Two years ago, I dropped off the Pacific crest trail in a mountain town called Mammoth Lakes. I walked back south on the trail after becoming violently ill and took a bus to Reno. I had already decided that I would be dropping out after a couple more hundred miles but this illness cemented my decision.

So now I must finish the sections that I have left- and I am back in mammoth now.

This plane:

This plane:

And these free beers:

Got me here.

As an added bonus I was able to meet up with Big Red whom I met during my 2014 hike. He is a really nice guy who has kept up with the hiking community much better than I have.

Now all I have to do is get supplied and take a bus to the trailhead and hopefully walk a few hundred more miles!

I had the opportunity to take a longer weekend and visit Hawaii. This has been a bucket list item and I had a blast!

The hardest part for my planning was deciding what “visiting Hawaii” actually meant to me- and thankfully I had a travel buddy that helped broaden my scope of activities and enjoy the experience quite a bit more!

Overall- the plan was to get the most out of the least amount of time and I feel that we did a great job of hitting everything that we wanted- all while staying withing a decently strict budget. We flew into Kona and rented a car from Enterprise (I highly recommend spending a little more to go with a reputable car rental company). The overall thought process was to move about the island in a clockwise direction.

This resulted in a plan that included: