Historical Marker #15-Fort Vancouver

On the way to today's volksmarch we stopped at the Gee Creek Safety Rest Area and took a picture of the Fort Vancouver historical marker.  This is the 6th overall that we've found.   It was a bit hard to read because it was quite faded and blocked in by plants.

Vancouver Volksmarch (#1)

It's been a bit of a slow start this year, but we finally completed our first 6k volksmarch for 2018 today down in Vancouver at Frenchman's Bar Regional Park.  Although the forecast was for dry weather, it started raining once we reached Vancouver and didn't stop.  Needless to say we were not dressed appropriately and got pretty wet & cold.  Glad we found a yummy place to have some pho to warm up before heading home.   I really am ready for some warmer, dryer weather.

Look how wet that flag is!

Hawaii Tropical Botanical Garden

Located at Onomea Bay, this incredibly beautiful garden had many different plant species from all over the world.  This garden was founded by Dan and Pauline Lutkenhouse in 1978 and opened to the public in 1984.  I had to do a separate post because I took so many photos...

Spring Break in Hawaii

This past week the girls, Scott, Sherry & I spent a glorious week on the big island of Hawaii.  We stayed on the west side of the island in a 2 bedroom condo at the Fairway Villas Waikoloa.  It was in a prime location within walking distance to shops and restaurants as well as the Waikoloa Petroglyphs.  Although the weather wasn't forecasted to be great, we ended up having several beautiful days...and got a bit burnt...but it was totally worth it. 

We visited several beaches, but our favorite was Hapuna Beach which had beautiful, soft white sand.  It was really shallow...you could walk out at least a hundred feet and the strong waves made it perfect for body surfing.  Waialea Beach was perfect for snorkeling and also had abundant shade. We saw some sea turtles at the Punalu'u black sand beach, which was pretty but really hard to walk on without shoes.

We visited Volcano National Park where we walked through the Thurston Lava Tube and stood in front of the steam vents to try and get warm because it was really cold & rainy there.  We didn't stay there too long, but did manage to also get in a little hike.

We visited the Hawaii Tropical Botanical Garden near Hilo, which was incredible.  So many gorgeous plants!  That same day we saw Akaka Falls, Kahuna Falls, Rainbow Falls and Boiling Pots.

We spent our last day on the island shopping & checking out the more touristy area of Kona, which was a bit more crowded than where we stayed, but it had a lot of cute shops and yummy food.

What a great vacation and so glad we got to all be together for spring break this year!

The villas where we stayed.

 

Going to check out the petroglyphs.

This place had so many delicious baked goods!

Hapuna Beach

The pool at our condo complex.

Akaka Falls

Lunch in Kona.  One of our favorite things was open air dining.

One last beach....