Day 5: Not enough football, way too much food

College football is big in America, and in Boise it's the cornerstone of culture. A key factor behind this is the team's coach, Chris Petersen, who has a phenomenal 56-4 win-loss record at Boise State.

The whole town stops when the Broncos play. More accurately the whole town goes nuts: the stadium fills (33,500 capacity), as does the carpark for the tailgate parties (I'm guessing 50,000), every sports bar in the city (while I'm making up numbers, another 75,000), while everybody else watches it at home. Like we did.

The family hosted the Tuesday night football party. Apparently it's compulsory to wear a Boise State jersey's or t-shirts. Fortunately Judi thoughtfully picked up a couple for Emma and I, so we weren't banned from the party.

Most of the day was devoted to chatting, and preparing massive quantities of food for the night, with extra goodies for our benefit: chorizos, thai noodles, chile con queso, hamburgers, salsa, refried beans, potato chips, BBQ chicken wings - and elk bites.
Elk bites are fabulous. I'd describe the taste of elk as being like beef with a touch of venison, maybe a hint of kangaroo (apologies to vegetarian readers if this is distressing. Please be advised it's going to get worse).

How I'd make an elk bite:

1) Punch it.
2) Wait to be bitten.

How to prepare an elk-bite Smith-style:

1) Get your brother-in-law to

• shoot an elk with a big-ass gun:

• schlep it two miles out of the woods.
  
• butcher it.
• marinate the elk for five hours.
• wrap the elk in jalapenos, onions and/or portobello mushrooms, followed by a strip of bacon.
• barbeque them.

2) Push your brother-in-law out of the way and pig out.

Waaaay too much food. I barely had room for beer.

As for the game, that was good too: big TV, very loud sound system,and lots of cheering as Boise smashed Louisiana Tech 49-20.

Day 4: Family Re-union

The only thing worse than having to get up at 4am for an early morning flight is getting to the airport and having to stand in a queue that isn't moving.

We were told we had to be at Honolulu International at 4.40am for a 6.40am start. This is kind of pointless when nobody starts work until 5am.

First we had to deal with the Department of Agriculture, than then Department of Homeland Security, followed by the Department of Aimless Dithering and the Department of Stern Looks. It wasn't too heinous, although Emma saw a few people taken aside for a total empty-everything-you've-got inspection.

We had about 40 minutes before boarding, 35 of which were taken up trying to order a coffee in the slowest Starbucks in the Northern Hemisphere. And despite all the time they still got the order wrong. Slow they may have been, but in true Hawaiian style they were still polite about it.

The flight was totally uneventful, and I slept most of it until hitting LA. LA International is looking much nicer since we were last there, when it was in the middle of renovations. It was worth the effort.

The flight to Boise gave us great late-afternoon views of southern California and Nevada. It's quite striking terrain, but not the kind of country you want to get lost in. I doubt they take American Express in most of it, and mobile phone coverage is likely to be spotty.

Idaho is most famous for potatoes. It's a bit of a cliché, and I'm sure the locals are tired of it, but it's not going to go away when you catch a plane to Boise and see a woman marking student assignments on potatoes. My favourite was "osmosis in potatoes".

My family was waiting for us as we exited the terminal at Boise. We havent seen them since our wedding seven years ago. There are reports that I may have teared up a bit, but without photographic evidence these should be considered unfounded rumours.

(From left to right: Mark (my sister's husband), my sister Robin, Derek (my niece Alycia's boyfriend), Alycia (said niece), Emma, Jamie (the younger niece), Mike (my eldest brother - like a true Idahoan wearing shorts despite the 40F/4C temperature).

I couldn't believe how much the girls had grown up. The last time we saw them was at our wedding. It's one thing to know it's been seven years, but it never hits home until you see them. It feels like they went from little girls to young women in a week.

That aside, it was great seeing them all.

The parking fees at the airport were - amusing. All of 75 cents. Compared to Sydney parking fees, which would be around $15 (why Sydney Airport parking attendants don't wear ski masks is a mystery) I'm not sure why they bother.

The highlight after getting to my sister's house was when Jamie and Alycia tried to find a kitten they heard out in the bushes. They succeeded.

Mark and Robin insisted there was absolutely no way they were keeping the cat. That resolution barely survived the night. The kitten is hideously cute.

Here's Emma using her uncanny animal magick on the cat (I suggested they call her "Emma" so they'd always remember how she did her -and my - best to manipulate Mark and Robin into keeping her).

Then we slept for 12 hours. Again.

Day 3 cont'd: Wild, Exotic and Dangerous Hawaii

The first part of the tour was trying to find the rest of the tour party. I'm not quite sure how the tour company managed to lose a third of the party, but we drove around in circles for about an hour before finding them all.

Of course it's poor form to stress about things like this in Hawaii: "hang loose". So we hung loose.

The official tour started with downtown Honolulu, including the place Barrack Obama lived until he was fifteen, and then went into Wild, Exotic and Dangerous Hawaii (as advertised).

First stop was Pali Lookout, probably the second-windiest place I've ever been. I can't say I enjoyed the cold wind, but I'm sure I coped better than Emma.

Emma, being the hardcore surfing fan she is, was looking forward to the surf beaches: Waimea Bay, Banzai Pipeline, Sunset Beach. These are the beaches that get the 30 foot waves that look like this:
This is what we got:

Frauds.

My theory is that there aren't any 30 foot waves. The images we see on TV? Digitally produced, just like in the movie "Surf's Up":

The walk up the Waimea Valley was gorgeous. Hawaii has a large number of introduced plants, and the valley has different sections dedicated to plants from all over the world: South America, Guam, East Asia, Madagascar, and Finland. I may have made the last one up.

Emma fell in love with the orchids, which the photos don't do justice to. But here's one anyway:

The Waimea Falls themselves were - cute. There hadn't been much rain so they were quite small. Still, being Hawaii, there were two lifeguards just in case someone tried to surf them. Or something.

On the way back we passed the plant nursery. You can't see them in this shot, but the staff were busily doing their part to wipe out the last of the indigenous plants.

The camera battery died on the way down the east side of the island, so there are no shots of the side of Oahu where all the films and TV shows are shot. Kind of ironic, really.

So no piccies, but we saw the valley where "Jurassic Park" and "Lost" were shot, as well as "Fifty First Dates" (which was on TV that night - kind of cool playing "spot the place we saw today"), The Cove, where the famous beach-kiss scene in "From Here to Eternity" was shot, or Hanauma Bay, where the Elvis movie "Blue Hawaii" was shot, and the studios where Hawaii Five-0, Magnum P.I. and all the other Honolulu-based TV shows were and still are shot.

However the battery did recover enough for me to get a very fuzzy shot of Dog the Bounty Hunter's house:
It was a long day, but time well spent.

When we finally made it back to our hotel we were exhausted, and too tired to go out for dinner. So we ordered in pizza, as you do. The pizza was surprisingly good, but would want to be, because with the combination of Honolulu food prices and delivery fees it cost about $US35.

Our early night was delayed due to Emma switching on the Discovery Channel. Damn you, David Attenborough, and your unreasonably interesting documentaries.

We finally switched off the TV around 10.40 so we could get some sleep in before the 4am wake-up call. So much for a rest-break before hitting the mainland.

Day 3: When does the restful bit start?

Fresh and alert didn't happen. I did manage "not quite comatose". Barely.

It was a long day (7am to 6pm + a bit), but well worth it. We did the biggie, the "Grand Circle" tour around Oahu, which alternates between money-sucking tourist traps and genuinely interesting places. Fortunately there are far more of the latter, which makes the cash-extractors bearable.

As noted it's been a long day, and we have an even more absurdly early start tomorrow. A 4am wake-up call, a 4.30am taxi ride to the airport, and then killing time until our 6.40am flight to Boise via Los Angeles.

As it's just after 9pm and we're (still) exhausted we're going to turn in early. That way I'll be fresh and alert - ah, who am I kidding? I'll be jelly-brained again. Fortunately I have Emma to do my serious thinking for me.

Anyhow, we'll write up day three tomorrow. Bet you can't wait.

Day 2: Bugger all

The flight wore us out more than expected. We crashed around 9pm and didn't wake until about 9am the next day. Which even with my timezone-addled brain works out to be a 12 hour sleep.

Otherwise we took it easy, walking up to the Ala Moana shopping centre, which is apparently the largest open-air shopping mall in the world. In the evening we caught a trolly bus to Waikiki for Chinese, and went to bed early so we'd be fresh and alert for a 7.10 pick-up for our tour of Oahu.

Fresh and alert. I like the sound of that.

Day 1: Dah-di-dah-di dah-dah, dah-di-dah-di-daaaaah

In case you didn't get recognise the reference in the subject line: the Hawaii Five-0 theme. Duh.


We made it to Hawaii without any problems. Not that I really expected anything to go wrong, but whenever I travel, especially just before leaving, I fret:

Did I pack enough? Did I pack too much? Did I forget anything? Is the house locked? Is the cat on fire? Did I hide the radioactive isotopes? When we cross the equator will aliens board the plane and do their weird alien experiments on us...?

So far everything has gone smoothly. We took off on time at 9.20PM, and apart from the usual problem of trying to sleep in an airline seat, which is like sleeping strapped to a surfboard shoved into a closet - only worse. Otherwise everything was fine.

Although I did have that weird dream about the aliens. And those cold, clammy rubber gloves...

We're staying at the Ilikai Hotel, which is where they shot the opening sequence for the original Hawaii Five-0. The one where Steve McGarret did the wonderfully cheesy turn-to-camera as the helicopter sweeps in.

The hotel lobby even plays old clips of the original series on a loop. Fabulous.

The downside of the Ilikai is that it's a bit of a hike to Waikiki, especially if you take the tourist wandering route, at least 2km. Still, it was good to stretch the legs and get a bit of exercise.

After about a 12 1/2 hour walk (it *felt* like 12 1/2 hours) we finally saw Waikiki Beach and Diamond Head. Honolulu may be touristy, but it's still genuinely beautiful.

Lunch was in this wonderfully quirky restaurant in the International Markets, The Treehouse Cafe, where we chatted with our Palestinian waiter (no doubt attracted to Hawaii after his years of surfing the Gaza Pro).

After that we took part in a tourist scam, where they open an oyster and dig out Your Very Own Pearl for a mere $15, less 50% for the "random discount" you draw from a barrel. Then they try to sell you the $610 white gold pendant you can mount your $7.50 pearl in.

Brilliant sales tactics, straight out of Robert Cialdini's book "Influence". Being wise to their Jedi mind-tricks we dodged the last bit.

Now we're sitting in the bar of the hotel watching the sunset, drinking mai-tais (with six or seven limes to cut the sweetness) and a Longboard beer (with a name like "Longboard" it's probably from Wisconsin).

[Post: dinner]

Our waiter was a delightful young man named Rickson. He explained his father was Rick, he was Rick's son, hence Rickson. If he had a son the would be Ricksonson, so his son would be Ricksonsonson...

I had pork, and Emma ordered the Maine lobster. Maine lobster. It certainly wasn't a minor lobster - it was freaking huge.

According to her it was "the best lobster I ever had".

Here's the eviscerated exoskeleton as evidence:

Jetlag and lack of sleep are taking their toll. Time for sleep.

Six days, six hours and forty five minutes to go...

...until we fly out. Not that I'm counting down or anything.

We'll start in Hawaii, with a few days just chillin' in Oahu, then on to see the family in Boise, Idaho, and off to New York a few days after that.

Then we board the ship for "The Ultimate Panama Canal Cruise". "Ultimate" may be a bit of an overclaim - I'd expect an "ultimate" to involve live shows from David Bowie or the Rolling Stones, if not both - but it does look pretty damn good.

Let's start with the ship, the 50,000 ton Crystal Symphony:

Real purty.

Crystal Cruises proudly notes that "readers of Condé Nast Traveler consistently vote Crystal Serenity the number one cruise ship in the world", with the Crystal Symphony number two. So we're not exactly slumming . If it wasn't for the GFC decimating the tourism industry. We wouldn't be able to afford it. Thank you, greedy Wall Street banker-scum

Given it's a bit posh, will Emma and my pleb-like personalities be out of place?

I worked out that as the ship carries up to 922 guests, even if the ship is only 2/3rds full (615 guests) and there's a 99% probability of them being snobs, there's only a 0.21% chance that we'll be the only non-snobs on board. So I'm confident that we'll find someone as unsophisticated and gauche as we are to make friends with.

As for the itinerary, after leaving New York we hit Philadelphia, then Charleston, Miami, Grand Cayman -

Oh, let me just post the map and you can see for yourself.
We've heard glowing reports about the Panama Canal parts, which is why we picked this cruise, but the rest of the trip has plenty going for it.

The cruise takes 19 days, with 9 sea days, which is a good balance for us. In between cool stuff like riding an airboat through the Florida Everglades, snorkling with stingrays in Grand Cayman, or watching lunatics dive 130ft/40 m from the La Quebrada cliffs in Acapulco we'll have plenty of free time on board.

For Emma this mainly be finding her "Deck Seven" where she can catch up on three years worth of reading and relax.

For me this will mean being indulging my finest ADHD qualities, including reading (I may well burn out my Kindle e-reader), plus attending on-board lectures (I'm particularly interested in Ambassador Edward Peck, a career diplomat for 32 years, and British foreign correspondent Ken Rees), check out the onboard Spanish lessons with a Berlitz Language instructor, play a bit of chess, see if there's any Hold'em poker, do some writing, and probably far too many other things, before we overdo it with the food and drink.

It might be wise to hit the gym a few times as well.

It's looking good. If it's anywhere near as good as the last trip (http://greatpacificadventure.blogspot.com/ - we remember it well) it'll be worth it.