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Hawai'i 5.0
11 years ago
General
Well... with the help of 
diadexxus who had to burn up some vacation time, I was in Hawaii last weekend. Oddly enough this brings things full circle since the records on my convertible (the 5.0 Mustang) showed the car being registered in Hawaii for about three years. As such I always wanted to make it out there so that I could say more than just my car had been there.
It was a quick turn around on the vacation since I just got back from Utah for the ST Octane Academy. It~was~awesome! We showed up, they fed us the night before the event, and the next morning put us in helmets and race suits then took us out to the cars. A fleet of Focus and Fiesta STs with full cages and four point belts but otherwise stock so that we could get a real feel for "our" cars. They ran us through a varying array of challenges which included learning how to forward 180 the car, reverse 180 the car and slide into a parking "box". All of this was used later in the day for an auto-X course. In between sessions on the auto-x course they let us go out on the racetrack and turn laps at full clip. We alternated through that till the last session of the day when our instructors took us out for "hot laps" where the professionals whipped us around for a couple of laps as passengers which was pretty damn amazing.
I hung around in Utah for Unthrocon the weekend after the track day. The hotel was awesome but the con was pretty dead. With the layout of the space and the programming it felt like there were maybe 3 people in the halls at any one given time. I know they had better numbers but it was the sort of con that would've done better with the open room format BLFC uses. I gather that it's great for locals, but it certainly wasn't worth the trip to Utah just for the con. Salt Lake City had enough blighted areas that I immediately felt like I was back in Sacramento. That's not a good thing.
Coming back from that I barely had time to settle in before meeting up with Dia to hop on a plane out to Honolulu. Long flight but maaaaan Oahu was pretty. I think that's the first time I've had a vacation where I felt like I had managed to get away and the days didn't feel hurried, despite how fast they went by. We used a rental car to explore the island and get away from the tourist trap of downtown/Waikiki. We generally picked random places to stop when it looked pretty and took pictures or checked out the water. We bought some snorkeling gear too which was new for me as I've never snorkeled before. Heck I've barely even done swimming since I was a kid (although I was fully trained back then). After easing into it at Hanauma Bay we ended up snorkeling around the island for three days with some kayaking mixed in thanks to
shoreleave I could ramble on about the details but I'll just put this up and let y'all figure it out.
Combined pictures from Dia and me ~ https://www.flickr.com/photos/diade.....7648997026168/
There's quite a few pics in there from Pearl harbor too which is someplace I've always felt I had to visit. I've been a WWII buff since I was a kid and the Arizona was on my bucket list for sure. It was kind a surreal moment taking it all in. Having the USS Missouri on site now docked next to it was a nice touch as you have the two places where the war for the US began and ended.
Barely touching down here before we break for Thanksgiving and then off to MFF in less than a couple of weeks. Crazy busy with vacation and work this month!
Hugs to
Kennifox who we were supposed to meet up with on the island but the day we got there a car hit him while he was on his moped. We stopped by the hospital on Saturday to say hello and check up on him. I'll have to get out to the island again sometime to make a proper visit instead of a hospital trip!
diadexxus who had to burn up some vacation time, I was in Hawaii last weekend. Oddly enough this brings things full circle since the records on my convertible (the 5.0 Mustang) showed the car being registered in Hawaii for about three years. As such I always wanted to make it out there so that I could say more than just my car had been there.It was a quick turn around on the vacation since I just got back from Utah for the ST Octane Academy. It~was~awesome! We showed up, they fed us the night before the event, and the next morning put us in helmets and race suits then took us out to the cars. A fleet of Focus and Fiesta STs with full cages and four point belts but otherwise stock so that we could get a real feel for "our" cars. They ran us through a varying array of challenges which included learning how to forward 180 the car, reverse 180 the car and slide into a parking "box". All of this was used later in the day for an auto-X course. In between sessions on the auto-x course they let us go out on the racetrack and turn laps at full clip. We alternated through that till the last session of the day when our instructors took us out for "hot laps" where the professionals whipped us around for a couple of laps as passengers which was pretty damn amazing.
I hung around in Utah for Unthrocon the weekend after the track day. The hotel was awesome but the con was pretty dead. With the layout of the space and the programming it felt like there were maybe 3 people in the halls at any one given time. I know they had better numbers but it was the sort of con that would've done better with the open room format BLFC uses. I gather that it's great for locals, but it certainly wasn't worth the trip to Utah just for the con. Salt Lake City had enough blighted areas that I immediately felt like I was back in Sacramento. That's not a good thing.
Coming back from that I barely had time to settle in before meeting up with Dia to hop on a plane out to Honolulu. Long flight but maaaaan Oahu was pretty. I think that's the first time I've had a vacation where I felt like I had managed to get away and the days didn't feel hurried, despite how fast they went by. We used a rental car to explore the island and get away from the tourist trap of downtown/Waikiki. We generally picked random places to stop when it looked pretty and took pictures or checked out the water. We bought some snorkeling gear too which was new for me as I've never snorkeled before. Heck I've barely even done swimming since I was a kid (although I was fully trained back then). After easing into it at Hanauma Bay we ended up snorkeling around the island for three days with some kayaking mixed in thanks to
shoreleave I could ramble on about the details but I'll just put this up and let y'all figure it out.Combined pictures from Dia and me ~ https://www.flickr.com/photos/diade.....7648997026168/
There's quite a few pics in there from Pearl harbor too which is someplace I've always felt I had to visit. I've been a WWII buff since I was a kid and the Arizona was on my bucket list for sure. It was kind a surreal moment taking it all in. Having the USS Missouri on site now docked next to it was a nice touch as you have the two places where the war for the US began and ended.
Barely touching down here before we break for Thanksgiving and then off to MFF in less than a couple of weeks. Crazy busy with vacation and work this month!
Hugs to
Kennifox who we were supposed to meet up with on the island but the day we got there a car hit him while he was on his moped. We stopped by the hospital on Saturday to say hello and check up on him. I'll have to get out to the island again sometime to make a proper visit instead of a hospital trip!
-J