Do you know what happens when you have a busy spring and summer and then your laptop dies? I don’t know either, but you sure as hell don’t blog. Many of you know this already from Facebook, but Greg and I got married in June on the Big Island of Hawaii.
Getting to have all of our closest friends and families with us for a week was fantastic. I had no idea how much love everyone would surround us with during that time. Getting married is super fun and I can’t recommend it enough. Exactly a week after our wedding, the Supreme Court made marriage legal for everyone in the US and our marriage felt that much more special. We were giddy.
My family, spearheaded by my eldest brother Chris, spent the six months prior to our wedding making us tiki mugs. The first night in Hawaii we met up for dinner and one by one everyone brought us a wrapped mug that they had carved and glazed themselves, from my little nephews and nieces to my parents. It was overwhelming in the best way.
Zwucker is our portmanteau.
Can you even?
I learned a few things getting married, namely that I don’t understand wedding photography at all. My nieces are beautiful and photogenic, so why not set them up so they look like they’re watching TV while I get my picture taken?
DON’T LOOK AT ME. DON’T YOU DARE LOOK AT ME! ALSO, LAURA YOU WERE RIGHT ABOUT WEARING LIPSTICK. I SHOULD’VE DONE THAT.
Greg and I are not terribly comfortable in front of the camera, but I think we knew that.
How long do we have to stare at this green screen while she photographs my back fat?
Luckily we loosened up after a few maitais.
Me and my sister reenacting a childhood dance
I’m not changing my name and we’re not having babies, so future big news around here will be limited to the gardening and pet variety (if I can convince Greg to get a dog and a cat).
In gardening news, I’m barely watering anything and seeing what survives! A roster of the departed will follow soon. Happy Monday! Yay marriage!
Please don’t hate me because we went to Maui last week, even though we’d just been to Kauai in November. My brother planned the trip for his family and asked us to come along. My nieces are 7 and 9 and the sweetest kids and I didn’t want to miss seeing Hawaii through their eyes, especially when they’re at such delightful ages.
I tried to convince Greg to come but wasn’t having much luck. Then my nieces sent him letters, including this one from Tabi:
Greg hates glitter with a white-hot passion. Only a monster would say no.
At Christmas I told Tabi she was a genius and she sighed and said conspiratorially, “There’s probably going to be some glitter.” She’s the best.
So. Anyway. We went to Maui and instead of visiting gardens we hung out with my nieces and swam and ate burgers and swam and swam and swam. It was awesome. How cute are they? They are still, for the moment, super affectionate and not embarrassed to hold my hand in public. So wonderful.
We went on a sunset sail the first full day we were there and humpback whales were breaching all around us.
All week you could just look out on the horizon and you’d see whales leaping, slapping their dorsal fins, or shooting plumes out of their blowholes. I’ve never seen a whale in the wild, so that was really neat. We also took a snorkeling tour and got to swim with the biggest green sea turtles. I could lay on the surface of the water and watch sea turtles forever. They’re more transfixing than TV, though you can’t play on the computer in your sweatpants while you watch them.
Greg and I stayed two nights longer than my family so we could have some time alone. Greg, unbeknownst to me, made arrangements for us to have dinner in a little bungalow by the beach so we could watch the sunset while we ate dinner. Then he shocked the hell out of me by asking me to marry him. After hanging out with my family for a week!
I reacted, not by crying like a normal person, but by getting really sweaty and forgetting how old I was. Our server asked me my age and I said, “37.” Greg was like, “You know you’re 36 for another month, right?” And I made him pull out a calculator and make sure he was right. I honestly couldn’t remember.
So I think I got so happy I had a tiny stroke! I went to the bathroom and I saw a miniature frog, which I considered a good omen. In retrospect maybe he wasn’t real? Either way, I’m really happy and I’m sure the feeling is going to come back to my arm soon.
Our server was so excited about our engagement, she didn’t want to leave our sides. She told us about growing up in the Philippines, her son’s job, the hotel where they stayed in Times Square, the time they went to Washington DC . . . She also took about a thousand photos of me and Greg, making sure to cut off parts of our heads so she could get the table settings in the photo. She was a hoot. She also told us the key to a good marriage was giving in, “And I guess the bible says women should submit?” which made Greg laugh and me shake my head vigorously. She really was sweet but very goofy.
Now we’re trying to figure out where we can get married where we don’t actually have to PLAN the wedding. Wedding planning sounds like the most boring thing ever. I love throwing parties but most weddings seem like a lot of work toward creating things that no one remembers, like decorations, favors, and ornamental poufs. Instead they remember if the food sucked and if your friend made a super awkward toast.
So if anyone knows where you can get married by a sea turtle, hit me up. If the turtle could do all the planning, even better.
Between this and spring coming, I feel like my heart may burst. It makes me feel even more passionately that marriage needs to be available to everyone. How anyone could deny this wonderful feeling to any of their fellow humans boggles my mind.
The weather sucks in Portland right now. Let’s visit somewhere warmer. To the Kauai vacations photos!
Photo by Greg
We had a wonderful time in Kauai, despite a couple of hiccups. It rained off and on the whole time, which made us panic that we were going to have another experience like we did in Oahu. About halfway through our trip we got word that one of Greg’s team members, who was only 53, passed away. We had a pretty sad three days processing that and it was hard to feel okay enjoying a tropical vacation. But if there’s a better place to be sad than the ocean, I’m not sure where it is.
It helps that we stayed in Koloa, where you can see sea turtles frequently. We got to swim five feet from them while we were snorkeling. Another time we were floating aimlessly on boogie boards and one popped up right next to me. They are gorgeous animals.
Not a sea turtle (red-crested cardinal)
We visited Hanalei town, which was a wonderful little town.
Waimea Canyon was foggy but it was still beautiful.
By the time we got to one of the best viewpoints, it was so foggy that you couldn’t see the canyon at all. It happens to be one the wettest spots on earth, receiving an average of almost 374 inches of rain per year.
We visited blowholes. We were underwhelmed.
We drank wine and contemplated on the beach.
We visited Ke’e beach, which sits at the base of Bali Ha’i. The waves were huge that day, as we were getting a lot of rough surf from Typhoon Haiyan.
We visited Opaeka’a Falls and it was pouring so hard that we snapped this photo and ran back to the car. There were flash flood warnings that day.
We drank a lot of maitais.
We admired the plumeria and chenille plant that surrounded our condo.
I still think I like Maui a smidge more but Kauai gets two thumbs up. And I thought its sunsets were better than Maui’s.
Toward the end of our trip we headed to the north end of the island and took the highway as far as it goes, to one end of the Na Pali Coast. The Limahuli Valley was one of the first inhabited areas of the Hawaiian islands and it has been established as a National Tropical Botanical Garden (other gardens I’ve toured include McBryde and Kahanu).
“Set in a narrow valley framed by soaring cliffs, Limahuli Garden and Preserve evokes the history of Kaua`i, and of the Hawaiian Islands. Born of volcanoes and isolated by thousands of miles of ocean from the rest of the world, those few species of plants, animals, and insects that arrived on these remote and barren shores had millions of years to evolve into unique forms found nowhere else on Earth.” [Source]
The terraces at Limahuli Garden were built 700 years ago and incorporate canals that carefully divert water from a stream to water the crops of taro grown here.
Taro
Hawaiian kava (Piper methysticum)
Song of India (Dracaena reflexa)
Indian mulberry (Morinda citrifolia)
Hibiscus rosa-sinensis
This is my color! I love it!
Dwarf poinciana (Caesalpinia pulcherrima)
Croton (Codiaeum variegatum)
Unlabeled, I think it’s a Pandanus
Unlabeled
Ornamental ti (Cordyline fructicosa)
Swiss cheese plant (Monstera deliciosa)
Cape plumbago (Plumbago auriculata)
Sweet sop, custard apple (Annona squamosa)
Laua’e (Microsorum grossum)
Makou, a celery relative that is endemic to the Hawaiian islands (Peucedanum sandwicense)
Soil not necessary
Hau (Rauvolfia sandwicensis)
Rasp fern (Sadleria cyatheoides)
I’i (Dryopteris fusco-atra)
Palapalai (Microlepia strigosa)
Hawane, endemic to Kauai (Pritchardia limahuliensis)
Akia (Wikstroemia uva-ursi)
Strawberry guava (Psidium cattleianum), pretty but invasive
Pandanus tectorius (I think)
Breadfruit (Artocarpus altilis)
Dwarf ‘iliau (Wilkesia hobdyi)
The finest sign ever.
Brighamia insignis (endemic)
If you’re ever on Kauai I really recommend this garden. It’s beautiful and it’s stuffed with incredibly rare plants that you won’t see anywhere else in the world.
While we were in Kauai we got quite a bit of rain, so we didn’t get to hit as many gardens as we wanted. One that we were able to visit was the McBryde Garden, one of five National Tropical Botanical Gardens.
“The National Tropical Botanical Garden (NTBG) is a not-for-profit institution, dedicated to discovering, saving, and studying the world’s tropical plants and to sharing what is learned.”
The National Tropical Botanical Gardens have plants that are found nowhere else in the world. We previously visited the Kahanu Garden on Maui, one of the NTBGs.
The McBryde Garden:
“. . . has become a veritable botanical ark of tropical flora. It is home to the largest ex situ collection of native Hawaiian flora in existence, extensive plantings of palms, flowering trees, Rubiaceae, heliconias, orchids, and many other plants that have been wild-collected from the tropical regions of the world. NTBG’s Conservation Program is based at this site and the Garden contains a state-of-the-art horticulture and micropropagation facility.”
It’s huge and it’s beautiful. My only complaint was that signage wasn’t always perfect, so some plants weren’t labeled. Let’s hit it.
Sugar cane (Saccharum officinarum)
Ricinus communis is found all over Kauai. It escaped cultivation but has not yet been labeled a noxious weed.
I love the canopy of this tree.
Ruffle palm, Aiphanes minima
These palms weren’t labeled but I think they are cabbage palms, Clinostigma savoryanum, and they had the most beautiful blue trunks.
This was one of my favorite plants, sadly unlabeled.
The enormous glossy leaves had the coolest striations in them.
Pittosporum halophilum
Hibiscus
Geckos were everywhere
St. Thomas Bean (Entada phaseoloides)
This enormous vine was completely entwined in a monkeypod tree.
The McBryde Garden has an extensive spice garden, which includes a collection of coffee trees.
Chao muang trang palm (Licuala peltata var. sumawongii)
I want one of these. I want to take naps and have picnics under it.
Portlandia platantha, a gorgeous member of the coffee family
Indian shot (Canna tuerckheimii)
This was one of my very favorites, Ficus dammaropsis.
The enormous leaves had the most wonderful texture.
And those blooms! The purple veining! Oh my god.
I hope these pictures don’t make the impending sn*w they are predicting for the Portland area any worse. I know I wish I was still in Kauai. Maybe with a maitai.
Greg and I just returned from ten days on Kauai and we’re slowly adjusting to a cruel lack of sunshine, maitais, and the gentle smell of plumeria on the air. It’s cold and rainy in Portland.
I gave in at the airport and bought this tree fern (Cibotium splendens) and popped it in a weirdly wonderful pot I found at Digs.
I think it looks like the Grinch without his hat on. I’ve set it up in the bathroom where it should get the humidity it likes. Anybody have any luck growing one of these?
While we were on Maui we visited the Kahanu Garden, a national tropical botanical garden. This garden focuses on endemic plants and the plants that Hawaiians have used for food and medicine. There aren’t a lot of flowers here but it’s still lovely. Foliage is the star.
The big draw with this garden is the Pi’ilanihale Heiau, a stone structure that covers three acres and took 128,000 man-days to build.
Not a lot is known about this structure but they do know that it was a religious site. You aren’t allowed on it and the rocky area in the foreground is a burial site. The structure is massive. Greg, lucky duck, got to fly over it on his hang gliding tour. Can you see it, at about 10 o’clock?
There are many different types of bananas and taro everywhere.
It was considered bad luck to take bananas on fishing trips and, until the end of the taboo system in 1819, women weren’t allowed to eat certain varieties. Too much delicious potassium?
We joked about seeing the Hawaiian national bird, the weed whacker. These were everywhere, all over the island. Hawaiians love their weed whackers.
I was so taken with the way they underplanted the alocasia with ferns. I want to replicate this in a galvanized container.
Ape/Elephant’s ear (Alocasia macrorrhiza)
These screw pines are part of the largest remaining hala grove on the island.
Hala/Screw pine (Pandanus tectorius)
The bark is incredible.
There was a huge coconut grove with signs begging you not to walk beneath them.
According to our snorkel captain, more tourists are harmed each year by falling coconuts than sharks.
Loulu/Fan palm (Pritchardia affinis)
Lava rock raised beds
They had “the canoe garden” which included the species that Tahitians brought by canoe to the Hawaiian islands.
Feel free to ignore this post if you don’t like looking at pictures of warm places when it’s so cold out. We went to Maui! I’ve never eaten so much banana bread in my life!
We got up at 3am the first morning we were there to see the sunrise atop Haleakala. You can drive a paved road all the way to the top, which is way easier than seeing the sunrise from Mauna Kea on the big island of Hawaii. When we went up Mauna Kea in 2010 we had to rent a 4WD and drive miles of terrifying unpaved roads with steep dropoffs and no guardrails.
Haleakala October 2012
Because it’s so easy to get to the top there were tons of people there. When the sun broke through some people exclaimed as though they weren’t sure it was going to happen.
It reminded me of this commercial, which caused me to run around our whole vacation yelling, “Oh, it’s so spiritual!”
It was nice but it wasn’t as spectacular as Mauna Kea, which looked like this. We were pretty much alone when we visited Mauna Kea, too. Way better.
Mauna Kea October 2010
Good thing there were plenty of other pretty things to gawk over.
We visited the ‘Iao Valley and the ‘Iao Needle (the giant phallic rock) that was the site of an incredibly gruesome battle between King Kamehameha and the chief of Maui.
There were taro plants everywhere.
We visited the Korean Garden, which was a mishmash of tributes to the various emigrants that landed on the Hawaiian islands.
There were spaces for the Chinese . . .
New Englanders . . .
Portuguese . . .
Japanese . . .
We went to Lahaina and saw the single banyon tree that covers a huge park. It was gorgeous.
We attended the Old Lahaina Lu’au, where the food and dancing were spectacular.
We drove The Road to Hana. If we’re being honest, I hate things like this, where you drive and stop every half mile to take photos of something scenic. I don’t end up enjoying myself at all. But we stopped at the Kahanu Botanical Garden (pictures to follow in a separate post), which was peaceful and nearly empty.
We swam at the black sand beach at Wai’anapanapa.
We saw the red sand beach but I was wearing flip flops and couldn’t get down to it. The iron in the lava is rusting, giving it this unreal color.
We went powered hang gliding in Hana. This was my birthday present to Greg and I still can’t believe I did this. If any of you know me in real life or follow me on Twitter, I get absolutely shitfaced before getting on flights, using a combo of Xanax and vodka. I’ve gotten waaaaay better at flying over the years but I never look forward to it. I took half a Xanax for this little excursion. It took about 15 minutes up in the air to unclench and then I felt like I could stay up there forever.
The pilot is named Armin and he’s wonderful. He showed me Oprah’s property and Pat Benatar’s house.
This is Greg flying over the road to Hana.
It’s a stunning way to see the island and I can’t recommend it enough. The funnest part is when he cuts the engine and you just glide. Then he starts diving and swooping and you can’t stop screaming and laughing. We stayed overnight in Hana (which I highly recommend) and had dinner at one of two restaurants in town. We sat outside while rain poured down on the corrugated roof and locals performed at the open mic. Hana is wonderful, especially when all the tourbuses depart.
The next morning we got up and visited the Seven Sacred Pools at ‘Ohe’o Gulch.
We hiked the Pipiwai Trail, into the bamboo forest, which is one of the coolest hikes I’ve ever done.
It gets surprisingly dark on the trail at points, the bamboo is so thick. It can get noisy with the shh-shh-shh of the leaves and the clack-clack-clack of the thick culms smacking against each other. It’s AWESOME.
The trail ends at the 400 foot Waimoku Falls. We have so many waterfalls in Oregon that I’m rarely blown away by them, but this was very pretty.
Here’s how it looked from the air.
Then our rental car started bucking and dying on our way out of town. We had planned to take the south road home from Hana, which is unpaved for five miles and mostly single-laned with blind turns. There are few towns along it. After restarting the car several times, only to have it die again, the car magically started (thank goodness, as there are no rental car agencies in Hana) and Greg said he still wanted to take the south road.
This was not my finest hour.
We bickered back and forth, with me pointing out that if the car died on the road, we’d lose power steering and power brakes, possibly while making a sharp turn, possibly plunging us into the ocean. If the car died we’d be in the middle of nowhere. Did I mention we had no cell service either? He still wanted to do it.
So I spent a few hours quietly seething. And worrying. He asked if I wanted to stop anywhere and I basically told him, I will leave you forever if you even think about stopping this car. We don’t know that it will start again.
I hate Fords, guys. This shit happens to everyone I know with a Ford.
But the south road is beautiful and totally different than the north road, with its waterfalls and lush greenness. My friends Amy and Sloan wrote about it here. I can’t recommend falling down the rabbit hole that is their travel blog enough. They are fantastic storytellers and they’ve been amazing places.
The road wasn’t as scary as I feared it would be and it was totally doable without a 4WD car.
Despite all the worrying, I thought this drive was prettier than the north road to Hana.
We swapped out our rental car in Kihei and hopped in the ocean for a swim and I felt so much better. Swimming in the ocean is the best palate cleanser ever.
We went snorkeling at Molokini Crater, which has visibility of 150 feet or more. It was great, we even saw an octopus! I always refer to this fish as “the Blazers fish” because it looks like the Portland Trailblazers logo:
Right?
We drove around the NW top of the island, which was waaaaayyy dicier than either road to Hana. Unpaved one-lane roads, blind corners, very steep dropoffs and tricky maneuvers when you meet another car going the other direction. But it was so pretty! And there’s a great art gallery on the road, as well as the best banana bread I’ve ever had.
Loree, is this Agave attentuata? It was everywhere and I loved it so much I failed to get a non-crappy photo!
We also laid on the beach and read two books apiece and swam and swam and swam. If you are what you eat, I was 40% pineapple, 20% dark rum, 10% ocean water, and 30% grilled meat during our stay.
At the risk of sounding like an asshole, I’m going to tell you that we just spent a week in Oahu and it was not the greatest trip. I’ve been to Hawaii once before, to the big island, and it was the most magical week of my life. I might have sobbed at the airport when we had to leave. But this week can mostly be summed up like this:
THUNDERSTORMS
maitais!
rainrainrainrain
HUNDRED YEAR FLOODING
Oh my god, HUMONGOUS insects
maitais!
rainrainrainrain
Oh my god, HUMONGOUS insects
Swimming in the ocean. So nice.
rainrainrainrain
Oh my god, HUMONGOUS insects
maitais!
Swimming in the ocean. So nice.
rainrainrainrain
Oh my god, what is up with the HUMONGOUS insects?
rainrainrainrain
Oh my god, HUMONGOUS insects CRAWLING OVER ME WHILE I SLEPT
rainrainrainrain
Oh my god, HUMONGOUS CANE SPIDER IN OUR RENTAL
no sleep
no sleep
no sleep
Swimming in the ocean. So nice.
rainrainrainrain
Oh my god, HUMONGOUS insects
Finally one day of gorgeous weather, at a resort no less.
Sunburn
Flight home.
It feels terrible to complain about getting to go on vacation when so many people are unemployed, underemployed, or taking paycuts to keep their jobs, but Greg has been working 60+ hours a week and we were so looking forward to relaxing in the sun.
Pretty but rainy.
We still had a good time but Oahu got hit by hundred year flooding just as we arrived, including a tornado to part of the island, and evacuations in the north. It was still warm out but the water was choppy and our stay on the windward side of the island, in Kailua, was kind of a bust since the weather was extra crappy there. As a bonus, all the critters tend to end up inside when it rains that heavily. So one night I awoke to find what I think was a giant cockroach crawling across my chest.
You guys, my biggest fear crawled across my chest while I slept. The only way it could have been worse is if it whispered, You’ll always be alone and your mother’s cancer is back! while it skittered over my pillow.
That was the last night I got any semblance of sleep in Oahu. We’d been having problems with ants in the kitchen, despite the fact that there was no food or dirty dishes to be had. I discovered they were camping out in the crumb catch of the toaster. So Greg and I were shaking the toaster, forcing the ants out, when a cockroach popped out!
I called the host and said, “Your toaster is in the yard. Please take it far away.” Then Greg turned white, looked panicked, and said, “Baby, please don’t look over there.” Of course, I looked over there and saw a spider the size of my fist. That artwork on the wall? It’s an 8 1/2 x 11.
Heteropoda venatoria
Cane spiders are harmless and they are great predators of roaches and silverfish and all the things that were terrifying me on this trip but shitballs, they are SCARY. Our host kindly took both the toaster and the cane spider down the street for us.
We did have fun. I swam in the ocean (rain be damned) almost every day, which is one of my very favorite activities. We had intended to avoid Honolulu and Waikiki beach because of TRAFFIC, OH MY GOD TRAFFIC, but it had the only decent weather on the island. So we ended up there quite a but. I know I’m supposed to hate Waikiki (tourists! beefcakes! men with trampstamps! crowds!) but I didn’t mind it at all. We drank $5 maitais at Lulu’s and went swimming in the warm water. On our last day we drove to the driest part of the island and spent the day at Ko Olina, which features four man-made lagoons and a bunch of resorts and I loved it. There were no bugs there. We snorkeled, swam, and felt hot sun on our skin for the first time. It was magnificent.
Then we flew home to spectacularly wet and chilly weather. As we were unpacking Greg looked panicked, then said, “Baby, don’t look in my suitcase.” He had smuggled home a centipede. UNIVERSE, WHY?
I love Greg. He is a wonderful man but bitch. can’t. hustle. He sauntered to find a paper towel while I screamed, “You know what happens if you get stung by a centipede, right?” The island remedy is three days of drunkenness to combat the pain! HURRY UP.” He took his sweet time removing it and flushing it down the toilet, telling me that I was being silly. Then he looked it up on the Internet and, sure enough, the sting of a Hawaiian centipede is awful. Go google image that shit if you don’t believe me.
We attempted to go to Pearl Harbor but it was closed due to lightning strikes. Instead we hit up the Foster Botanical Garden, what our guidebook called, “The only botanical garden on the island worth seeing.” I’ll post pictures of that soon, once I quit worrying about what else we might have smuggled home.
On the upside, I slept ten hours last night in my own bed (heaven!) and I dreamed that This Old House showed up at our place and fixed everything that needs fixing in the house. Aside from the fact that Roger Cook wasn’t there, it was pretty sweet.
Do you ever lie in bed and debate which TOH contractor you’d want on your project if they filmed at your house? Or is that just me? I can never choose.
