Black Sand and Big Volcanoes

Today was a day of many sites, largely involving volcanoes, but others as well on the Big Island of Hawai'i.  We left Honolulu mid-morning for Hilo and upon landing noticed a military detail waiting on the tarmac. Pretty soon we saw the casket they were waiting for as a soldier was returning home. This was emotional and a sober start to the day, but I was honored to be on a plane that was transporting this brave soldier, whoever it was. We were then picked up by our tour guide, James, who spent the day taking us on a tour of different sites and sharing a vast encyclopedia of knowledge he apparently keeps in his head. Really good guide and full of very cool information. 

Our first stop was to a black sand beach, as apparently many of the beaches on the island are. That was a unique thing to see in person. The view was also amazing, as you can see here with Mauna Loa, a rather large volcano, off in the distance. The peak of that one (there are five on the island, four of which are active) has snow on it right now. Pretty incredible view.

We then worked our way to Rainbow Falls, which is in Hilo and on a river. Pretty unique site in that you can walk a trail that takes you above the falls, and then people just walk right out into the river there as there are many large rocky areas.

No railings or anything. They just do it. Didn't look terribly safe to me but we were content with the pics we got.











After that we headed to lunch at a buffet, where one of the office staff saw my Huskers shirt and told me Nebraska is his favorite college team. Why? Because, and I think I have this right, his former roommate's sister used to be engaged to Eric Crouch (apparently that's not who Eric married) and during that time he became a big Huskers fan and still is. That was unexpected.  :)

We left the buffet and headed to the Mauna Loa Macadamia nut factory. So to recap, this week we have visited the Dole Plantation and this place. Good stuff. Had a few samples, had an ice cream bar coated in macadamia nuts, grabbed some pics, walked around the grounds a bit and then headed off to the Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park.  

Interestingly, the park became a U.S. National Parks Service park in 1916, 43 years before Hawai'i even became a state. This is because it became a territory in the late 1890s and they were already working toward becoming a state. Our tour guide drove us on the Chain of Craters Drive all the way down to the ocean, which was 8 or 9 miles. Take a look at this pic below. What I thought was all sky turned out to be the outline of Mauna Loa. Wow.

We stopped at several spots along the way to see the lava and what it creates. It was especially interesting and beautiful walking along the lava close to the ocean and the scenery there was just breathtaking. This first pic is us against a protective wall (to protect the people) so you could look upon the ocean. There is a sheer cliff below this about 50 feet high, I guess. It is also VERY windy, as I think you can see from Katy's hair and my shorts.  Katy also had me take a pic of our feet on the lava so you can see just how dark it is. Seeing things like this on TV is interesting, but it doesn't match being there.  This stuff is really fascinating to see and experience, and I'd highly recommend it for anyone who can make the trip out here. Also, they regularly have to re-do the roads or even re-route them when lava flows take them out. I have a pic of that here covering an area down at the coast. Fascinating to see, really. The light grey? That's the original road we would have driven on before the lava flowed over it.

After the lava flow to the ocean we stopped at a few other spots along the way back up to see some unique things, like formations the lava created, which you see here to the left with Katy and Zac in an open cave, and a lava tube, off to the right. The lava apparently flows over a span of 26 miles, enabling it to help create more land, as it turns out.

We eventually worked our way back up to where we could see the steam vents from Kilauea and even feel how warm the ground was in spots. Our driver told us it was a good possibility that eventually the area we were standing on would become a crater just like the area to our south (I think south) in another 20 years or so. Just part of the intrigue of living around volcanoes, from what we heard. 




After the steam vents we went to the viewing area for Kilauea to see the active lava flow in the crater. I know the pic isn't the greatest, but it was hard to get in good spots to take a pic as so many seemed intent on camping out in front with their cameras and not moving. They do offer viewing telescopes of sorts, though, and they gave you a great view of the lava moving and "dancing", so to speak. Very powerful to see.

Our night ended with a flight back to Honolulu, which was delayed for almost an hour by mechanical issues with the plane that was supposed to be headed our way. This has made for a very long, very late day, and as I am very tired, this is the end of this post for Wednesday. Thursday promises to be very relaxing for me, not so sure about everyone else, but an update will be provided. Take care everyone!  :)

Driving Around Oahu

Today was a day of driving...and driving...and driving...and driving. What, you may ask, were we doing driving all day when we are on this beautiful island? Well, seeing the very same beautiful island we are staying on.  :)  We began our day with a late breakfast at Zippy's, which shares a space with a bakery that had some amazing looking things. I enjoyed my breakfast, and think others did as well. The corned beef hash in my dish was fluffy and light, something I've never experienced in corned beef hash before. Good stuff.

From there we headed northwest to Mililani, where Katy and her family used to live. I would have gotten a picture of the house, but it didn't look all that great, and I get the impression it used to look a LOT nicer.  :)  Once you get out of Honolulu, things begin to look a lot more like some of the suburban, more planned communities I am used to. You know, if the suburban, more planned communities I lived in had beautiful palm trees, amazing weather and were close to the ocean. So, almost the same. :)  As you get further away from the city, things get VERY different.  I was too busy watching the map on my phone to make sure we headed where we wanted to so I didn't nab any pics on our way up to the North Shore, but it's like going through any small town in America, just with loads of people and a bunch of surfers. :)

Before we got all the way up to the North Shore area, however, we made a stop at the Dole Pineapple Plantation. Let me just say, if you ever get a chance to come here, go there and get a Pineapple Whip. My GOSH that is good, and we had some fresh pineapple as well, which is just so much better than what we get at the store back home. Wow. Then Katy and I took Zac, and Mickie took the kids as well, through the Pineapple Maze. Apparently this thing is the largest of some kind and is in the Guinness Book of World Records? All I know is, there isn't much breeze inside this kind of maze so we were glad to find the rare spot with a breeze because it was quite warm there.  The Pineapple Whip was a just reward for our efforts, which took I think 51 minutes or so to get through the maze and find all the secret spots they have you search for.  

After leaving the Plantation and driving along the north side for quite some time, we stopped for a late lunch at the Turtle Bay Resort area, and as it turns out, in a restaurant owned by the same guy who ran the one we ate at the other night. I did not make the mistake of ordering the same food this time, :), but did have a good Butterfish filet, which I guess might also be called Black Cod, if I heard the guy right. I have a pic here of the view from my seat at the table, looking out at the waves, along with some capturing most of our group.

We then went down to the beach to walk around water's edge for a bit (the beach is way too rocky to be that comfortable, but many were enjoying the ocean anyway). The best part, and gosh I wish I had a video of this, was the guy surfing with his dog. That's right. And the funny thing is, his dog would be out on the front edge of his surfboard, and as he began to paddle toward shore as the wave came in, his dog would mimic his paddling. Then as the man began surfing, the dog would stand on the edge at the front and bark the whole way in. He was pretty funny. I didn't catch video because after the second time of seeing this, the dog swam around for a bit, then rolled around in the sand a bunch and headed off with his owner. Sorry!

We continued our tour around the north and then northeast side of the island while we drove on a highway that sticks pretty close to the ocean. Surely the people who live here don't get bored with that, right? The waves are pretty cool to see on that other side, I should add, and Katy grabbed this picture you see on the right of Mokoli'i, also known as Chinaman's Hat. We eventually stopped at Dave's Hawaiian Ice Cream in the little town of Waimanalo. Most had ice cream and a couple had shaved ice. Once we completed that we realized it was getting dark (apparently the sun sets close to 7 or 7:30 here year round; weird, right?) so we decided to backtrack just a bit to Kaneohe and head back down the Pali Highway to Honolulu.

Upon our return nobody was hungry but me for anything much, so I ordered the catch of the day from room service, which turned out to be Opah, also known as Moonfish. For reference, this is what one of those looks like.  Pretty weird, huh? Also, very tasty. I really enjoyed it.

It has been a VERY long day and tomorrow will be even longer as we fly over to the Big Island for a volcano tour and a bunch of other sightseeing that will take all day. We leave super early and get back pretty late. I feel a collapse coming on, but I am buoyed by the fact I found an Apple Store apparently just 500 feet from the hotel, so I have an appointment for Thursday afternoon to get my phone looked at and, I suspect, replaced. Stay tuned for Wednesday night's update on the full day trip. :)

Relaxing Day, Time to Rest

Today we purposely made no plans. After all the activity yesterday and more to come this week, I think everyone was grateful for the chance to just be a little bit lazy. Perhaps this is what caused me to post on Facebook earlier today that I felt I had lost all sense of time. That phrase explains just how relaxed I am, and it's wonderful. I don't live a stressful life, but being here is just amazing. So what did we do today, if we had no plans? Well, after a breakfast at Burger King (not planned even a little bit), we stopped at this Christmas store to buy an ornament to have personalized with our Hawaiian names, and then Zac and I headed down the beach a bit to where they've placed a seawall to swim. The seawall creates a nice swimming bay and does a great job of keeping most of the rocks and shells from coming in. It was a great area. I only had my, now cloudy, camera on my phone to use, but I grabbed a pic of Zac anyway. We had a lot of fun just enjoying the waves coming in and relaxing in the salt water.

Katy didn't come along as she wanted to do the historical tour of the hotel that was happening at 11, but we learned later a lot of the details from her. This place is pretty fascinating and has quite the history, including an apparent ghost, which many current employees admit they indeed have either felt or even seen.  Well now, THAT is something we are interested in!  We'd hoped to head back to the area this evening but with the three of us feeling perhaps a little overwhelmed with the food we've eaten these past few days (just too much; just too good), we decided to stay in tonight.  

For lunch we walked over to a 50s style diner and had a pretty good meal and very good shakes. Zac and Katy shared a Coke shake and I had a chocolate malt. After this we dropped back by the Christmas store and picked up our ornament, which you see here to the right and above a bit.

This afternoon we had plans to have our pictures taken at the hotel. There were opportunities for so many good shots, but due to timing and location often the sun glare off white tiles or white buildings was so strong we couldn't see. And outdoor shots in the sun mean my glasses are going to turn dark, so for quite a few I took them off. Well that just made my eyes water more in the sun.  :)  We got enough good ones to pick a few for keeps as well as one they chose for us that was a freebie.  The photographer was very nice and I think had timing been earlier in the day, the pics overall would have turned out better and made our decision for what to keep much tougher.  I'll share the pics here before going on.

We did have a nice dinner at the Beach Bar restaurant the hotel has, and that was very enjoyable. The breeze eventually cooled down a little bit as the sun began to set, and the two-piece band on stage (with an amazing guitar player, I should say) kept us entertained.

They even brought a hula dancer on stage (I heard something about Miss Hawai'i, I think, perhaps in the competition?) and so that added some culture to their primarily Hawaiian songs as well. Here is a short clip I took on Katy's phone, and her settings aren't set up to record in HD, so I apologize for the poor quality:



Yes, several Elvis songs about the area were sung and hopefully the video above plays for you. One funny thing during dinner was that these birds, which walk around like we aren't even there, are constantly looking for crumbs off the ground, and at one point I felt one of them peck at my toes. After that I decided to move my feat to the beat of the songs, just in case.  :)

Zac's tummy was a bit unsettled (too much in the way of sweets today, perhaps) so he headed up to the room while Katy and I enjoyed the music a bit longer, then I took this pic of her on the beach as the sun was setting. Her phone doesn't grab light as well as mine (of course mine grabs NOTHING right now) so I had to work with it after the fact a bit, but I think this is a pretty good representation. I nabbed another shot or two of the sunset, along with a large sailboat in the distance right in front of it, and we spent a few minutes along the water letting it rush over our toes and enjoying the peacefulness of the evening. Tomorrow we drive around the island stopping at spots along the way to dip our toes in the ocean and get some shaved ice. We're ready! Obligatory Hawai'i sunset shot below, sailboat in the distance.  Enjoy! :) 

Pearl Harbor

Today began with a tour of downtown Honolulu, which included a fair amount of history, on a Duck. Now, I don't have a picture of the Duck, primarily because all the pics you'll see on tonight's blog post come from Katy's phone. I wasn't always thinking in time to get the pics I should have. Of course, this is all because my phone, which purportedly is capable of standing water to depths of 30-50 feet, lied to me. Oh I've used it underwater before, but my dip in the ocean yesterday morning apparently made it decide to let some in and make my camera all cloudy. You may have noticed it with the pics yesterday. Aiee. Anyway, off to the Apple Store when we return home, but I digress.

The Duck is, as many of you will know, an amphibious vehicle, so we did most of the tour through the streets, then drove right into the marina and out into the ocean. That's kind of an odd experience but it was certainly interesting, and our tour guide, Roland, had all sorts of fun nuggets to share, things he was interested in, stories of how he bought his 2-bedroom, 1200 square foot apartment 30 years ago in Honolulu for $197k... Yikes!  :) Well, at least that wasn't a surprise as we have seen plenty of episodes of House Hunters.

After the Duck tour we headed for Pearl Harbor, specifically to see the USS Arizona Memorial. There are other things out there we would have liked to have seen, but the way the tour was set up, there wasn't time to view any of those. I was a little shocked, having been to other U.S. Parks-controlled places like this (thinking Mt. Rushmore for one), that it didn't offer more food as an option, and that caught us a little off guard since we arrived at lunchtime.  If I get to do it again, we'll at least know to plan meals accordingly.  :)

Before they take you on a boat out to the memorial, you see a short movie complete with actual footage of the USS Arizona blowing up, taking its initial hit. That was, in a word, sobering. To add another, it was fascinating to see so much footage I hadn't seen in other older movies or even other references to it.  I know Katy and I for sure were really touched by the short film and it helped bring it home quite a bit more. And I told Zac heading into it that I thought getting to see some footage (not quite knowing what it would entail completely) and seeing the memorial would be a far more interesting history lesson than any he will ever get in a classroom.  I think he certainly took something from it that he will remember several years from now when he studies this in school.

We came back from the tour fairly exhausted and rested up before heading out to dinner. While Gary and Nell took the kids for a dip in the ocean and then to McDonald's, Katy, Mickie and I headed to Shore Fyre (http://www.shorefyre.com), which is actually the same place the others had gone earlier today for breakfast. We enjoyed our meal, and it's this little spot next to a surf shop, on the below ground level about a block off the main drag next to the beach. Good place. After that we did some souvenir shopping and then headed to the Häagen Dazs for a cone. THAT was a good idea. The main road everything sits on here is ridiculously busy, not only with people, but with cars. It's also very unique. About every half block there is someone else playing music, including a guy singing Christian songs tonight, and we sure appreciated his effort on those. It's not the first city I've been in where this occurs, but the dynamic here is very different, very creative but very different and intriguing. Kind of a fascinating place.

Busy Day and a GREAT Lunch With Friends in Kaneohe

Katy and I began our day today with a breakfast buffet from one of the restaurants at the hotel. This was our view. I think I could wake up to that every day of my life, ocean in view, waves crashing palm trees swaying. It was also a really good breakfast. The kids began the day on the beach with Nana and Puddin' and then, as you see in the image on the right, graduated to the pool. Turns out the stretch of beach right at the hotel has a lot of rocks and shells, so it's not the most comfortable spot to enjoy the water and they gravitated to the pool.

Next we headed up to Kaneohe, where some longtime friends of Gary and Nell retired, so we could enjoy a Thai restaurant they are big, big fans of.  When I say big, I mean they have been there so much in the last 14 years since they made Hawaii their permanent home that these people know them WELL.  And gosh we had a lot of fun. This is small spot where they treat you like you are part of the family. And everyone treated us that way, to the point where they kept bringing us food and food and food to share, even many things we hadn't ordered. 😃  The chef had asked me before if I liked seafood and made some suggestions. I mentioned the salmon sounded really good but that I knew I wasn't in control of the ordering. Our hosts, Jim and Minnie Lou (hope I spelled that right) Long wanted to make sure we received the authentic experience, so Minnie Lou ordered everything.  Despite that, the chef brought out the very salmon he had recommended, which was AMAZING, just because. Wow was it good! We lost track of the number of dishes we tried, quite honestly, but all were great!  

At the end of the meal, they asked if anyone wanted homemade coconut ice cream, to which eight of our group of 11 confirmed they did. You'd think that would be it, but then the owner, who was called "Mama Toy", and I KNOW I am misspelling her last name, advised us the chef was bringing out a special dessert for the children.  Boy did he ever, and I apologize but I don't have that particular picture to share. On a plate in the shape of a wooden guitar, he had slices of their chocolate ganache torte, whipped cream, a mango cheesecake cream of some sort, and a mound of blue cotton candy, among other things. The kids flipped (and most of the adults).  I saw the chocolate torte and had to have some.  To the right is what they brought out. I thought I was getting a slice. This came with a chocolate pistachio mousse and a number of other things. It was massive and incredible!

Leaving the restaurant, we took the Pali Highway back down to Honolulu. This highway takes you to several very scenic spots including the picture of us you see, then as we found ourselves a little further on, and a little higher up, Nu'uanu Pali Lookout, noted by the sign (still not convinced I'm capitalizing it correctly; I have much to learn here).

The lookout takes you to a place of historical significance, going back to the late 18th century, as noted by the description of the sign you see Zac framing below. As the text shows up too small to read unless I make it quite large, I have made that particular image bigger so you can see where it was we were. This spot looks north, I guess...directions are really kind of all over the place here.  As Gary described it, they pretty much use nautical terms (windward, leeward) and then if I'm not mistaken north and south are Hawaiian words for mountains (north) and beach (south), or something close to that. Sorry if I have any of it wrong, but I do find it all pretty fascinating, plus with the lack of straight roads anywhere here, their concept makes a lot of sense.  :)

This, to the left, is a view from the above scenic overlook. It of course does not do it justice. It also doesn't capture the speed of the Tradewinds that blow through here. It's really windy and slightly chilly, but absolutely a beautiful view and I'm so glad we stopped to see it.  As you can see from the pic of Katy and me, our hair (look at mine go!) was really blowing. It didn't seem to bother all the chickens, though.  That's right; I said chickens. And the feral cats. They didn't seem bothered by it.  I'm told the chickens were blown between islands during some big hurricane years and years ago and that's why there are so many around, especially on Molokai, where Gary and Nell were earlier this week.  Hey, I'm just the messenger on this one. :)  After stopping to see the elementary school Katy attended while they lived in Hawaii and the high school Mickie attended during that time, we headed to the hotel for a few hours to rest before dinner.  I'd share dinner pics, but between the kids mostly wanting to fall asleep (Mandy completely did), service being slow and so-so, and my dish being completely undercooked, it wasn't really worth it to post pics on it tonight. Everything else has been so great and service has been SO good that I'm not going to spoil it by posting a restaurant review that isn't positive. :)

And I apologize for not getting more pics of our lunch. The sheer volume of dishes filled the three tables we were seated at, completely taking up any free space we had between us, if that gives you any indication. Quite honestly, one of the very best restaurant experiences I have ever had, and now one of my all time fun food memories. What a fun day! 

Heading To Honolulu!

We begin our day by rising at 5 a.m. CST and tell Zac we are doing something special for breakfast.  It doesn't take long for him to realize he is not going to school today and that something is afoot.  Perhaps Katy and I have a bit TOO much of a propensity to surprise him, because he seems to be catching on.  Anyway, this lovely pic to the left is Zac having breakfast at the airport in Omaha, with absolutely NO idea where we are going or who is going with us (or who has gone ahead, for that matter!).

Let's transition to the plane, on the way to San Francisco, our first stop on the way to Hawaii this morning.  A gentle 3-1/2 hour flight...OK, that's a lie. It was B-U-M-P-Y for much of it.  Dang mountains. Anyway, before we took flight I nabbed this pic of Zac and Ryan, ready and rarin' to go. Zac's cousins knew where they were going, due to an unfortunate spilling of a long-kept secret, but Zac still had NO idea at this point (same thing we did to him when we went to DisneyWorld two years ago).  :)

OK, here we are in, ahem, sunny San Francisco where they had this very odd looking sort of play area for kids. These discs move and light up every once in a while. As an adult you look at it and think, "What the heck?", but as a kid, apparently this is a game board. The cousins all took their turns enjoying the area and ran themselves ragged (OK, not really, nine year olds don't get tired) spending a good amount of the time we had to wait for our next flight keeping busy.  And yes, we had TIME.  Four hours, to be exact. Luckily we found some decent food options for lunch, which was indeed lunch time for us even if it was about 10 a.m. for the west coasters.

We have arrived! Zac had already been sent to sit in the van Puddin' was circling aimlessly in around the airport, while we all waited on the magical baggage carousel to send forth our bags. This is the point where I mention that, of the two bags we checked, I actually let one of them pass me twice before I realized it was ours.  So, you know, I've got that going for me, which is nice.  Nell had leis ready for us, which I have to be honest, I expected to be fake.  But once the water hit me I realized nope, these are real.  Very nice.  :)  This is also where we learned, shortly after, that Honolulu traffic at 4:45 on a Friday is not a good idea.  By the way, that's 4:45 Hawaii time, 9:45 p.m. CST.  So yes, by the time we arrived we had been working at it for a LONG time.  It is indeed a long day to get here from Bellevue, but with the time change last weekend, we lost an extra hour, hence the five hour time difference.  Woohoo!  In fact as I write this, we are doing our best to make it to 9 p.m. (2 a.m. our time) in an effort to adjust to the time change right away.  So far, so good...kinda.

And now, our hotel. Took this pic while we still had some daylight, you know, what with the long travel day and all.  Actually took this, I think, around 6:15 or so. They call it a partial ocean view. I call it, "I can hear the waves".  I also call it, "This is a REALLY loud area and I hope it quiets down."  Gosh is it busy here. :)  So far no dice on that, but I am sure the days of quiet beachside resorts are long gone from this particular area of this beautiful place.  :)  More to come tomorrow night, I hope.