Late Summer Road Trip 2019: Glacier Lodge

A top tip for traveling over holiday weekends: don’t wing it! We wanted to be spontaneous, so although we were traveling over Labor Day weekend, we did not make hotel reservations and it came back to bite us.

After a long day of seeing Death Valley National Park, The Museum of Western Film History, and Manzanar National Historic Site, we were exhausted, and we found ourselves in an area with few options. After calling around to local hotels with zero luck, we passed a highway sign for the Glacier Lodge.

It was the type of highway sign that businesses buy when they adopt a section of the road and they were absolutely thrilled that we called. Apparently, we were the first business that came from the sign. Glacier Lodge is a camp ground nestled in the mountains that offers a handful of rustic cabins. We were fortunate to grab the last available cabin, which had just been released due to a cancelation.

The price for one night in the cabin was akin to a suite at a luxury hotel. Demand was high and the prices reflected it. Still, we were grateful to have a place to sleep for the night.

When we checked-in at the general store to get the keys to our cabin, we were greeted by this intriguing piece of taxidermy.

To call our cabin rustic would be kind. I must repeat that we were grateful, yet, we certainly would never stay here again. We spent a restless night on a springy mattress and left before sunrise. I can’t speak for my husband, but camping definitely isn’t my thing, even camping in a cabin.

The camp was offering a special Labor Day BBQ dinner. I love BBQ and my favorite, pulled pork, was on offer. I chose baked beans and potato salad for my sides. Dan ordered ribs with beans, corn on the cob and a slice of watermelon. We had to wait for about hour for dinner to be ready, so we explored the grounds.

Despite my anti-camping stance, I still enjoyed the beauty of the tall pines and the rushing river. It’s a gorgeous location.

Waiting for dinner…it may have taken longer than an hour. I just remember being ravenous!

Finally, we were given our to-go boxes of bbq, which we enjoyed them in our cabin. The sun was starting to set and we didn’t want to navigate back to our cabin in the dark.

In the grand scheme of life our stay at Glacier Lodge was a memory building experience. We won’t return and we wouldn’t recommend it, at least not the cabins, although it might be nice place for tent campers.

Arizona 2019: Flagstaff

I’m traveling back in time to 2019, to finish a few trip reports from a March vacation that we took to Arizona. Originally, we had planned to spend a long-weekend in Phoenix in search of pool weather for an escape from our snowy mountain winter. Unfortunately, Phoenix proved to be just warm enough that it was tolerable for the pool, yet a far cry from the heat that we had anticipated.

So we changed our plans and embraced the cold by heading to Flagstaff.

Flagstaff is just a two and half hour drive from Phoenix, but it feels like another world. The flat desert landscape shifts to majestic mountains and enormous pine trees. The sprawling suburbs of Phoenix are left behind, as we entered the charming town of Flagstaff.

Describing a small town as charming can often sound trite, yet Flagstaff is truly charming, especially the historic downtown. We dumped our suitcases off at the Hilton Doubletree and spent the afternoon exploring.

Flagstaff is famous for being a train stop. We visited the historic train depot that was built in 1926 and now also serves as a visitor’s center.

Outside of the depot, we found a Baldwin Steam Engine from 1917.

And even more impressive, we discovered “The Fountain of Youth!” Who knew it was in Flagstaff, Arizona?

We walked around downtown to enjoy unique shops, local food, and architecture of yesteryear.

Animal art.

My favorite place in Flagstaff was Bright Side Bookshop. I always love to visit indy bookstores and support local authors when I travel. I asked a helpful employee for a book recommendation and she directed me to Annette Mcgivney’s Pure Land, a non-fiction account of a murder of a Japanese woman in Havasu Falls. Pure Land is a gripping, thought-provoking read that I have been widely recommending. Make sure to stop by Bright Side Bookshop if you visit Flagstaff.

It was kismet that our hotel had one of our favorite types of restaurants: Teppanyaki! Sakura Sushi and Teppanyaki was one of the most delicious and surprisingly good-value teppanyaki restaurants that we have ever visited. They even had a few unusual tricks beyond the usual onion volcano…they stacked eggs and set the whole table on fire. We did not expect our plates to be set on fire and it was a bit close for comfort..

Although we only stayed for one night, we were delighted with everything that Flagstaff had to offer and we look forward to a future vacation.

One last funny thing…as I was going through our Flagstaff pictures, I saw this one that I took of a Natural Grocers Store. I likely took it because of the cow. I love cows. However, now that we live in Colorado, Natural Grocers is meaningful to us. We love their cheesy commercials with the super hero girls: Health Crusader and Organic Girl. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, you must go to Youtube immediately!

Hawaii 2019: Hilton Waikoloa Village

I’m playing catch-up with my long over due series of vacation reports from our 2019 family trip to Hawaii. We spent nearly two weeks on the Big Island with my step kids: Zoe turned twelve on our trip and Felix was nearly ten. It was the most perfect, magical family vacation ever, and I can’t believe that I’m about to admit this, but it was even better than our Walt Disney World trip.

The flight was a long, five hour-ish trip from Los Angeles. Since we were living up in Big Bear Lake at the time, we added a night stay near LAX, so that we wouldn’t feel rushed for our flight.

My aunt and uncle were co-owners of a condo in Maui, so I grew up with annual summer Hawaiian vacations. However, as an adult, I had only been once in 2007, which was also our last family vacation before my mom passed in 2008. At the time, we didn’t know that she had cancer, but she was diagnosed a few months after our trip, and in retrospect, the signs were clear during that family vacation.

I wanted this trip to be perfect. I needed to create happy memories in Hawaii, plus this was Dan, Zoe, and Felix’s first trip to the “Aloha State.” It’s certainly not a nearby or inexpensive vacation, so it needed to be absolutely amazing. I kicked it off by arranging to have a traditional lei greeting at the airport. It’s touristy and cheesy, but you can’t help but be in the vacation mood with a lei around your neck!

Everyone was surprised by the small size of the Kona International Airport. It is mostly open air with a central courtyard. I’m sure this could not be true, but it appeared that they only had one restroom in the whole airport! It’s a very different experience than anywhere else we have traveled.

At the car rental, Dan splurged on an upgrade to a four-door Jeep Wrangler, so we really felt like we were on an adventure.

As we pulled up to our hotel, the Hilton Waikoloa Village Resort, we were greeted with an expansive palm-tree lined drive and sculptures of seahorses. It felt quite grand.

Although we had looked at a million pictures of the property, it was more spectacular than we could have imagined. The Hilton Waikoloa Village is massive, and not only does it have stunning views of the ocean, but it also has several pools and a man-made snorkeling lagoon. After checking-in we walked over to the lagoon and we were greeted by sea turtles. They swam right up to the edge, as if to give us a personal welcome. See how Disney can’t compete?

The resort is so huge, that we had to refer to a map to get our bearings.

Our room was in the Palace Tower, right in the middle of the resort. I’ve looked through all of our pictures and it is so unlike me, but it appears that I didn’t take any shots of our room.

We shared a single room with two queen beds. I was worried that it might not be big enough, but it was very spacious. It even had a large, walk-in closet that allowed us to store all of our luggage without cluttering the room. We appreciated that we had a refrigerator, as we preferred to eat cereal in the room for breakfast. My favorite part was the balcony, which allowed me to escape for quiet reading time, while everyone else enjoyed watching television. In retrospect, we wish we had gone for an ocean view room, but the golf course view was relaxing.

A few exterior pictures of the Palace Tower.

The Hilton Waikoloa Village has both a boat taxi and a tram to transport guests through the resort. We tried them both out and they were a fun way to get around, however, they could also get crowded. I’m fairly certain that the hotel was at or near capacity during our stay. We found ourselves walking most of the time.

The time that we were really grateful for the tram was when we had to take our laundry over to the coin-operated machines in a different tower. I only did laundry one time during our trip and it had really piled up. I did three loads! I appreciated that the hotel offered a coin-op laundry, because it would have broken the bank to do it through the hotel’s services.

One of the first things that the kids did was to explore the snorkeling lagoon on a aqua-cycle water trike. They had a great time. I wanted to try a stand-up paddleboard, but I spotted eels in the water and I changed my mind. I’m not fearful of many animals, but eels are an exception! The lagoon, with its calm water and curated sea life, is a great place to try-out snorkeling, before hitting the ocean.

The pools throughout the property were amazing. They had waterfalls, hidden grottos, waterslides and rope bridges. We staggered our vacation so that we had an adventurous activity outside of the hotel about every-other-day, so there was plenty of time to relax around the pool. The resort does not offer direct beach access, but a pristine beach was just a short drive down the road.

My favorite part of the pool was sprawling out on a lounge chair and taking in the views of the pacific ocean. It was never difficult to find an unoccupied lounge chair by the pool.

It was out of our budget for our family vacation, but if Dan and I return here for a romantic getaway, we will definitely go for the seaside massages! I feel relaxed just looking at the picture.

While everyone was chilling in the room, I walked around the Hilton Waikoloa Village to take pictures. One of the prettiest buildings was a small non-denominational chapel that overlooks the ocean. I’m not religious, but I even considered attending Sunday services for the experience.

There used to be a plumeria tree outside of my aunt and uncle’s condo and it had the most lovely fragrance. To me, plumeria is the smell of Hawaii.

I was quite surprised by this leafy plant with bumpy leaves. I had completely forgotten about them, but this plant, not sure of its name, was also a reminder of my childhood summers. It grows everywhere on the islands.

The Hilton Waikoloa Village is home to many animals, including my nemesis- the flamingo! The picture of the sea turtle is actually from our last evening, when I was by myself. Much like the turtles that greeted us when we arrived, I felt like this guy was saying “See you next time.”

More pictures of the gorgeous hotel.

And some sunset shots. You can’t beat a Hawaiian sunset.

We didn’t dine in any of the on-property restaurants. We looked at the Big Island Breakfast, which is a buffet held in a multi-story building with beautiful lagoon views, but it was absolutely jammed with people. JAMMED! It was simply too crowded for us and a bit spendy too.

For Zoe’s birthday, we made reservations at Nui Italian restaurant, but when we arrived, the poor service was immediately apparent and we aborted our plans, heading to a nearby Macaroni Grill- which was a perfect choice. The hotel has a lovely steak/seafood restaurant with ocean views, called Kamuela Provision Company, but it would not have been a great choice with the kids.

We did experience the hotel’s Legends of Hawaii Luau, which I will cover in my next post!

Overall, we were thrilled with our stay, so much so, that it might be difficult to return to Hawaii without staying here again.