Taking a journal along on our trip was such fun. I'm really glad I had it, and spent quite a bit of time doodling away while sitting on the balcony and watching the waves.
The book was pre-made and ready to fill once I got there, and I packed an assortment of markers, ribbons, papers, and doodads to add to it. As I worked, I saved spaces for photos to add later. Trouble is, I didn't take enough pictures, or save enough tidbits of travel stuff. When I do this again, I'll know what to look out for and will remember to keep snippets of the days. I'd like to have had more papers to add to the book, but I also enjoyed drawing in it, so I guess it turned out ok.
On this page, I used a piece of a pamphlet that came with some sea glass earrings that I bought (upper left hand corner) and then drew over it, so it didn't look so white, white against all the color of the rest of the page.
Each morning with my coffee on the balcony, I worked on a page about the previous day.
And there was plenty going on to fill a page!
Its about my husband's activities too, he was off being adventurous with his brother-in-law quite a bit, while his sis and I were more low keyed. You can see here, that there was surfing and scuba diving, but neither were my own activities. I tried to dive, but just couldn't do it.
I was the biggest wimp ever. And I am an ocean lover. I'm not afraid of the waves or sea, can swim very well and love to explore. My trouble with continuing the lesson was unexpected. I shocked myself with my cowardice. My husband is very claustrophobic, I thought he might have trouble, but I didn't expect any trouble from myself!
As a child, I had asthma and remember emergency hospital trips. But as an adult, my asthma is so mild, I forget that I have it and rarely even consider myself asthmatic.
When we signed up for scuba, we were asked if we had asthma or heart conditions and I said no. Then, I had a mini asthma attack while running and laughing on the beach, and from that moment, I started thinking about what would happen if I had one under the ocean. I freaked myself out before we even got into the pool to try out the gear. So, of course, I performed dismally in that frame of mind.
And I was crying like a baby when I had to do the walk of shame back to the gear drop off as the rest of my group flippered off into the ocean. Not my proudest moment when I had to come out of the pool at that crowded and lovely resort and walk past all the vacationers in chaise lounges who had been watching my failure with interest like I was the afternoon's soap opera.
Besides my wimpiness at that activity, the trip was great. We laughed and played, and rested and ATE all week.
This page has a little cartoon I did about a joke i pulled on the beach. A couple asked me to take their picture and my husband offered to pose with them, just being silly. Unbeknown to them, I maneuvered the camera so that he was in the background of the picture. Only on one take, though, so that if they honestly didn't want his photograph, they could use a different shot. Although, he is a cutey, they should be glad to have it!
The city block sized banyan tree in Lahaina was the inspiration for this page, I drew it from memory when I got back to the room instead of waiting till the next day when the picture was fuzzy in my mind.
This page is a little different than the rest, the messages about what we did that day are hidden in the branches.
The road to Hana was such a jam packed day of sight seeing, I had to use two pages. I sketched out a map of the island and wrote messages along where the road goes about what we saw.
I would highly recommend this outing, but its a hard one for anyone who gets carsick. Like I did. Mostly we broke up the day long drive over twisty, turny cliffs by roadside jaunts to visit waterfalls and bamboo forests. But there were a couple of longer stints in the car where I must have been a bit green because everyone was asking me how I was doing, when I thought I was being very discreet about trying not to spew.
But, the beauty I saw on this ride was worth every bit of discomfort. The queasiness was fleeting, but the memories of the beauty are forever.
More twisty roads went up to the volcano, but again, WORTH it! I drugged myself up with non drowsy dramamine and that helps. I also was careful to eat bland, solid food. No sloshy stuff like soup that would sway in my tummy when we went around a curve.
We visited a lavender farm near the volcano, and that was one of my favorite places.
Since I didn't collect enough stuff to fill the book, I slipped our itinerary into a pocket. Boring. Next time I'll scoop up lots of mementos to add to the pages.
At least I had some maps for these pockets. I folded the map inside out so that the interesting part showed instead of the bright red "FREE MAP" on the cover peeking out.
My pictures are added in a jumble, different days or areas on one page together, but I was matching up sizes and colors to make a pretty layout. In my world, pretty counts a lot more than accuracy.
Here is an instance where I was smart enough to save something from the trip, the key card holder from the hotel. I glued it down, drew on and embellished it, and added a photos of us in the key card slots.
Years ago, we went hiking in Arkansas and kissed under a waterfall. Sugarwings loves to hear stories about romance and true love, and never gets tired of us telling her about our special moment under the falls. This time we weren't able to hike over to the falls, but at least we got to share a smooch in front of them.
On our last night, we stumbled upon a row of tables set up on the beach and had to stay for dinner. It was such a romantic setting, just at sunset, right on the ocean. The restaurant was the Westin hotel and the food was the best we'd had all week.
My husband wasn't too impressed with himself as a merman in this picture, but Sugarwings adores it and jumped up and down with excitement when she saw how I'd cut his photo out and added it to a mermaid tail.
The photo is from our day of whale watching. Other people might have glued down actual photos of the boat or the whales, but I kind of like this picture as a remembrance.
Now that I have finished my book, I guess I need to get some "real" work done.
It was nice to scam some extra vacation time to complete this, but I can't eke out my time off for too long. I have a workshop to get ready for!
Photos of that next.
