Final Full Day in Hawaii

Following the not-so-good weather day yesterday, we had some improvement today. It started a little late as a result of waiting until we could check-in for our flights tomorrow. 

So, at around 11am, we headed out for our first planned activity of the day - The Diamond Head Road drive. Initially, we considered the hike that would have taken us into the crater itself, but after reading the descriptions, it sounded like something that was too strenuous for us. There were lots of steps and uneven terrain along with a very tight tunnel that would have (possibly) created a claustrophobic situation that is not for me. There was a nice pull-out area on the road where we stopped to take some photos:

These first two are of the shoreline:

There was a large display of small international flags along the parking area that looked like flags from countries on each continent - a nice touch:

This is a tunnel that (I believe) actually takes you through the side of the volcano wall. I don't know where it ends, but there was a fee to drive through the thing:

At any rate, there were multi-million dollar homes lining the shore along this entire drive. They all were well gated and hidden from the the public view.

Our next stop for the day was a surprise trip I planned for Josie's benefit - the Foster Botanical Garden in Honolulu. What a great place to visit. It was a perfect stop for us to end our anniversary trip. This is one of 5 Botanical Gardens on Oahu and very convenient to our condo. We took lots of photos of some of the most unbelievable trees and plants from all over the world. It is places like this that make you appreciate the Hawaiian Islands and their ability to grow and care for plants from all over the world.

Below are some photos I took while touring theses gardens. Josie took a lot more.

I have descriptions for each of these unusual and beautiful trees which are only a small portion of the total that were represented in these gardens. Needless to say, it was diamond in the rough for Honolulu and a place where neither of us had ever visited previously and, in fact, not even heard of before. 

We made one more trip to a place called Lyon Arboretum which was also in Honolulu, but we arrived too late as it was closing at 3:30 PM and our arrival was at 3 PM. It was OK though, as we had a terrific ending to our anniversary trip at the Botanical Gardens.

We now begin the packing for our return trip and we plan to leave here at around 8 AM to allow for traffic to the car return and then the airport.

See you tomorrow from Sun City, AZ - well, maybe on Friday AM - as our flight is rather late to arrive in Phoenix tomorrow...

Anniversary Day

The day began with trade wind warnings and lots of clouds mixed with occasional rain. Not a very good day to venture out and do more "Hawaiian" activities. These are a couple shots from our window of the front of the condo this am:

and the ocean view from our back door:

As you can see - lots of clouds and nasty winds.

There were things we could do in the condo which gave us an opportunity to rest for the day. I thought it would be interesting for everybody to see the relative costs for items here in Hawaii versus whatever you pay at home for the same items. These examples were from a receipt that we have from Safeway:

6 eggs - $4.00

1 orange - 1.74

2 apples - 2.50

gallon of water - 3.00

store brand small cereal box - 4.00

1/2 gallon milk - 5.00

1 lb bacon - 10.49

paper shopping bags - .15 ea

We don't know how people can survive in this state and this is just a small example of the ridiculous prices. The fruit that we purchased was from Australia and it wasn't anywhere near fresh. Oh, well.

We also did some research on restaurants and decided to switch our anniversary dinner from a recommended Italian restaurant (Assaggios) to Buzz's Steakhouse which had a higher rating and a nice menu. Both restaurants were fairly close and neither was low cost. We made our (early) reservation for 5 PM. 

Our dinners were wonderful. Josie ordered Shrimp Scampi and I had their specialty BBQ Spare Ribs with Jack Daniels sauce - yum on both choices. This is the shot that will be our 50th anniversary photo:

We only have one day left of our anniversary trip - tomorrow - and we are hoping for better weather to close it out before leaving early on Thursday. I will get our boarding passes tomorrow and, hopefully, be able to keep our suitcase under 50 pounds. That may be a huge challenge....

Update on Yesterday's Post

 I wanted to provide a look at the Hickam Field Barracks reference to Building 1102 in yesterday's post.

Below is the full description:

BUILDING 1102 CLR

Building 1102 CLR - HHF PlannersLOCATION

Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, O‘ahu, Hawai‘i

CLIENT

EV-5, Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam

 

Building 1102 at Hickam Field is a contributing structure to the Hickam Field National Historic Landmark and the Hickam Historic District. Now serving as the Headquarters for the Pacific Division of the Air Force, Building 1102 was originally built as a 456,203-square foot enlisted men’s barracks in 1939-1940. Building 1102 bore the brunt of the Japanese air raid at Hickam Field on December 7, 1941, and has become a focal point for the dual purposes of maintaining the Air Force mission and memorializing the past. Helber Hastert & Fee prepared a Cultural Landscape Report (CLR) for Building 1102 to document its historic significance, to define its existing conditions and to identify landscape treatment options.

The CLR is a unique approach to historic preservation developed by the National Park Service to document the evolution of a landscape based on certain defining landscape characteristics. HHF’s extensive experience in historic preservation, landscape architecture, archival research, and analysis makes them ideally suited for this approach. HHF identified defining landscape features ranging from the extant spatial organization of the Building 1102 site to the minute details such as the original “Signal Corps USA” manhole covers and the bullet and shrapnel marks still visible on the exterior walls. Based on their research and analysis, HHF developed a treatment plan to protect landscape features and systems that contribute to the historic significance of the site.

 

 

Nice Trip around the Island of Oahu

The first order of business for the day today was to make sure that the new A/C unit was on schedule to be installed in our condo. The owner contacted us at about 9:30 AM and indicated that all is set for the installation to take place sometime between 10-11 AM and we didn't need to be present. That was all we needed to hear so we got ready and left on our planned trip around the island. 

It was a very nice drive and one that just added to our belief that Hawaii is becoming just too overcrowded to be an easy place to get around. It started with our experience in Waikiki Beach where we hardly recognized anything from our previous trip and dealt with large crowds about everywhere. The traffic today was very heavy - probably partially due to the holiday. Anyway, it was worth the drive and we didn't get home until almost 5 PM.

We stopped at several locations on the drive, beginning with this big vendor selling all kinds of Hawaiian  paraphernalia:

In a weak moment, I bought a shirt for $15. Now I really look Hawaiian! Josie passed on everything.

As we traveled along the coast highway we saw lots of surfers, villages (with some new homes, but mostly old), fishermen, other vendors and lots of Hawaiian tropical plants and trees. Once we got to the North Shore, the scenery changed a bit and the villages became more populated and with more varied businesses. We stopped at one that really got our attention;

and we had to stock up on macadamia nuts that were grown locally in their orchard. 

Further along, and just before turning south to begin the trip home, we stopped at the Dole Plantation. This was a place we remembered visiting before, but again, it has changed so much that it was like visiting for the first time:

The only thing we bought at this stop was a cup of ice cream covered with pineapple. The prices were out of sight for most of the items that were interesting, so we passed on those.

It was back to the driving -south - to get to our next planned stop which was Hickam Field in Honolulu. My expectations weren't very high as a result of not seeing any publicity regarding the Hickam Field memorials of the Pearl Harbor attack in 1941:

There was a very long line of vehicles at the gate entrance where the Sentry was checking all identification for military access. I told the guard that I was interested in finding out more information on the barracks where my father was based during the attack. He immediately told us that we would be interested in Building 1102 where the soldiers were housed during the attack, He indicated that we would have to go to another location to obtain a pass to gain access and we decided that it was just too much effort to gain access and there would be a chance that we would not be approved for the pass. So, we decided to pass on the attempt for this trip. Here is the information on the Barracks that I was able to find (https://www.hhf.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/bldg_1102-700x411.jpg). I feel like I gained enough information to pursue further investigation at some point down the road.

We arrived home at around 5 PM and tested our new A/C unit - it works great and we are back in business....

Schedule Change for 3rd Day

 First of all, we had to make a small schedule change for today. When we got up this morning, the first discovery was that it was more windy than normal and there clouds rolling in offshore. The TV news said there were trade wind warnings today with gusts up to 30 mph. We decided to change our scheduled drive around the island until tomorrow, and just do the beach today. Also, when we arrived home yesterday, the A/C didn't work - at all. I called the owner (Eva) who lives in the complex and explained the problem She came to our unit early this AM with her son (who also lives in Kailua and is an A/C expert) and they came around 8:30 AM. The prognosis, of course, was that the unit was dead and had to be replaced. We agreed to wait until tomorrow AM to have him install a replacement. 

So, we got ready for our discovery walk on the beach and left at around 11 AM. I took this initial shot of our complex from the beach:

The choice we had to make was - do we walk north:

or south. We chose to walk south and try to reach the Kailua Park which is in that direction:

It was a very nice walk and great exercise for us while getting a good feel for the area. There were many surfers and sail boarders, etc., all along the walk. This shot gives you some idea about the activity:

There was this particular guy that was coming in and had his wife (or friend) ready to help land this (I want to call it) kite:

They managed to get it under control and folded it enough to transport to their vehicle which was probably not far away.

We continued our walk and made it to just before the park area which amounted to about 2 miles from our starting point. So, we ended up walking about 4 miles total along the beach according to our maps application on the phone.

Josie picked up some Plumeria blossoms on the way home that were on the ground in many places along the way from trees that lined the beach:

Even though we had to change our schedule today, it was an interesting and fun day discovering the beach. The rest of the day was spent watching some TV (mostly football) and hearing about the 6.2 earthquake that occurred on the big island at around noon today. We felt nothing. We now wait for our "new" A/C in the morning before heading out out on our drive around the island....

A Better Second Day in Hawaii

 We had a very good night's sleep last night in our strange bed. We were so tired that it probably was a no brainer.  Here are a couple shots from our place in the morning:

This one is from our rear window facing the front of the property:

and this one which is our view from the living area in the rear of the condo:

Anyway, we were up fairly early and had the one cup of coffee each that was available from the only coffee pack we had in the room. It wasn't enough, so we got ready to go into the town of Kailua to the  local Starbucks for some REAL coffee. The plan was to buy a package of coffee for the room for the rest of the week but we weren't going to spend $24 for less than a pound of coffee. So, we walked around the area of town close to Starbucks and discovered a couple nice stores, but nothing like what we anticipated (we did purchase a small package of coffee to get us through the week in another store). It was obvious that the best shopping for us would be in Waikiki Beach. It was decided that we would make the relatively short - 20 minutes - drive to Waikiki Beach. While walking back to our parked car, we came across this nice family that was out for a walk:

After finding a parking spot in the Honolulu Zoo parking lot at the edge of Waikiki Beach, we walked into town to look at some REAL Hawaiian shops. 

OOPS! we got behind these nice folks on their way to the beach to surf:

Hmm....

The plan was to spend the whole afternoon in town, reminiscing about previous visits and taking in all the changes. It was like a different town and state entirely. Nothing was the same - of course, it was at least 23 years since we last walked this street. 

Our first shot of the main street:

It didn't take long to reach the main downtown area where all the nice shops and restaurants were located - along with all the big name hotels and condo complexes. Probably, the biggest surprise to us and the biggest change was at the International Market Place. Josie used to walk through this place during her time flying with Braniff Airlines in 1970. She walked from her hotel at the rear of the Marketplace, through the single level to the beach across the road. If it weren't for the sign, you wouldn't know it was still there:

 It is now three levels - a virtual mall, filled with shops and restaurants instead of a single level of individual vendor spaces. The trees were aged, of course (50+ years), and these are the current views:

The entire town is like discovering a new city and for us the realization that things will never be the same -  here, at least.

It was getting to be time to eat so we chose the Cheesecake Factory on the lobby level of one of the big  hotels on the beach. It was a great choice. We had good meals and the waitress surprised us with this nice dessert:

It was a nice ending to a wonderful afternoon walking along Waikiki Beach.

It wouldn't be complete without a photo of one of the few remaining landmarks in town - The Royal Hawaiian Hotel:

It was a much better day for us today and the plan for tomorrow is to take a drive around the island with planned stops at the choice north shore surfing locations and Hickam Field where I hope to get some sort of closure for the time that Pop spent there during the Pearl Harbor bombing in 1941.

Until tomorrow.....

First Full Day of our Anniversary Trip to Hawaii

 Well, it was a very, very long day. 

We got up at 3:30AM to catch our flight to Hawaii which departed at 7:45 AM. There were a few things we had to get done before the flight which is why we started so early. First of all, we had to park the truck in a new area of (our regular)  parking lot - a covered space area - and I wasn't sure if we would have any problems with that. That went great. Next, we had to check our bag through which I already paid for online the night before. That also went great. Our next step was to test our TSA Precheck status that I enrolled us in for a quick check-in. That went pretty well except I had a lot of stuff (medal) that the sensor didn't like and I lost time there. Everything else went according to plan and we left (almost) on time for our 7:45 AM flight.

It was pretty much a disappointment from that point on. The flight was OK, but was exceptionally long - 6+ hrs, with only the usual "token" snacks the entire trip. We landed almost on schedule and caught the shuttle to the car rental area. That really started our disappointment. I tried taking photos of our landing but it was unusually hazy and cloudy which affected the quality of my photos. This one was probably the best of the lot:

Once we claimed our baggage, we took the shuttle to the car rental lot. That started our real run of disappointments. We stood in line for almost an hour, had to accept a different vehicle from the one reserved and the cost was almost double our reserved price after adding necessary items that were not mentioned as requirements under the rental agreement. After a short argument, I wanted to just get the car and leave and signed for the vehicle.

Our trip to the condo we have rented for the week was a fairly nice drive through some nice mountains and was only a disappointment from the standpoint that the homes were mostly old and in neighborhoods that hardly fit the "Hawaiian" image of upscale neighborhoods. We arrived at the condo and was met by our host/owner Eva who took us on a walkthrough of the property. It was not exactly as we had expected in that it is older and missing some of the amenities that we expected: no range (only a table-top Black and Decker Convection Oven), only a motel class coffee maker with only one coffee pack, a portable refrigerator with a tiny freezer, no washer and dryer, etc. The condo is in a great location though:

and we toasted to our trip with a (very) small glass of sparkling wine that was on the table:

By this time, we were dragging and decided to go into town (map of which is below that was in a picture frame on the wall):

 

and get some food for the room and satisfy our hunger from not eating all day. 

We will make it a fabulous trip once we get some rest, some food and a good plan to do the things we talked about while planning the whole week. There are some great views of the ocean that I will capture and the yard is also a nice place to relax. It is now about 6:30 PM (Hawaii time) and Josie is already in bed recovering from the long day and I am about to do the same. We hope to have some cheerful entries following this rough start to the trip...

Our 50th Anniversary Celebration

 50th Anniversary Trip Coming This Week

It has been almost exactly one year since the last post in our blog - in fact, it was during our 49th anniversary trip to Rocky Point, Mexico. We have planned an even bigger and better trip to celebrate our 50th anniversary this year. We will travel to Hawaii and stay for one week (10/8-10/14) in another VRBO condo. This one is located on the island of Oahu in the town of Kailua, not far from Honolulu.

Once again, we will post an entry for each day of our trip. Here's hoping all goes well and we have a fabulous trip.

See you from Hawaii!!!