I need sunshine! It has been raining here for days. Yesterday I saw a bit of blue sky and the sun peeked through for a minute but my friends and I at the coffee shop all ran outside to see it and I think we scared it away. Alas!
After New Years Amoeba and I are off to the Big Island again. Of course it is a vacation for me but he has to work. Taking me along makes the trip a little easier on him, too. Then he doesn’t have to worry about cooking, cleaning, laundry and such when he is working 12 – 15 hour days and making charts, graphs and reports half the night.
Still, cooking and cleaning only takes so much time and I’ll have hours I am alone to fill with … something. I cannot just sit on the beach ad nauseum. I am a lily-white haole and I will burn to a crisp. That’s why I decided I should build an itinerary. I found this great vacation ideas website designed to feed me ideas and detail the best features of vacation destinations of choice.
I also looked up some vacation tips. I wasn’t looking for the usual “pack sunscreen and take a hat” stuff. I wanted to know best places to eat — good food, little money — and sights to see. Funny thing is, I was looking in my hometown rather than Hawaii. Imagine my surprise when I discovered Coeur d’Alene, Idaho featured on the site. In the course of reading about it I also discovered CdA appears in Patricia Shultz’s book ‘1,000 Places to See Before You Die’. I always knew my hometown was special with it’s huge blue lake, green mountains and year-round sports options, but I guess it will always be in my heart as the sleepy little mill town it hasn’t been in a long, long time.
Quilly is the pseudonym of Charlene L. Amsden, who lives in the Pacific Northwest. When she is not doing book reviews or creating curriculum literature units, she is working on writing the next great American novel. You may visit her writing blog at http://charlene-amsden.com. Quilly is the pseudonym of Charlene L. Amsden, who lives in the Pacific Northwest. When she is not doing book reviews or creating curriculum literature units, she is working on writing the next great American novel. You may visit her writing blog at http://charlene-amsden.com. 
Well, I hope you enjoy your time on the beach (and off) but I also love that you found some excitement right around home. I think we forget to enjoy the place we are because we see it everyday.
All the best to you and yours this holiday season.
Traci
With our below freezing temperatures and wind chill that much colder, a trip to the islands sounds rather lovely.
I’m glad you didn’t wash away in all of that rain!
I hope you enjoy your time at the beach. it’s always nice to get away from the cold weather and into some really nice warm weather. I hope the weather for you will be perfect too.