Hawaii trip would have been better outside of hunting season

I spent some vacation days on a trip to Hawaii this month, and it was an amazing trip. I’d happily go back again, but next time, I won’t go during hunting season.

My wife and I have talked about going to watch the Wyoming Cowboys football team play Hawaii in Honolulu for years, but it’s been a while since they had Hawaii on their schedule. And with the way the Mountain West conference works, it doesn’t look like they’ll play in Hawaii again for the foreseeable future. So it was now or never if we wanted to watch that game in person.

So we planned our trip to Hawaii, even though it landed right in the middle of hunting season. As it turned out, though, other than the outcome of the game, it was an amazing trip. We got to swim with green sea turtles, we hiked some amazing trails, and we even nearly got clobbered by a monk seal while we were snorkeling. As the seal swam past us, I had visions of the newspaper headlines, very similar to those we see back here in Wyoming, saying, “stupid tourist mauled by wild animal.” It didn’t matter that I wasn’t trying to pose for a selfie with the seal or something else ridiculously moronic, but if that seal had decided to take me out, the results would have been the same.

The seal just swam past us, though, and it was an incredible experience. I’d love to go back, but if I do, I think I’ll plan my trip for February. That way, I won’t miss any of the hunting season at home, and about the time I start getting tired of the cold, I’ll be able to shake off the cabin fever in the Aloha State.

There’s probably never a bad time to visit Hawaii, but it was hot down there. Really hot. And the hurricanes have disrupted the trade winds, so there was no breeze to cool things off. The good news is we came home just in time for freezing temperatures and snow. And best of all, we still have some hunting season left.