Hawaii, as always, was beautiful and relaxing. Our hotels were gorgeous and in close proximity to the beach, hiking and scuba diving. Hawaii is always an interesting place to travel; to me is seems less like a part of the United States than any other state that I've visited. There is this strange dichotomy between locals and those upon who most of them depend on for their livelihood: tourists. From the various impressions I got; it isn't always a happy pairing. I can't claim any knowledge regarding Hawaii’s present political mind except to comment that it seems that many locals would rather not be a part of the United States. It'll be interesting to see how things work out. I just finished a book called "The Adventure Capitalist" by Jim Rogers. Mr. Rogers predicts that the world will keep dividing into smaller and smaller countries and that the era of domination by large superpowers is over. We've already seen that with the former USSR and we see stirrings of that activity next door in Canada (think Québec). Personally, I'd rather keep Hawaii and lose the Midwest. :) 
