Grace in spite of it all

Well, we were now needing a place to stay one more night. We had already checked out of our room and the car was pretty packed with all our stuff. We all made a choice to be positive about our circumstances, but truthfully, I was so physically miserable that in my heart I was feeling very picked on. We went back to the hotel because that was the only place I had regular wireless internet to check for other hotel rooms. Darin went up and asked if they had any rooms available and they were booked. It was kind of embarrassing sitting in their lobby at 6 am looking for another hotel room. Then Darin did something amazing, he went back up and asked again. He explained that we were repeat customers and really enjoyed their hotel. The man just gave us our room back FOR LESS THEN WE HAD PAID FOR IT up to that point and a bottle of cold water! I don't know who lost their room that night, but I like to think they got a suite instead.

The day wasn't half bad. We walked to Waikiki and watched the tourists. We didn't consider ourselves tourists. Then we had a good rain. At the time I didn't know it would be the last rain I saw for over a month.

That night Darin took me out for the best steak I have ever had in my life. He had heard about it through Sean Hannity and wanted to test it out. Well, Sean, you know a good steak for sure. It will cost you a month's salary, but it is the best steak you will ever have.

Later we walked the strip with all the artistic people. They are not allowed to charge for anything, but you give what you feel it is worth. There was another spraypainter that did amazing work. His personality was not at personable as Wayne's was. He played nasty rap and stuff, so I felt like I had to cover Ariel's ears.

There was as huge setup these parents did and then their little (very little) girls would sing for everyone. The youngest was probably 5 or 6 and it really was precious except they sung such mature songs for them of love and such. It made it feel like they were selling the keiki (children). But I know that people struggle to make ends meet in Hawaii these days and this is one way to help do that. Both parents were there, so that says something I guess. It just made me a bit sad. I hope they don't understand the words they are saying.

Then I got into a fight with one of the venders. He was a big boy too. I had just come away from watching a guy do some really entertaining magic tricks and Darin bought the DVD for Ariel. She likes magic tricks. Anyway, he came up and wanted to know how we knew how much to pay for the DVD and I told him the guy said we could pay what we wanted but made a suggested price of $20. He got really pissed and said he was going to take him down. After some back and forth I just said, "Go ahead, ruin the fun for everyone. You have some gig where your dog just sits there for people to pet and his act is very entertaining and actually brings people to the strip and you want to run him off. Go ahead and ruin everyone's fun!" He tried to put it off on the other guy, and when I came back the magic guy was packed up but talking calmly with the big guy with the dog; so at least he didn't get beat up.

Anyway, that was our last night in Honolulu. We were up and at the ferry VERY early the next day with our reservations in hand. Ariel and I slept the entire time to avoid sea sickness. It is not the trip to Bainbridge Island in Washington that is for sure. It is across open sea and very active.

For some reason the open sea caused me to loose all the water I was retaining. By the time I got off the boat, all my swelling had gone down and I could actually move again!

So off the boat we went and into our new life on Maui. My first impressions were, "What the heck, Maui is ugly!"