So, that was our week on the Big Island. On Saturday morning, we flew back to Oahu, checked into our silly little hotel near the airport, failed to get breakfast by noon, and hit the road. We drove all the way around Oahu, missing turns left and right for places where they shoot Lost. But we did see a lot of gorgeous scenery and a lot of gorgeous waves. Big waves.
Bigger than that one. Still, probably not scary for people who actually spend a lot of time at the beach, but intimidating for a fat old woman whose 6-year-old was all, "Let's go! Yeah! I want to get in there!"
So after driving 3/4 of the way around, we found a beach that -- shocker -- had parking, and was in a fairly calm inlet. And there the kid got his first real taste of actually swimming in the ocean, as opposed to wading out for miles and still only being up to his knees, or trembling with terror at the prospect of being in past his waist.
He did great.
And he got slammed.
After a couple hours we drove the rest of the way around the island, had dinner and crashed. Our last night in Hawaii was spent watching Grease and Grease 2 in the hotel. Yeah, I know. But it kept the kid still and quiet til he fell asleep, so that's a win.
Next morning we got up and headed off to the Pearl Harbor memorial. We toured the museum and then took the boat out to the memorial.
It's an interesting place, and it has an interesting feel of history to it. I might have been projecting, but it did seem like the emotion still runs fairly close to the surface there, unlike that you get at Civil War battlefields and places where the history is a bit dimmer and more distant. There were also a LOT of Japanese tourists there. I can't help but wonder what kind of perspective a Japanese heritage would bring to that tour, as compared with an American Whitey one.
The memorial is built over the USS Arizona, and you can see much of the boat just below the surface.
And it still leaks oil.
At the same location, there's a retired submarine, the USS Bowfin. This was our one Lost success; submarine shots on the show are filmed here.
I think this was the kid's favorite part of our trip, actually. He got to push buttons and spin dials and pretend to his heart's content.
After that, we went on a shave ice expedition. I don't know why they call it "shave ice" and not "shaved ice," but it seems to be the standard usage. It is also kind of meh. It's like eating mildly flavored snow not as robustly flavored as a Slurpee, not as crunchy as a Sno-Cone. But since we failed to ever find poi, this was our nod to local cuisine. I daresay the Young Prince ate a lot more of that than he would of the poi anyway.
After that, it was back to the beach. The waves were a little bigger here, and we had to watch out for lots of boogie boards, but it was still a lot of fun. And then the YP demanded he be buried. I was assigned to the task. NYAB recorded the event for posterity.
We wound up getting sand in places we hadn't known we had places.
In a not-entirely-unrelated segue, we also found the spot where they filmed the torrid love scene in From Here to Eternity.
After that, we headed back to the hotel, took long de-sanding baths, and packed. Returned the car, headed to the airport. We were delighted with the Honolulu airport. Polite people, who knew how to check you in, who took your suitcase instead of taggging it and handing it back to you to dump with TSA, did it themselves. People who smiled and Got Things Done. Sooooo much nicer than Dulles.
And then we got on the plane, and after waiting 15 minutes for Big Shot Barack's plane to take off and get out of the way with its Oh-look-at-me-I-need-the-sky-all-to-myself-ness, we were airborne and heading home.
Layover in Salt Lake City. Where there was snow. And then we got home, where it was 32 degrees and dark and so sad. I am ready to move, people. I haven't been on many vacations where I've thought, "you know, I could have stayed there." And I'm not actually sure I could have stayed in Hawaii without a serious consideration of career change -- which would mean a serious diminishment of income, and thus not living in the style to which I'm accustomed. I guess we'll just have to go back for another vacation at some point.
But that will be after Davenport, Iowa, in July, and after Alaska, in August. :)
I'm glad you guys had a good mix of the fun and the educational!
I liked the shave ice, but trust me, you didn't miss anything with the poi!
And Alaska sounds fun! Are you doing a cruise?
Posted by: cosmiccamper | January 18, 2010 at 07:28 PM