So, this summer, we had an amazing trip to Iceland planned.  We were going to ride the small Icelandic ponies, soak in the blue lagoon, and stalk Bjork.  Instead I spent about a week in the hospital, found out one of my kidneys was dead and infected (that’s a twofer), got a nephrectomy tube for a while (look it up, it’s super gross), had surgery to remove said kidney, and couldn’t lift anything bigger than gallon of milk for about six weeks.  Goodbye, Iceland; hello, binge-watching Wild, Wild Country.  What a great summer.

Oh, and when I wasn’t binging Netflix shows about cults, I started planning a reboot vacation around Thanksgiving holiday.  Iceland’s not as attractive an option in November as it is in August.  Enter Hawaii!

Eager readers of this blog (by which I mean, Ned) will remember that it really started with a trip to the Big Island about five years ago.  It was a magical vacation.  This time, we booked an NCL Pride of America cruise that would take us to all the islands in mid-November.  As luck would have it, the day before we left ROC, an unexpectedly strong snowstorm left about 8 inches on the ground on November 15.  Hawaii, here we come!