He was middle-aged and had this Indiana Jones like hat and he was very very tan with a mustache and a beard. He was wearing hiking boots and a fleece sweater, and his eyes were strikingly blue. I also noticed that he was missing a finger on one of his hands. This guy seemed like he was right off the pages of a book on exploring. He could have been an extra in “3:10 to Yuma”.

Anyhoo, we got off at our stop and I never even glanced back at the stranger. Once we got on the trail, CM jumped and made a little noise. I realized that he was standing 3 feet away from a deer! We all scrambled to get our cameras out. I got one shot of him and I think CM got some video. The kids were so giddy.

We knew this was the start to a great hike. (Mind you, we didn’t know at that time that we would be out there for 4 hours.) About 10 minutes later we turned a curve and we saw the guy from the bus. He was sitting down in the forest eating something. To my horror, Widget asked him what he was eating. He said he was picking huckleberries and eating them.

Huckleberries. I don’t know about you, but I have never eaten anything that just happened to be growing along side of a trail. I didn’t know what to say when he offered Widget a handful, but I decided to throw caution to the wind. This guy looked like he’d done this before and if he said they were okay to eat, he was probably right. (I mean, I know that huckleberries are edible, but my concern was that he had misidentified the plant.)

So I totally broke Rule #1 in my “Parental Playbook” — Don’t take food from strangers! This entire experience, from the day that I listed all of our stuff for sale on Craigslist, has really changed the way I view strangers. I have met so many new and interesting people. People that I would have never met had I would have stayed in that little box of an apartment. I walked through a forest and I stopped every now and then to eat friggin wild huckleberries! Yeah, “Old KJ” would have been terrified at the idea and that makes me happy and let’s me know that all of this was worth it.

After we left Glacier Park, disaster struck. I’ll tell you about it next time.

So, I would say at about 2 miles in Midget flat out refused to walk. CM & I took turns carrying her on our shoulders up a mountain. About 3 hours later, we got to the top of the mountain. I’m not going to lie, it was soooo beautiful, but I was so out of breath and so scared that a bear was going to eat me that I didn’t enjoy it as much.

I don’t know how long our downhill trip took. We practically ran, even Midget. When we finally broke out of the trees I was so thankful. That night I intended to blog about everything that had happened. However, when we got back to the RV, we microwaved some TV dinners and we all passed out from exhaustion. I woke up in the middle of the night in terrible pain. My legs were throbbing, it hurt if I bent them, it hurt if I stretched them out. It took everything I had to not fall as I climbed down the latter to get some Tylenol. About 45 minutes later I was sound asleep.

That day started a downhill spiral for CM and I. We were constantly on the go and we never got any rest. For me, the first thing to go was the blog. Taking care of the kids and planning a trip on the go was more than enough to fill my plate.

Luckily we made it back safely, and I have so much to tell you.

Unfortunately, the kids missed a lot of the scenery because we started driving before they woke up, but they seemed pretty in to it once they started looking out of their windows.

The roads are so curvy and most of the buildings we saw were either farm houses, Ma and Pa groceries, or gas stations. Every town we drove through seemed so quaint and full of character. Widget took plenty of pictures. Seeing all of the farmland made me want to get out and try my hand at growing something.

The park itself was amazing. As it turned out, they had 10 waterfalls! We hiked to 3 of them. We were even able to walk through caves that went behind the falls. They were so beautiful. At the end of the day Widget said he really liked hiking. I was happy. Finally, something he didn’t cry about doing!

Today we are heading to Glacier National Park. That reminds me of something we didn’t anticipate in Oregon — No Cellphone Signal! So much for more bars in more places! I’m guessing we won’t get much of a signal in Montana either.

We’ll see.

**Note: I tried to include a pic, but I couldn’t with my on again off again signal!

Our first plan is to see a glacier. Can you beleive they are still around? I know, so we are going to Montana to see one. Other than that we are struggling for places to go. We are taking a northerly route and niether of us know much about that part of the country.

We are also on a tight budget so we can get all the way to NY, and that limits the criss crossing we can do on our way back. Any suggestions on what to see?

The island was beautiful, the weather was great, and the people were friendly. The problem was that the kids were scared of the ocean, and in Hawaii that is the main form of entertainment.

While we were there we swam with a dolphin, went to a coral reef with fish swimming at our feet, hung out at the beach, and went to a luau. It seems great except Widget was balling anytime we got near the water.

The luau was the most fun for all. The kids got up on stage and they were so cute. Widget is not shy at all and he loved it. Midget is more reserved, but to KJ and my surprise she ran up on stage to follow her brother. It was priceless.

Everything else felt like a failure. The kids have never really been to the ocean so I expected a little resistance. What we got was way more than I barganed for though. You would think the dolphin would have been the most scary since they are so big, but that was handled better than fish as small as a hand on the reef. After getting in the water with the dolphin everything calmed down and we all had fun. At the reef it only got worse with each new fish that swam by. I tried to explain that it was a once in a lifetime experience, but it is hard to reason with sheer terror.

After all that they still say they loved it. Kids, sometimes I don’t understand. Something about a screaming 5 year old just didn’t make it that fun for me and KJ.

We couldn’t budget for the volcano which was too bad. Maybe next time. I love Hawaii and would love to go back sooner than later. Maybe next time everybody will handle the water better. Although it had it’s trying moments I would do it again. I would have planned more luaus though.

We ended up leaving the beach after that thinking that Widget would want to go back later and try swimming. He didn’t. The next day CM was sunburned and decided he was going to stay in the cabin. The kids and I built sand castles for hours when I finally decided it was time to get in the water. Widget screamed his head off again. This time it was me who was upset and we headed back in.

Widget’s refusal to get in the water made things a little tense because we had a ton of water activities planned for the trip. It wasn’t all bad though. We made a few food runs and we really got to see how beautiful the island is. Our cabins were on the other side of the island, far away from Waikiki, so there weren’t a lot of chain restaurants and stores.

We stayed in a cabin that was about 30 feet from the beach. It was awesome being able to watch the sunrise over the ocean in the morning. The only bad thing: ants. I remembered when I registered for the cabin there was a clause in the paperwork that said ants weren’t a justification for a refund because all beaches have ants. I didn’t think anything of it. Then we went to the cabin. They were tiny little buggers, but there were so many of them. Now that I think about it, I can’t for the life of me figure out why I didn’t take any video of them.

And that was how our first few days in Hawaii went.

Yesterday we went to Sea Life Park and swam with dolphins. We all had a wonderful time. Today we plan to go kayaking.

Here’s the short version: We took out a $10,000 personal line of credit to buy a vending business last year. Since then we had paid it down to $7,000. (We could have paid it off sooner, but instead of making principle payments as we had originally planned, we went out to eat … a lot.) It showed up as a credit card on my credit reports and every month Bank of America (BofA) would send me checks that I could write to deposit more funds into my checking account from this line of credit.

Well, before we left Brooklyn CM was running ragged trying to find a buyer for the business. I think the ever-increasing gas prices made people wary of what was otherwise a very good deal. We didn’t blog about it because it didn’t seem central to the point of the blog.

So on the last day before we left, we got a buyer and we sold the vending route for exactly $7000. Well we had decided to pay back $5000, keep $2000 for backup, and transfer another $2000 when we got to Hawaii because everything is so expensive. $4000 in debt didn’t seem too horrible considering this was going to be the trip of a lifetime.

Fast forward to yesterday — I called BofA to make a transfer into my checking account and my request was DENIED. They said my debt/income ratio was too high. I was flabbergasted because not only had I not gotten any new credit since last year, but I had paid all of my credit cards off! Besides, since when is your credit reviewed every time you try to charge something? What would have happened had I tried to deposit one of those checks they keep sending me?

I asked how long was it going to be before I could access the money and they sales associate told me 4-6 months!!! What good is a line of credit that you can’t use for 4-6 months?!? CM & I made a quick decision to just close the account. That way I can get the full $10k off of my credit report.

By the way, we also thought that making such a huge payment on the principle would lower our monthly payments — WRONG!! I found out yesterday that our high payments are staying the same, my giant payment only shortened the amount of payments I have to make.

(If this is my short version, I’d hate to see the long version…) So, now CM and I are in Hawaii with only $1200 left in cash. If we were hanging out at the beach, it wouldn’t be a big deal, but before we left Brooklyn CM let me know how excited he was to see the volcano. (He doesn’t get excited about a lot of things.) The trip to see the volcano is going to cost $900. I, the CFO (Chief Financial Officer), came up with a budget to still go see the volcano and only charge $500 or so on a regular credit card.

CM is dead set against it. This other card has twice of the interest rate of BofA’s. We didn’t speak much last night, just a series of glares back and forth.

Culture Sidebar: In Hawaii a mean look is called “stink eye”. An example sentence: CM gave me stink eye all night because I wanted to use a credit card to pay for our trip.

Arguments/disagreements about money can really spoil a vacation. It’s 6:30 am here, and I’m watching the sun rise over the ocean and trying to get back into the spirit, but I’m torn. We might not make it back to Hawaii again, so why not stretch to see the volcano? Even if it does mean 1 or 2 unwise financial decisions?

Daily Wisdom: Don’t go on a trip until you have all of the money for it in the bank. Otherwise, you’re asking for it.

What would you do? Give up and just hang out at the beach for 4 more days or would you throw caution to the wind and go see an active volcano??

I’m not a NY native, but I just feel like there’s more opportunity there. The beach and laid-back atmosphere of Hawaii is great and all, but it just doesn’t seem like greatness can be achieved here.

What do you think? Which location would you choose and why?