1/11-12–weekend in Kailua

Ok, so, we spent the weekend being slugs.  Football Saturday was actually in the afternoon. Well, sort of! So we hung out and watched the games, and interspersed the back yard sun and reading!  Steaks on the grill, we were happy.

Then Sunday morning.  Oy!  Our normal beach walk and coffee, but then you had to hurry home so that you could make kick off. Seriously!  We mean morning! Coffee for the 8:05 AM kick off of the first game on Sunday! Takes getting used to. But we managed, and of coursed, again, interspersed football with reading in the sun in the backyard, then more football.  A couple of walks to the beach, then we went to Cactus, a relatively new Mexican/South American influenced little place.  OMG.  Too much food, and way, way too good!  They have a $2 off happy hour, so we started with a pinchos – appetizers of Mayan nuts-- a mixture of peanuts, corn nuts and sunflower seeds, then 2 squash and goat cheese croquetas and 2 wild big island boar empanadas.  Too good. We should have stopped there – but yeah – not us!  We moved on to dinner which was a Seafood inspiration – Ono (which is wahoo) with red shrimp, beans, some sort of quinoa or risotto (who knows – it was awesome!) and  then I had to try Argentine the fry bread which was just bad – deliciously bad – and the smoked Jidori Chicken Coyotes.  What the heck?  There was a 2 or 4 serving – so we went for 4. Big mistake! WAY WAY WAY too much food. But all delectable!

We managed to roll ourselves home, then became couch potatoes while our food settled and watched Downton Abbey.  Hey - what's a weekend for?

1/11 - Kailua morning

First morning in Kailua - we manage to stay in bed until 5 - not too bad considering. Hopefully by tomorrow we'll be more in sync with Hawaiian Standard Time! We putter around until dawn, when there is enough light to walk.  Off we go for our first walk to the beach. It is a gorgeous morning, high 60's, beautiful South Pacific clouds and skies. Just lovely!

We get to Kailua beach and watch the canoe clubs get organized for their Saturday paddling, then head up to the beach.  Gorgeous and  Sunny enjoys it too!

 

After the beach walk, we head to Kalapawai Market for our inaugural coffee.  Their coffee is the best.  We sit, listening to the locals chat and catch up, while sipping our Macadamia Nut coffees.  Then head back to the cottage to hang out until the sun is up enough to get some much needed solar relaxation!

1/10 - Hawaii!

It's a cold, cloudy morning in Chicago, but at least there is no precipitation.  Our morning goes smoothly and we get a shuttle to the airport around 8ish.  Plenty of time to check and get to the gates.

Checking in is a breeze, bags go away, off we go to security.  But, Ed somehow got the TSA Pre-Check.  Have no clue how, unless the United rep we talked to yesterday (when they messed up our seats on the Hawaii flight and had to give us new ones!) gave it to him.  We've no idea, but he's Pre-Check, I'm not.  Bummer!  Ed goes to the right, I go to the left.  45 minutes later, I'm finally through. He's been waiting for me for about 40 minutes!  This stinks big time!  If his Pre-Check sticks, then I'm going to get an appointment to get mine.  Not that we normally travel through big, busy airports where it makes a difference, but still!

We have to hoof it to the gate - we've still got time, but everyone starts lining up early and we want to make sure we get our carry ons stored.  We're 2nd in line for boarding - and all goes according to plan.  Take off is on time, flight is smooth, but long.  We watch a couple movies, actually bought a sandwich (because even with our snacks we were hungry) and it wasn't half bad.  Read, napped (well, I napped), and managed to make it through the flight unscathed.  But oh - that's just the first one!  Sigh...Well...we'll sleep more on the next legs!

Luggage comes without a hitch - heck of a lot better than Chicago!  We grab the rental shuttle and have our car in no time. It's a basic, basic, no frills little thing - but the price is right and it will get us around.  Off to the highway - which is a nightmare of traffic (and a nightmare trying to just get on the highway - Oahu roads are really confusing - especially in Honolulu and Waikiki.  There is no logic whatsoever which is annoying).  We finally inch our way onto the H1, then onto the H3 which has no traffic, heading out to the Windward side of Oahu to Kailua.

We arrive at the cottage by 5:15, settle in, change (Yay, flip flops and capris!) and head to the grocery store.  Fully stocked, we organize a quick dinner of Asian chicken wings and Poke (raw ahi tuna with Hawaiian spices and Taku Limu, raw octopus with seaweed).  Then we organize our clothes and try vainly to stay awake until at least 10p so we aren't up at 1am twiddling our thumbs!

Ed makes it until 10 - I collapse at 9:30!  Tomorrow is another day....

1/9 - The long journey begins

We are off to Hawaii, via Chicago overnight.  The first leg isn't all that bad - 2 1/2 hours to Chi-Town. But it is the last flight of the evening, so if it doesn't go off....well...let's just say we have our fingers crossed as we drive to the airport.  We are - as usual - way early - and of course, the flight is now 1 hour delayed.  Ok - so we'll just hang in the lounge!  No surprise there!

Our new travel companion, Sunny, is at least enjoying the beginning of his traveling life! A distant cousin of Pietro, Sunny came to us via Asheville, and while not as dapper as Pietro in the wardrobe area, he is just as adventurous and excited to begin traveling with his new companions.  You'll be seeing lots of him as we travel!

Finally on the plane, and in the air, we end up arriving in Chicago only 1 hour late - unfortunately, then we sat on the runway for 30 minutes waiting for a gate.  A lot of people on our flight were trying to make connections - needless to say - a lot did not make them!  What an awful week for travel - every one was getting stuck everywhere!

We were a little nervous about flying in and out of Chicago but had no choice with United.  The weather had been awful, and landing, you could see snow piled up everywhere - there was snow still on the taxi ways. It was brutal!  Our Honolulu flight was scheduled for 10:15 the next morning, and we figured, well, at least we are here - with more options than Savannah if something goes awry.

So - off to baggage claim, where we had to wait for almost one hour for the bags!  It was a nightmare!  They were so understaffed, it wasn't even funny!  Finally, we get the darn things - then we have to go get the shuttle to the hotel, which was a 10 minute walk - we thought we'd never make it!  We finally got to the hotel around 10p.  Luckily the restaurant was still open and serving, so we had a very late dinner - which was excellent!  This fabulous Shrimp dish sautéed with mushrooms, tomatoes and "bella sera" sauce - I'm looking for that recipe!  And sautéed calamari for Ed which he enjoyed.  Topped off with chicken wings.  We were good to go!

Off to bed, ready for our next travel day!

10/18–Flying home

Well, this is the end of our North Eastern saga. It’s been great. The morning starts off fine, until we sit in traffic for at least 20 minutes getting to the Thrifty drop off, only to find out that we can’t drop the car off there. We have to go to the airport.  No one told us that! And to top it all off the Thrifty rep there is a real jerk – first of all ignoring us for all of about 5 minutes while we stood patiently waiting, only to be rudely told to go to the airport! Sheesh.  We’re irritated!

More traffic, but we manage to make it to the airport in under 15 minutes.  We drop off the car, tell the agent about our experience (as well as the car’s condition) and he was very accommodating. So now we’re much more relaxed. Until the Delta terminal check in when, despite being a Delta Amex card carrying passenger, and paying for our tickets with the darn card, we don’t get our bags for free.  What? When did that change? And why do I have this card?

$50 later, we arrive at the United lounge (thank you for a better credit card with better benefits!) and waste away the hour and a half before our flight with coffee and doughnut holes.  Yum!

Then it’s bye bye Boston!  See ya next time!

10/17–White River Junction to Salem, oh, I mean Peabody

Ok – so this is a first.  Each day, we map out our travels for the next leg of our trip—plans that were made months (and sometimes over a year) in advance.  So, as we were making our plans to get from VT to Salem, MA, for our last night we can’t seem to find the Salem Park Inn in Salem.  It’s odd, but it keeps coming up New Hampshire.  Huh? Well, much to our chagrin (and amusement actually), Ed had booked a hotel in Salem, NH, not Salem, MA for tonight!  Oops!  It wasn’t that big of a deal, since Salem, NH isn’t all that far from Boston, but we had a restaurant.com coupon for a restaurant in Salem, MA, plus, while Salem, NH is only an hour from Logan, Salem, MA is more like 20 minutes and we didn’t really want to have to mess with traffic and delays for an hour (or more) in the morning.

Quick work and fast thinking found us a hotel in Peabody – right off Route 1 which was perfect in terms of location and price.  Cancel NH, hello Peabody! 

So, we left White River Junction and headed down the scenic way to Peabody, keeping on Routes 2 and 5 though iconic little Vermont villages, farmland with huge old red barn and more head of cattle than you can count and beautiful fall foliage.

Trying to find a place to picnic, we must have hit 5 different state parks, all closed for the season. So, we finally headed into Salem and found a lovely little park by the water where we could eat.

Then, we drove through the heart of Salem to get a look around and find the restaurant for this evening, then got the heck out of there  - fast!  It’s Halloween season – and there is probably no place crazier than Salem at Halloween.  Didn’t think of that either!

We ended up just meandering about on Cape Ann, through Beverly and Manchester by the sea. Very pretty driving, such quaint traditional NE villages  and towns.  Beautiful.

Back at the hotel, we rearrange our bags/packing, sit outside in the sunshine and read, then hit the gym for a bit before our last dinner!  Into Salem we go, and to Scratch Kitchen, this great, kitschy little sandwich shop where everything is smoked and/or comes with bacon.  Our kind of place!  It’s really strange though – as packed as the town is, this place is empty. Seriously – empty. We are the only customers the whole night.  Bizarre too because it’s great food at really reasonable prices!  Weird.

So, we enjoyed our personal dining staff and just hung out eating bacon dusted fries (yeah, bad, but oh so good), two fish tacos and a smoked brisket sandwich.  Yum Yum.  Nice way to finish off our bad eating trip and start thinking about the salads and chicken we’ll be having tomorrow night!  Not that I’ll be sad mind you, I love salad and chicken – and it sure helps reduce the extra bacon fat that accumulates around your waist after 3 weeks of being lenient with what goes into your mouth!

We meander through every little NE neighborhood between Salem and Peabody(thanks to Alice and her stupid directional sense) back to the hotel, where we finalize our suitcases and get ready for the flights home.

10/16–Burlington to White River Junction

Today we continue on with our wacky food tour, heading out from Burlington to Waterbury where we planned to go to the Cold Hollow Cider Mill for apple cider and cider doughnuts, then to Ben & Jerry’s for an ice cream tour, followed by the Alchemist brewery and topped off with the Green Mountain coffee tour.  The best laid plans….

Turns out Waterbury is only 15 minutes away and well, we don’t want ice cream at 9:30 in the morning (for a $4 tour fee, btw), nor do we want beer that early.  So, we end up just hitting the Cider Mill – which was fun and yummy!  Hot cider and cider doughnuts (yes, Ed even ate a doughnut!  I have the picture to prove it!)

We walked through the mill area (where there was a bus tour – dear me!) and managed to peek around the clusters of bus-people to get a glimpse of how they press the cider – which was pretty interesting actually.  Then we beat feet out of there as quickly as possible to avoid the following bus!  We headed straight to the Green Mountain coffee center, which turned out to be a nice pictorial history of the coffee company (and found out that they recently bought Keurig – didn’t know that!).  But the “factory tour” isn’t really a factory – and there is just a café there which we decided to pass on – I was still full from the cider!

So – we headed down the road to Cabot and the Cabot cheese factory tour.  We’ve been there before, but it is still interesting and we love the sampling. Plus we needed to stock up on our popcorn topping!  We also bought some more smoked bacon cheese which we found in Boston and love.

Back on the road we headed into White River Junction, wishing there were more places to stop along the way to take pictures of all the great colors and landscapes.

After checking into the hotel, we went back out to reconnoiter the town and the restaurant for tonight’s dinner:  Elixir.  it is hard to find – in an old train depot, so we blazed our trail and made sure we knew where to go.  Next we stopped at CJ’s for a drink (that bartender knows how to pour too!) then back to the hotel for coffee, a nap for me and the gym for Ed!

We headed out to Elixir a little before 7 and thought we might be in big trouble when we couldn’t find a parking spot in the lot.  I left Ed in the car to go in and scope out the bar. The owner was there at the door and helpfully pointed out 3 couples who were going to be leaving to go to a play soon.  Ed found a parking space and we came inside to wait.

As it turned out, we got seats pretty quickly when one of the local guys gave us his and stood for a while (thank you Chris!).  This place was hoppin!  And for good reason – the food was excellent and totally reasonable priced!  We started with (bad, bad, bad) the French fries with aioli – they came highly recommended and rightly so – very delicate and the aioli was prefect!  For dinner I had twin cocoa dusted filets (amazing) and Ed had blackened scallops (which were also superb).  The owner was so attentive (not just to us, but to everything) and it was great to watch. You knew he poured his all into this place, and it showed through with everything.  Great find!