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| Nola in Paradise |
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| Theresa and Kelly, full of enthusiasm |
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| Nola, William, Katie, Deb, Kelly, Theresa and Tom |
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| Joy is where you find it |
David caught the enthusiasm and pure joy I expressed regarding the wonderful Hawaiian vacation that Pauline and I enjoyed the summer of 1978. The next summer David and I boarded our flight to Kauai with Kate (age 7), Tom (10), Bill (12), and Kelly and her friend Teresa (both 14). To help balance the adult-to-child ratio, we brought along David’s sister Debby.
This trip didn’t get off the ground with the ease that Pauline and I had experienced. Both Deb and Theresa arrived on the plane with fevers of 102 degrees--not a great way to start a vacation!
It was the first flight for all the Haggerty kids. Aside from being punctuated repeatedly with the timeless refrain (“How much longer before we get there?”), the flight itself was uneventful.
It was hot and muggy on our arrival, just as it had been for Pauline and me, but that was pretty much the end of the trip similarities. We had not even considered housing our large group in a fancy hotel. Instead, we opted for the family-oriented condominiums, complete with kitchens. What fun! Shopping and preparing most of the meals just like at home. Did I say vacation?
We did take the kids on several of the same island tours Pauline and I had thoroughly enjoyed; but the kids were not impressed with the beautiful lagoons, waterfalls, gorgeous flowers or native entertainment. They called the tours “Boring!”
Kelly’s friend Theresa had “fallen in love” just before leaving on the trip. As a result, she spent most of her time in the condo writing letters to the boy back home instead of enjoying activities with Kelly. Needless to say, we had two frustrated teenagers on our hands.
The condo we had booked in Kauai turned out to be a high-rise apartment building, with the ocean inconveniently situated across a very busy street. The condo had no swimming pool. All the activities the kids wanted to do at the condo opened late and closed early (“Boring!”). On our arrival at the condo, Deb said she would take the girls into her room with her and we could keep the boys. The first evening Kelly and Theresa decided to explore the facilities and they disappeared for three hours. When they finally returned, Deb hastened to our door with the wandering ladies and announced she did not want to be responsible for these two wayward teenagers. “I’ll take the boys!” she said emphatically.
We did venture to the Kauai Surf Hotel for a buffet dinner one evening; that was a great success with everyone except Theresa, who just ate crackers. The rest of us did our best to make up for her poor appetite at the buffet tables. Bill alone must have eaten three pounds of prime rib!
The kids were happy to leave Kauai behind, due to the lack of swimming facilities at our condo and distance to the beach. Our final destination, Maui, provided us with a beachfront condo on the ground floor. Hurrah! No, make that Oops! The beach was not covered with sand, but rather big, ugly boulders and lots of bug-filled bushes. Our son Bill’s first attempt to reach the ocean garnered him a huge bee sting, “Ouch!” The best thing at the condo was the swimming pool right outside our door. The children spent hours visiting with the other kids in the pool. As we live only a block from the community pool in Davis, our trip was turning into a rather expensive and somewhat unpleasant swim-vacation for our little travelers.
We rented a large van to tour the island and one afternoon we headed to a secluded beach and succeeded in getting helplessly stuck in the sand. Fortunately for us, a group of Hawaiian teenagers came to our rescue (even though David initially thought they might be going to rob us).
Several of our traveling group managed to sustain pretty crispy
sunburns. That was about all they
managed to collect aside from a couple of good pen pals they met at poolside.
This vacation shared with the family was not the one David had dreamed
of. The initial enthusiasm the kids
expressed petered out very quickly and was replaced mostly with grumbling. Even the flight back echoed with “How much
longer ‘til we get home?”
On our welcome return to home, David said, “Our next trip to Hawaii will be as a couple
only.” And it was. But that is another story.
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| Paradise without the children |
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