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Since both of our condos faced west–and because, as a group, we never managed to get up early enough to go out where we could see a sunrise–we are top heavy with sunset pictures. Now that we’re back home, I’m kind of kicking myself for not making the effort to capture a sunrise, but there’s not much I can do about it now, I suppose. I’m not complaining…really…and I’m guessing that after you see our pictures, you won’t be either. Enjoy.
We didn’t realize it at the time, but the haze you commonly see in Hawaii is caused by the volcanic ash in the atmosphere from Kilauea. The locals call it “vog.” Clever, no? Not to be confused with the haze we saw in Los Angeles which is neither volcanic ash, nor fog. It’s just nasty.
The trade winds shifted the third day we were on Oahu and blew the vog away from us, so the sunset pictures from here on out are much clearer.
While shopping in the little town of Haleiwa on the North Shore, a shop owner suggested we join the locals to watch the sunset in a nearby park. I will always be grateful to that guy. We took more than 50 pictures of the sunset over Waialua Bay. I’ll be judicious and only post three.
The next night, we were treated to a fabulous sunset at the luau we attended at Paradise Cove. I can’t honestly recommend the luau, but the sunset was spectacular!
On our final evening in Hawaii, Mother Nature provided a breathtaking sunset over Waikiki to photograph and enjoy. We were grateful.
And with that, I bring my posts about our Hawaiian adventures to a close; however, because it was such an amazing trip, I’m sure the stories and pictures will continue to pop up in my blog for a long time to come. Come back and visit anytime.
Aloha!
Because we enjoyed the North Shore of Oahu so much, we made two separate treks to that part of the island. On one trip, we stopped along the way to see the Kaneohe military base where Harry (my father-in-law) was stationed right after World War II. Today, Kaneohe is a Marine air base, but in Harry’s day it was a naval base. In either case, the military is setting on one gorgeous piece of real estate. We rolled onto the base with cameras snapping and the video camera rolling (you’re shocked, I know)…that is until we stopped at the security gate and were asked not to photograph the entrance. Whoops! The young marine at the guard house was very sweet..and patient (I’m guessing he has lots of sisters and/or aunts at home)…and with a slight eyeroll, he allowed us to pull into a parking lot just inside the entrance to take a few shots of two World War II-era airplanes displayed near the gate.
As we headed north out of Kaneohe on Highway 83, we saw gorgeous ocean views on our right and verdant mountain peaks on our left. We didn’t know which way to turn.
The farther north we went, the cloudier it got. Eventually, the low-hanging clouds obscured the mountain peaks. The mix of mountains and clouds was so beautiful, we hardly missed the sunshine.
By the time we reached the string of shrimp shacks littered along the North Shore, the sun was back out and the crowds had gathered. We were not deterred. We pulled into Giovanni’s on the recommendation of my niece, Alison, and my good friend, Sally, and elbowed our way onto an already crowded picnic table.
If Alison and Sally hadn’t told us about the shrimp shacks–and if I didn’t trust both of them implicitly–I would have never thought to stop at this beat-up old RV for any reason–much less to pay good money for something that I was going to ingest, but, boy, am I glad we did.
Carey wasted no time bellying up to the order window while Ruth, Janie, Carole, and I staked out our place at a table and chatted up the other tourists who were already elbow deep in garlic, butter, and shrimp shells.
While I never saw any signs stating as much, I came to believe that it’s illegal to serve anything in Hawaii without a side of rice. And yes, that is roasted garlic perched on top of the rice. Lots of roasted garlic. The shrimp is…well, the shrimp is indescribably delish. And I don’t even really like shrimp!
With full bellies, greasy fingers, and breath that could knock over a buffalo 50 paces away, we got back into the car and headed to the infamous North Shore beaches to see the giant waves that that part of Hawaii is famous for. We weren’t disappointed, and we didn’t even get to see the really big ones. The waves we did see were big enough though. As we learned from the local news the next morning, the waves we were oohing and aahing over that afternoon were big enough to cause serious injuries to two surfers. I believe it.
Besides being enormous, the waves are also deafening–definitive evidence that Mother Nature is not to be trifled with…unless, that is, you have dog doodie for brains.
The pull of the water on our ankles; the incredible colors of the sea, sand, and sky; the roaring waves hitting the lava formations along the shore; and the smell and taste of the salty sea air certainly gave us pause.
Of course, the hunky surfers weren’t hard to contemplate, either.
The folks who purposely walk into that water carrying a big board that appears intent on knocking someone’s teeth out are certainly made of different stuff than I am.
And please note, being young in this part of the world does not excuse you from paying homage to the surf gods.
As for us, we were perfectly happy holding down the beach towels. Hey, someone has to watch the crazies..and the sunsets. Just wait until you see our sunset photos! I’ll post them next.
Well, you had to know this was coming. What’s a trip to Hawaii without beaches? Not much, I’m here to tell you. Here are a few of our favorites on the island of Oahu.
Some of the most gorgeous shorelines you’ll find anywhere are along the southeastern coast of Oahu just passed Hanauma Bay heading northeast. The colors on this part of the island are blinding. We stopped at several pullouts along Kalanianaole Highway to snap pictures and enjoy the sunshine.
While stopped at this pullout, we got to see the beach where the famous love scene in From Here to Eternity was filmed. You would really have to want to get to that beach to climb down the lava cliff it takes to get there. But gorgeous. Absolutely gorgeous.
A few miles further on, we stopped to see (and, of course, take pictures of) the Halona Blowhole.
Thar she blows!
No, Ruth. We’re not in Kansas anymore…we’re not in Missouri, either.
At the beach in the picture below, signs warn people to stay out of the water unless they are expert swimmers and/or surfers. The waves here looked enormous–at least, they did until we got to the North Shore–even so, I wouldn’t ignore the signs!
Further up the shoreline, we stopped to take pictures of Kaohikaipu Island (also called Rabbit Island–don’t ask me why–they told us when I was there last winter, but I don’t remember the details) and the Makapuu Point Lighthouse.
Unfortunately, our stops at all these gorgeous beaches were for photo ops only, no swimming. That changed a few days later when Janie, Carey, and I spent the morning snorkeling and swimming at Hanauma Bay…even though there were jellyfish warnings posted.
Really. Jellyfish warning signs. Apparently, when park personnel arrived that morning to open the bay to the public, they found close to 200 Portuguese Man o’ War jellyfish washed up onto the beach. Oooooo. Good thing we left Carole in Honolulu. But Hanauma Bay is absolute Paradise. How could we possibly NOT get in? So we did, and we didn’t see a single jellyfish…except on the signs.
Hanauma Bay is essentially an enormous natural aquarium, a protected ecosystem where sea lions, turtles, and spinner dolphins frolic year round. In the winter, particularly in February, Hanauma Bay becomes a prime spot for whale watching.
Although Janie, Carey, and I failed to spot sea lions, turtles, or dolphins, we did see hundreds of brightly colored fish that swam around within inches of us as we skimmed over the reefs where they live. We also saw Hawaii’s state fish, the humuhumunukunukaupua’a. Seriously. The humuhumunukunukaupua’a. You can find t-shirts everywhere with its name printed across the front…around the side…across the back…around the other side…
We also enjoyed the sand, the sunshine, a snooze, the sound of the waves, the incredibly blue sky…another snooze.
Heaven. Pure heaven.
From the beginning, Pearl Harbor was at the top of Ruth’s list of sites to visit in Hawaii. For good reason. She knew three of the young men who died on the USS Arizona the morning of December 7, 1941. Nothing–including her fear of water–was going to deter her from visiting the memorial and paying her respects. The somber atmosphere is palpable from the moment you pull into the parking lot.
The ambiance surrounding the Memorial is one of silent respect.
Thanks to the leis that Janie and Darrell treated us to upon our arrival in Honolulu, we had gorgeous flowers with which to honor the three brave Kansas farm boys who perished along with more than 1,100 other servicemen and civilians.
The list of men killed that morning covers one end of the memorial. You cannot helped but be overwhelmed by the loss the wall represents. As the mother of a much-adored young adult son, the mother-in-law of the perfect son-in-law, and the aunt of six lovable young adult nephews–one of whom is a navy veteran–I could hardly breathe.
I can’t believe it’s been nearly a month since my last post. Which reminds me, if any of you are within the sound of my voice the next time I idiotically tell my traveling companions, “Oh, I’ll organize all our pictures,” you must promise me to grab the nearest newspaper, roll it up as tightly as you can, and give me a good, solid smack. Turns out, between the five of us, we took nearly 1,400 picture, and that doesn’t count the five full DVDs worth of video that Carole shot. Thankfully, making something of Carole’s footage is a project for another day. As it was, compiling the photos, organizing them chronologically, labeling them, and getting them burned onto DVDs for everyone took forever. It didn’t help that my nearly six-year-old computer was waaaay too low on memory and was making threatening-to-explode noises the whole time. I got a wicked new computer out of the deal, but that’s a story for another day. Anyway, the good news is the pictures are done. Finally. And I’m anxious to share the last half of our Hawaiian adventures with you.
The last time I wrote, I believe we’d just arrived in Honolulu. While not all of the pictures I’m sharing in this post were taken on the same day, together they give you a good overview of where we stayed in Waikiki. In subsequent postings, I’ll take you to Pearl Harbor, some of Oahu’s beaches, and then to the North Shore. In my final post on Hawaii, I’ll share some of the photos we took of the glorious sunsets we were lucky enough to enjoy…then, I’m going to tackle the videos. Sigh.
The first picture is the entrance to our condo, a 50-yard long arbor draped with orchids. Ahhhhh.
Our view off the lanai was both beautiful and entertaining. For example, the morning after Halloween, the beach was littered with revelers who’d chosen to just lie where they’d fallen the night before. Most days, we enjoyed watching the surfers, the paddle-boarders, and the variety of ships and small watercraft that were ever present. Unfortunately, we couldn’t hear the surf over the other noises of the city.
The pinkish-color building in this photo is The Royal Hawaiian which was one of the first two hotels to open on Waikiki Beach in the late 1920s. Besides its iconic appearance, The Royal Hawaiian is famous for being the home of the world’s first mai tai and Shirley Temple cocktails. I have nothing to report concerning the latter, but I can tell you without hesitation that a Royal Hawaiian mai tai takes no prisoners. And that’s all I saying about that.
At one point, we tied a brightly colored shirt on the railing of our lanai so we could tell which lanai was ours. Unfortunately, we didn’t get a picture of it and counting up that high makes me dizzy. You can just guess where we were.
Our view of Waikiki Beach at street level was just as entertaining as from high above. You see all kinds and people from all over the world. Thankfully, we saw very few thongs or Speedos.
This guy is Duke Kahanamoku, the most famous surfer and swimmer in Hawaii…ever. He was also an eel wrestler. According to the January 29, 1913, issue of the Long Beach Press, Duke wrestled a ten-foot eel “to the death,” losing the index finger on his right hand in the process. Clearly a stud muffin of the highest order. Today, he stands watch over Waikiki, holding leis and taking pictures of tourists from a video camera posted high on a pole in front of him.
Walking along Kalakaua Avenue, the street that runs parallel to the beach, is a study in juxtaposition. Sunbathers in flip flops (or slippas, as the natives call them) stroll beach tote-to-Prada bag with shoppers in three-inch stilettos. Name any high-end retailer in the Western world. It’s on Kalakaua Avenue, right next to a McDonald’s, Burger King, or ABC convenience store. Hmmmmm.
One of our last mornings in Waikiki, Mother Nature treated us to a rainbow that started downtown and arced right out into the water. Stunning!
Next, our trip to Pearl Harbor. Aloha!
Hard to believe, but I’m actually happy to be home from Paradise. Oh, we had a fantastic time for sure, but after twelve days on the road…getting in and out of the minivan dozens of times every day…schelpping luggage and tote bags around…and sleeping in strange beds every night, I was most happy to come home and see my boys, my own bathroom, and my bed. And, as has been the case any time I’ve traveled off on my own during the nearly 29 years of our marriage, I came home to a spotless house, an empty laundry basket, a shiny, clean car with a full gas tank, and a bouquet of flowers. Sorry, girls. Tom’s taken. Permanently.
I have so much to tell you–and I will over the next week or two–stuff I just never had the time to sit down and write while we were there mostly because we crammed every day full. By the time we got back to the condo in the evening, we were exhausted. Plus, I encountered technical difficulties at our condo in Waikiki. The one time I attempted to post while we were there, downloading a picture took forever. Since I have lots of pictures to post, I quickly decided I just wasn’t going to use my time in Hawaii watching a stupid progress indicator crawl slowly up to 100% over and over again…especially when there were mai tais to drink, beaches to be walked along, and sunsets to watch.
However, I can report–smugly–that we came home with every item checked off of Ruth’s list of things to see and do. A list that included seeing a volcano, watching a lava flow up close at night, shopping, visiting Pearl Harbor, exploring a coffee plantation and a pineapple plantation, shopping, learning about Hawaii’s history at the Iolani Palace in Honolulu, attending a luau, seeing the BIG waves off the North Shore of Oahu, shopping, and dipping her toes in the surf. We did it ALL! Plus a bit more. And we have the pictures to prove it–more than 1,000 pictures plus hours of video shot and narrated by Carole. Hours. Seriously. She missed nothing.
I’ve given you of brief synopsis of what we did on the Big Island in a previous post, but over the next week or so, I’ll share more details and pictures of our adventures on both islands. Meantime, I’m sorting through all our photos, my notes, the literature we picked up, and my memories while scrambling to get back into the routine of my everyday life. I thank you in advance for your patience while I get it all done. How about if I tempt you to come back with pictures of our view from the lanai at our condo in Waikiki?
Mahalo and aloha!

The view from our lanai in Waikiki looking north

The view from our lanai looking south toward Diamond Head - see it peeking over the top of the buildings?

Moonlight over Waikiki - the morning we left for the airport
Last Friday, the final day of our stay in Colorado, Tom and I decided to do a bit more sightseeing up in the mountains. Specifically, we wanted to go back into Rocky Mountain National Park and hike around the Alluvial Fan. Just briefly, for those who might not be familiar with it, the Alluvial Fan was formed in the early 80s when the dam of a lake sitting high up in the mountains failed. The rupture sent more than 29 million gallons of water, slit, rocks, trees, and SUV-size boulders cascading down the mountainside and onto the floor of the valley below. The devastation to the surrounding landscape was mind-boggling. Even worse, three people in its path were killed. Tom, the kids, and I visited the site a few years after the disaster when the area still looked raw and broken. It was a sobering experience.
Now, nearly 30 years later, neither the mountainside nor the valley floor looks like a war zone. The entire area is covered with trees, bushes, and other vegetation, and little ground squirrels scamper everywhere. If the gigantic boulders weren’t scattered around like old cars in a junkyard, you might not even give that section of the park special notice. We were amazed–and heartened–by Mother Nature’s power to reclaim her own.
- Looking back up the mountains where the water came down

Looking out across the scattered boulders toward the valley floor
We had also decided that day that it would be fun to stop at The Stanley Hotel in Estes Park for breakfast before going up to hike the Fan. This created a conundrum. Should we dress in appropriate hiking attire–a.k.a. t-shirts, jeans, and tennis shoes–or should we kick it up a notch to avoid looking like a couple of rubes schlepping through The Stanley? What a silly question. We were on vacation. We schlepped.

The Stanley Hotel - Boulder, CO
The Stanley Hotel is really quite lovely, sitting on the mountainside overlooking Estes Park. The entryway leading to the main building makes a sweeping arc around the expansive lawn, leads you past a field of grazing elk, and deposits you next to a little white guard house from which Barney Fife pops out to extract a parking fee from you. The interesting thing–in hindsight–about Barney and the parking fee was we realized there were no signs posted mentioning anything about parking fees. Sharp tack that he was, ol’ Barney saw us coming. Heck fire, we were from out of state. We were driving a late model car. Surely we were good for a little extra pocket change…which is exactly where he put the money I idiotically gave him…into his pocket. No receipt to display in our window. No cash register in his little guard house in which to deposit the bills. No “Thank ya, ma’am.” No “Kiss my arse.” The money went straight into his pocket with a smile. Forehead smack. I bet he got that cheap-ass badge he was wearing off the internet!
Once we got parked and had finished debating the legitimacy of Barney and his fee collection, we headed into the hotel. Whereas I had earlier dismissed our casual clothing with the excuse that we were on vacation, my tune did a 180 when we entered the lobby…which was elegant…and full of business professionals at some sort of a business conference…in business attire. Groan. We wandered around–as inconspicuously as possible–for several minutes, looking for the restaurant without luck before I finally resorted to asking for help at the front desk. It was a beautiful day, and the hotel staff had all the doors and windows wide open to let the fabulous mountain breeze to blow through. As I stood speaking to the desk clerk, I could feel the breeze, but I could also feel something else. Something strange. Something that felt like a sail waving back and forth on the top of my head. I patted the top of my head and continued speaking with the clerk until I had the information I needed, and then I turned to Tom and bleated, “Do I have a sticky-out pointy-thing on my head?”
“Well, yes,” he said hesitantly. “Your hair is kinda sticking up.”
Here, I must backtrack. When we got ready that morning, the only water coming out of the showerhead in our cottage was scalding hot, so grooming had been a bit dicey. I’ve got my own hormonal heat source going full blast right now, so the hot shower gave me no alternative but to retreat from the steamy bathroom as quickly as possible. Before leaving, however, I did attempt (admittedly a half-hearted attempt) to blow dry my hair. I didn’t even consider putting on makeup. I figured I’d sit in the other room to read and cool off while Tom showered, and then I’d go back in and do my makeup. Brilliant. Well…fast-forward back to the hotel.
“What do you mean my hair is ‘kinda sticking up’?” I hissed, and then I noticed Tom’s hair. He’d taken his ball cap off and his bangs (do men have bangs?) were standing straight up like…well, like…you remember in Something About Mary when Cameron Diaz uses “gel” to fix her bangs? Yeah, his bangs looked like that, so off we went to the bathrooms.
My attempts to get my hair under control were futile, and, in the process, I saw that I have forgotten to return to the bathroom at the cottage to apply makeup. I was a pointy-haired, mottled-skinned, lip-less, eye-less, brow-less freak. Tom came out of the bathroom with his hair all slicked down looking like a grease monkey.
“Shall we?”
“Yes, let’s.” And we headed upstairs to the restaurant.
When we arrived at the entrance to the restaurant, we discovered that we were 20 minutes too late for breakfast and 10 minutes too early for lunch, as were several other guests who had congregated around the door. Not wanting to waste any more time looking for another restaurant, we decided to see the thing through and stood trying to blend into our surroundings. As we waited, Tom began fumbling around with his hat which sent his sunglasses clattering to the hardwood floor. He stepped back in an attempt to avoid stepping on them, but instead…CRACK…and a lense went skittering across the floor. “Man,” he muttered. “That was close.”
I stared at him in disbelief. “No,” I thought. “You got those sons-o’-bitches dead on” and then burst into laughter…uncontrollable laughter…laughter that sent me staggering around where I stood. I’m guessing at that point we were no longer inconspicuous.
I was still snickering 10 minutes later when the hostess seated us and even later still when our waiter, “Guido,” finally came over to look down his nose, give us the squonk eye, and take our order. Fair enough.
But just so you, my faithful readers, know…the food at The Stanley is NOT worth the effort…or the parking fee.
One of our all-time favorite scenic car rides in Colorado is the 20-mile long drive west out of Boulder on County Road 119 that winds its way up through Boulder Creek Canyon, through Nederland, CO, and up to the Eldora Ski Area. We had a gorgeous day to make the trek. The sky was crystal clear, the temperature hovered in the low 70s, and the aspens–at least in the higher elevations–were just starting to turn.
Here are a few pictures, so you can enjoy the drive, too.