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.

At one point on the trail, we started thinking about turning back. We had been out there with no end in sight and the last shuttle bus left our trail area in 3 hours. CM wanted to continue on for 45 minutes and if we didn’t see a sign he thought we should turn around. At this point trail curved steeply upward and Widget decided that he wanted to turn around. I couldn’t breathe after carrying Midget for ten paces, so I wanted to turn around. I think that when we finally saw some other hikers. They told us we only had a mile and a half to go. I was happy and PO’d at the same time. I thought this thing was only a mile and a half to begin with!

When we finally reached the road we were all so excited. We had this feeling of “We did it and not only did we do it, but we did it as a family!” I don’t think even Midget will forget that day. When I was writing that post the other day I had to go through photos to find one to post. As soon as she saw the pics she said, “Mommy, I don’t want to go to the forest.” CM & I both laughed.

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.

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.

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?

It’s weird how there never seems to be enough money or time. I think a person could easily spend years traveling around the country and still never see everything there is to see.

As for the money issue, we’ve been spending a lot on food lately. That’s all my fault. CM does the majority of the driving and all of the cooking. Instead of chipping in when he’s tired, I usually suggest going out for dinner. I have a new resolution: I am going to cook 1 meal a week. (Baby steps, people!)

Anyhoo, you’ll be happy to know that since we reached the West Coast I have had marvelous internet speeds. Well, I’ve got to go. The phrase “pack light” just doesn’t seem to be in our family’s dictionary.

When we reached White Sands we decided that we all needed a rest. We liked the campground and there were a few kids there, so we decided to stay for 3 nights. We really got rested up and had some quality family time.

When we were planning this trip, we planned to drive for 8 hours a day. After traveling for a while I would say that’s too much driving to really enjoy the journey. Perhaps you could drive 8 hours a day and stay in one place for 2 nights, or maybe just drive 4 hours a day and then park and explore the area.

To get the max gas mileage for our RV we cannot go faster than 60 mpg, so we don’t really cover much ground in 4 hours. However, today we only drove for about 4 hours not including a stop at the Three Rivers Petroglyph site. We hiked, we found a camp site early and we enjoyed a leisurely dinner.

It’s funny how easy it is to slip back into the “go,go,go” routine.We’ll definitely be taking things slower from here on out.

Yesterday we went to the White Sands National Monument. I had hoped to go early in the morning before it hit 100˚, but CM had read that it is best at night. So we ended up entering the park at around 7pm and we stayed until 10pm. Last night was perfect and I’m sure I will never forget it.

Although you can hike through the park on foot, we chose to drive through it. There are several pull-offs along the route that you can park at and wander off on foot. As it turned out, the first pull-off was the most isolated. The rest always had a lot of people, but there were still amazing views.

We saw the sun set and that’s when things really got interesting. It was almost a full moon and the white sands really reflected the moon’s light. As a result, even though it was dark we could still see for miles. CM and I sat at the top of a dune and let the kids run around. Widget drew pictures in the sand while Midget tried to build a “snow man”.

It was a great night. By 9pm we couldn’t see anyone else on the dunes and the air just howled in our ears. At 9:30 the park ranger stopped by with a friendly reminder that we needed to be out of the park by 10. He was a nice guy and we promised that we’d follow the posted speed limits. We took a little video when we got back to the RV and then we headed home.

Midget and Widget fell asleep instantly. We drove back to the camp site and parked. Everyone was so sleepy that we didn’t even plug in or put out the slideout. We put the kids in their sleeping bags, sand and all.

This morning everyone woke up in a good mood and there’s a layer of sand over everything in the RV. I don’t mind, though. It was a great experience.

Sprint’s mobile broadband was great in New York. I’m pretty sure we were getting 3g speeds. Even on our trip down to Atlanta we got great speeds. Once we started heading west, everything went downhill in a big way. Internet coverage, even at dial-up speeds, has been very spotty.

In an effort to reduce the number of hard drives we carry, I signed up for a Flickr Pro account to archive my photos. However, it was only after paying the fee that I discovered I cannot upload anything! I’ve tried to upload photos as small as 1.2MB, but the server still drops the connection.

CM tried to download the iphone 2.0 software which was 200MB and he kept losing his connection too. Eventually we had to park in El Paso, TX which supposedly has 3g coverage so that he could finish the download.

No uploading no downloading!!! AAAGgggghhh. This experience has been VERY painful. At this point we don’t have any alternatives though, so I don’t know what we’re going to do.

Any suggestions???