It was great.  I was planning a week in Iceland. But, with recent career changes... again, we decided on an all points trip to Hawaii for 9 days.  This is or first use of a boat-ton of IHG points and ... last years trip to Kawai Hawaii Airlines screwed up big time and gave us a ton of vouchers. So, 9 days on the big island and all we paid was for the rental car, food, tours/activities, and shopping.

We had a blast, though of course there were some teeth grinding ill behaved kid moments. And... assholes.  Then even have learned to cross oceans.  Both families with ill raised spawn and assholes.

We split the island into qharters and toured the entire island.  Of course there are countless villages, etc... that we will have to catch on future trips.

The food was great.  Several incredible restaurants so at least in part it was an eatcation.

The first tour we did was a deep sea salt farm.  Very interesting. I got my engineering geek on and DW got her gourmet flavored salt/magnesium additive/skin care diva on.  We did  deep sea water foot soak. That crap hurt. It was like freezing your feet in a block of ice.  Brrrrrrrrr.

No issues on that tour. But.. the Vanillerie.  A great tour. Another engineering geek event for me, cullinary and skin care heaven for my Diva bride.  But the hell spawn of poor parents were pervasive on that tour.  Kids running amok, parents telling then over, and over, and over again to STF up, stop their crap, etc... Thoug far from the direct. The counting, repeating, sweet talking, total and complete ineffective bullshit. The one time dad took one of the two nasty progeny away for a few seconds there was screaming and crying from the spawn so much that dad gave the little shit exactly what they wanted and brought him back to run amok in the vanilla orchid vines trying to smash lizards.   My favorite ill behaved spawn getting their cummupance moment.... after the tour they had vanilla icecream outside of the Drying room.   Geckos know when it is icecream time and swarmed the lanai were they did the icecream.  Two hell spawned rotten crotch fruits were trying to crush the geckos.  Mom and dad were oblivious, I was trying to get them to leave the lizards alone. They alternated between trying to smash them with their little evil crotch turd fists and feeding them icecream. When the tour leader noticed them spoon feeding the geckos she intervened, took the icecream and spoons away from the kids. Mom and dad lost their shit. "You can't do that to our kids!!!"   Until..... the tour leader gave this fact. "These geckos carry salmonilla and you probably need to get your kids to the the doctor since they were spoon feeding the geckos then using the same spoons to eat icecream."  I will not say I want kids to get salmonilla but, a good case of the pukes and shits for the rest of their vacation for mommy and daddy to have to deal with and clean up followed by growing some scaley lizard tales would be appropriate Karmaly speaking. Keeping them all in their hotel room instead of polluting that beautiful place with their ille behaved spawn. IMHO.

We did the whole island. The Kona coast, South Point, Valcano National Park twice. Waimaia, Kalapana from both sides of the lava flow that burried the whole village and black sand beaches, several water falls, a bunch of art galaries, much feasting on amazing seafood.  The adrynalin moment was our second time to Valcano National Part we had just finished the short Lava Tube trail when an earthquake hit.  Two within a 5 seconds of each other. One 3.5 and one 3.3 magnitude.  The ground was rockin.  Fortunatly we were out of the tube when the quakes hit.  Quakes are very disorienting. This is the worst one since a large one in the Middle East in 2013.

Sunday afternoon a few hours before our return flight we went to a national historical park.  We pulled up, parked, parked, walked to the visitor's center. As we were just approaching the visitor's center the park ranger and the gift shop manager walked out. The ranger was an asshole. She blew us a "I hope your not going that way, we just closed and we are locking the gate when we drive out." The snark was strong in the tone and facial expressions.  DW went all CPA on her ass with a "Thank you for telling us.... Ranger. Now that we know, wait here until we exit the gate then you can lock it."  Ranger's head about exploded. The gift shop manager then told us that if we wanted to walk through the park just go to the light, turn R, then R at the next light and follow that road to the beach where there is unregulated parking and a trail leading into the park and we could see it all.  We thanked her, gave the Ranger the stink eye, and left.

Just about everyone was amazing on this trip with the exception of some ill behaved ill parented kids and a park ranger who had gone way too long between getting layed.  Why is it that there is always someone who has to be disruptive to others having a nice day?  A simple, "I'm sorry, we are closed." would have sufficed.

8 days to our actual anniversary but due to DW business trips we could not make our celebration trip over our actual anniversary. I'm thinking a down town celebrity chef place for our anniversary dinner.