Lightsabers and Lollipops

so lemme start by saying this: my wife and i had a great vacation. the company that sent us kept giving us things to do. and when we had nothin to do, my parents took us out to do sumthin. here's the fist thing we did. we rode bicycles down a volcano. they picked us up from the hotel. our tour guide was a crotchety old man. he was really funny. crude, but funny. we went up the mountain in a van. learned all sorts of fun facts about Hawaii. one thing that we found out that may or may not be true: it was a dormant volcano. they are usually only dormant for 200 years, it last erupted in 1790. so you do the math. here's a pic of the top.

when we got to the top, it's really cold. so they gave those who wanted these warm windbreaker/jumpsuits. then they made us ride around a bit to make sure we wouldn't fall off the bikes. it was very important to not use the left brake only! we would be going downhill about 18-25 miles per hour. the left brake was for the front tire. it would pretty much work as an ejector seat. this made me a wee bit nervous. i kept my fingers far from that break, lemme tell ya. so off we go down the hill/mountain/volcano. here's a posed pic that the guide took.

this next pic seems to be an image of me trying to sell you the island of Maui. any takers?

then further down the mountain we stopped for lunch which consisted of a sammich, some very greasy maui chips that should not be stored in direct sunlight and some fresh fruit that i gave to my wife but i heard was delicious.

while eating we had some guests. lotsa chickens and a rooster. plus some leetle birds pickin for scraps. interesting story about the chickens. there used to be a lot of cock fighting on the island. then there was a hurricane or tidal wave or somethin and all the cages were broken. this set all the fightin chickens free! so their fightin days were through and it was time to repopulate the island with little chickadees. and here's a pic of wifey feedin the chickens.

after we rode on down it did rain some, but that was no problem cuz it was paved. but then we went through town. and there was lotsa mud! it was that red mud. and here's a hint. the bikes had no fenders. so the mud went up our backs as we rode.

and as we reached the end of the tour we stared off into the ocean. dirt on our backs and sand in our toes. a good time was had by all. we went back to our hotel and guiltily walked through the lobby with our muddy shoes and clothes.
so there.