously we stopped for photo ops and to pass other people as it was narrow in places but this still took us about one hour 40mins to get there and just over an hour to come back.

The surroundings were lush and as expected, the scenery amazing.

We passed a mixture of young & old folk, families, some hippies meditating in a small off-path cave and a few beardy hikers who were obviously on their way back from the eleven mile hike.
When we came round the final corner this was the view down to the beach.

There was a cool stream to cross and it gave me an opportunity to try and frame some good pics.

 The beach was very quiet compared to other beaches we'd been to, fairly obviously because it takes some effort to get there. You're not going to drag a cooler all the way there.

This was the last day of my sunburnt back so I still couldn't even carry a backpack on my shoulders!

Too much sun with the fun

After the wedding we could relax and hit the beach. Hanalei Bay was great for jumping of the pier, swimming and came with such an amazing backdrop. Even with a couple of spot showers, they didn't last long and were refreshing when they came.

We went with Heather's brother's family, Sidra and Kai and me getting our pancakes for breakfast before we hit the beach.

I had suncreamed up once before the beach and also halfway through time we spent there. But I was having such a great time, it's a novelty to swim in warm water, so really I spent too much time in the water and swimming on my front my back was exposed to the sun.

This only became apparent late at night when my shoulders looked red. But the next day the top of my shoulders and pretty much my whole back was really badly burnt, like really badly.

The neighbours came to the rescue the next night when they gave us an aloe leaf from their garden. We slit it open and Heather and her mum had the job of scrapping out the green gunk.
You know it's love when.....
I stood in the carport where Heather slathered me in the stuff, very cool and refreshing. After two night sessions of this, what a difference. It can't be good for you to get so burnt but it was a relief to get back to normal and be able to sleep comfortably!!

Sleeping Giant

Next day was a nearby small hike nicknamed sleeping giant due to the profile of the mountain/hill which the Jessiman family undertook on their own.

Up there?

Only a short two mile hike but all uphill. Mildly hard work for the pale Jessiman clan when the sun is beating down on you, it was even difficult to see the join between the sea and the sky!

Some great views on the way up and also the interesting sight of some trees that have obviously evolved to suit the sloping landscape.

When we reached the picnic table at the top we were informed by some people there that there was another short hike round the corner up to the actual top. Steve's guidebook app confirmed that in the last paragraph where it said it could neither recommend or not recommend doing this part due to the steepness.

We seen some other people up ahead coming the other way so we went for it, signs don't mean nothing to Steve.

In the end, it wasn't that bad except for one bit where it helped if you didn't look over the edge! And we took the advice of another walker to go into this cave where the wind rushes through to give you a bit of much-needed air conditioning.