Day 364: The Last Full Day of the Sullivan Family Adventure — Lunch at The Dolphin — Trip Scattergories
It’s the last full non-travel day of our adventure. We head home tomorrow night, with an 11:15pm overnight flight to LAX, then a morning flight on to DC.
But in a bit of awesome news, the owner of our Airbnb told us she was cool with us hanging out here all day tomorrow (no one checking in after us). So not only does that give us a place to spend the day tomorrow but it also changes the dynamic of today — we don’t need to pack or really prep to leave at all.
This has been the perfect, chilled out, zero-plans-until-we-decide-to-do-something week. My friend Craig, who has vacay’d here Princeville, sent a text asking if we’d hiked to Secrets Beach, ate at Bar Acuda or watched the sunset at the One Hotel. All North Shore “must-do’s.”
My response: Nope.
And I don’t have any FOMO.
We’ve slept in, made meals at home, played games, read and watched movies.
Margaret has been posting up at her special little desk-with-a-view, heads down on the book project.
We gave James and Willa access to Spotify on their iPads and they’ve been playing some of their favorites on repeat: Around the World by Daft Punk, Into The Unknown from the Frozen 2 soundtrack, Shut Up and Dance by Walk the Moon.
We did homeschool today for the first time here in Hawaii. James wrote his last journal entry recapping the boogie boarding experience. Then we took pictures of his New Zealand, Japan and Hawaii entries and added them to a Google Slides presentation, completing a full set of all his journal entries throughout the year. Not risking losing those paper copies!
We decided we had to check out The Dolphin restaurant in Hanalei, our first restaurant of the week. Thinking we’d be smart to beat the crowds, we arrived at 11:30 and the place was pretty much empty.
I had my first poke bowl in Hawaii, Margaret had fish tacos, Willa had two kids menu items — a corn dog and an avocado roll, and James crushed an adult menu portion of tuna sashimi. We’ve repeatedly said we’re so glad to be going back to New York where we can find essentially all of the foods we’ve grown to love on this trip.
I had my iPad in my backpack because Margaret wanted to have it in case she had the opportunity to do some writing. I decided to tell the kids about the next trip we’ve booked: spring break visits to Vero Beach, FL with my parents and the Voorhees fam and San Juan, Puerto Rico to see DC friend Caton Burwell and his family. They were excited about that news but then I told them we would start the holiday with a day at Universal Studios Florida and….THE WIZARDING WORLD OF HARRY POTTER! We spent a few minutes looking at the park’s website. Both kids are very excited.
After lunch we drove down to the Hanalei Beach Pier and set up for an afternoon at the beach. The weather was ominous and eventually the rains came, driving us home after only about 30 minutes. On the way home we dropped off our rental boogie board — definitely got $20 worth of fun out of that this week.
James, Willa and I took a quick swim then rinsed in the outside shower.
We put on a Netflix movie for the kids — Growing Up Wild by Disney. It followed five baby animals, narrated by Daveed Diggs of Hamilton fame.
Margaret made some empty-the-fridge pasta for dinner and then we played our homemade version of “Trip Scattergories” while eating ice cream for dessert. The game categories were things like “Places we Stayed,” “Things in our Suitcase,” “Food we Ate” and “Name of a Guide.” We would pick a letter randomly then have to come up with answers for each category that start with that letter. It’s a fun way to keep the countless amazing memories of this trip fresh in our minds.
I read day 2 of The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe — a breeze compared to the challenge of the Hobbit. The kids were both really tired after a late night the night before and both zonked quickly. None of us are even adjusted to Hawaii time yet — the shift to Eastern time will be brutal.
Margaret and I both agreed that our minds have started churning these last few days. After having very little that we must to do or worry about, we’re inevitably starting to think about what’s next — especially at night when our bodies are still trying to fight the jetlag. It’s ok, we’re ready for the next stage. But we know we’ll soon yearn for that peaceful state of mind. The big question and mission: can we achieve this present, peaceful state even once we’re back in the mix in New York.
