Finally the Hawaiian Vacation Begins!

There aren't too many worse ways to start off a vacation on a tropical island than food poisoning or a stomach bug. Especially when you have tons of plans to jam pack your days full of fun. Well, that's exactly what my Mom and I experienced Saturday and Sunday.

We left Seattle around 10:30am on Saturday and after a rather long, tight and boring flight, we made it into Maui a little after 1:00pm local time. Since our flight into Kona wasn't boarding until 2:30pm, we decided to go ahead and grab something to eat at a bar and grill place and pair it with some Mai Tais. We shared a Hawaiian pork sandwich with fries. Both the sandwich and drink tasted pretty good and when we were done, we went off to the gate to sit and wait for the flight.

Shortly before the flight I was already starting to feel a little off, a little queasy, but I didn't pay it much mind. As the puddle jumper began its ascent to the skies, it started to get much worse. I had already taken something earlier in the day to ward off motion sickness, as nausea is a feeling I'm all too familiar with on vehicles. My Mom gave me another pill, but it didn't help. I barely made it through the flight and was ready to bolt off the plane once we had landed, but of course, that takes awhile with people crowding the aisles, taking forever to get their bags. So, as soon as we got off, I headed for a bathroom and was promptly very ill. That pretty much began the rest of the day and into wee hours of the morning.

We got our luggage, car and to the hotel, the Royal Kona Resort, without problems. The hotel certainly doesn't seem worth the price, as the beds aren't the comfy, the room is noisy and doesn't remain cool until the A/C is actively running and there's a distinct musty odour that creeps up from the carpets. It isn't that clean and the staff isn't the friendly. But, we were here.

As I already mentioned, being sick took up the rest of our night. My Mom started feeling the affects much later than I did. So, it made for a turbulent night. The next day was less of being violently ill, but more the affect effects of your body going through such an ordeal. My Mom had gone out earlier in the day to get some juice and fruit, but I wasn't interested in eating any of it. I did try to eat saltines, drink water and later was able to eat a Lara Bar, which helped.

By evening time, I was feeling alright, but still fairly weak but my Mom seemed barely conscious, so I strong armed her into going to a local urgent care clinic that was going to be open for another half hour. So, off to the doctor we went. They were extremely kind and sympathetic. I ended up declining being seen because I felt alright, by my Mom nearly passed out in the waiting room, so she was seen immediately. We left with instructions to eat bananas (not pineapple or oranges which my Mom had gotten earlier), saltines and sip water. So, that's exactly what we did for the rest of the evening.

Now, we both feel much improved and thankfully, we've only lost one day of our vacation. Today we're going to take it easy and go to some place local, a national historical park of Hawaiian culture. It's raining again today.. as it has done every day so far that we've been here. Hopefully, as I've been told, it'll let up by noon. However, from the look of the map, the rain is only located right here, so maybe a 20 mile drive south will take us out of here. Either way, it's warm and that's all I really care about after having months of cold, dark gray skies and miserable drizzle.

Aloha!