Hawaii - Day six

Sunrise



going snorkeling




geo


awesome place!


sunset




The final full day in Hawaii... so much more to do, but time is up.

We went up to the resort for the sunday brunch buffet. It was pretty disorganized, I wouldn't come back to the buffet, but we managed to fill up.

After that, we snorkeled out in front of the condo and spotted a turtle. we swam with it for a half an hour or so. There was a ton of beautiful fish around as well. We saw a good size Ahi, that I am sure the fishermen on the beach would have loved to hook. Swimming with the Turtle is the highlight of the trip. That was just the coolest thing ever!

Later that day we drove to Barbers Point, on the far southern west coast side. You drive through an industrial area to get there. We noticed the beautiful tree lined drive through fuel docs, scrap yards and other various maritime industrial businesses.

The park was small. We saw a few people diving from the beach. The beach was pretty rocky, not good swimming. I saw a lighthouse down the beach, so we walked out to it. We passed by a big building area with tables on the beach. Germaines Luau, that explains the tree lined drive...

On the way home we stopped at a restaurant we had not tried yet in Maili. Beaches was the name and they had a second floor outdoor deck. We went in, past the bar, past the two pool tables, to the deck. It was basically a smoking deck, but they had some tables out there. We had a Mai Tai on the deck in the sun, then went on to sit at a window table inside.

I saw a pull tab machine, I haven't gambled in a long time.. So I decided to thro $5 in to it and get 5 tickets. There were 4 columns of tickets to choose from. I chose 3 in honor Glenn. the first ticket I opened was a $100 winner. Thanks for the luck Glenn.

I spent the most all the money at the bar, bought some locals who had probably poured hundreds into that machine, a round of beer. We ordered lumpia, grilled shrimp, and calamari and it was the best food we had the whole trip... dang. .we just found the Longs drugs and now Beaches and its time to go.

We managed to get back to the condo and went for a pre sunset swim. Then we watched the sunset one last time. Following a new Peterson tradition for the last night of a vacation, we went for a night swim.

Hawaii - Day Five

sunrise walk



Cave





End of the road




another sunset










Woke this morning early again.. can't seem to sleep in, of course, haven't made it to Midnight yet.

We decided to go to Mc Donalds for the local menu, featuring spam and eggs. We took our time, I took a walk down the beach out on to the rocks. Finally we left around 9, set on a McD's breakfast.

I wanted to run in to Longs drugs before hand, pick up a few things and get some cash from the atm. Note for future trips, no Wells Fargo here. I think I will switch to Bank of Hawaii, as I plan on returning soon.

It was my first trip to Longs since we arrived, and let me tell you, I blew that one. Longs had everything I have dreamed of finding since I arrived in Makaha.. Macadamia nuts, sun tan lotion, staple foods, souvenirs, cheap beer, and, the best part... It was a modern building. The only modern building in all of Makaha.

I actually just ran in and grabbed cash, and some water, and we cruised back to Mc D's. I saw those things as I ran through, and we came back later and cashed in, well, I guess cashed out..

Off to breakfast finally, we rolled down Farrington Hwy towards Mc D's, on out right side of the street. As we approached, we saw cars backed up onto the highway, waiting to get in to the parking lot... we went into the other lane and went by, and turned into the next street. The entire parking lot was full, the drive in lane was backed up the street... This is the only place in town to get breakfast.

After giving up on Mc D's,we went back to Longs and went hog wild. We bought a bunch of stuff to take home, so we ended up grabbing some shipping boxes, and are gonna ship all of our souvenirs home. Part of our journey home is on foot.

We stopped back at the condo, unloaded our wares and make a quick breakfast. Then we journeyed north up Farington hwy to Ke'ana beach, the furthest spot on the west coast accesible by car. If you had a mountain bike, or atv, or sturdy shoes, you could continue on, and walk along the beach on a very poor dirt road. 11 miles later you would be in the North shore.

We swam here at the beach, with all the locals. We saw only a few stray tourists up here. It was a nice beach. Since its the weekend now, the beaches are more crowded with the local m-f crowd. They set up big elaberate camps on the beach. Tables and canopy, bbq, fishing gear, surf boards, coolers, steroes.. it must take an hour to unpack and pack..

After cooling off, we headed back down the coast. We came upon a cave, so I stopped to check it out.

Then we followed some roads up into the valley. They would wind through residential areas and small farm operations.. All ending at a military gate. It was beautiful to see the valley.

By this time, we were thirsty. We didnt want to go back to the Makaha Resort, so we decided to try out the Army rec center. It was pretty nice, right on the beach. We sat and had some drinks and pu pus and then went back to the condo to see the sunset and watch the conch show. We sat out there for an hour after sunset and watched the waves..

Back up in the room, B was laying down and I was on the lania when I started to see smoke. There is a bbq area around the side of the building. All the residents hang out there at night, grilling meat,, drinking and chatting. We almost went down there tonight, but opted to go relax.

anyway, I saw this smoke, so I says, wow, someone burned the ribs. A few local kids sitting on the beach, and they saw the smoke. I watched as they moved in to investigate. Once they got close enought to see what was going on, they turned and yelled, call 911! I was thankful this building is all concrete..

The fire dept showed up and doused the melted grill. 40 people or so were out in the parking lot freaking out about it.. Pretty exciting.. no one got hurt. I went down hours later to investige the charred grill..

Hawaii - day four

funky strip mall in Makaha


Makaha Resort and Country Club





Ahi and Crab Nachos


Cool bird, I don't have photoshop, probably need to zoom in on it



Sunset at the Club









Ahh, finally a day of just chillin at the beach. We hit the beach about ten am. The waves were pretty intense due to some wind that picked up. After getting thrashed by the waves one too many times, we headed in.

We went shopping at an odd little strip mall. One part must have been a big grocery store, so they put in plywood and screen walls to create a bunch of small spaces. And no, they didn't paint it or anything, just bare plywood walls...

We found some cool stuff here. Some nice souvenirs and odds and ends..

After that, we had to go back to the room and drop things off since the car has no roof..

We then ventured up to Makaha Resort, which is five minutes drive up the mountains from here. It was really beautiful. We went into the lounge, found a great table outside on the deck, overlooking the golf course, with Ocean and Mountains in the distant view.

I saw something on the menu I have never seen before and knew I had to try. Ahi and Dungeness Crab Nachos.. It was strangely good... raw chunks of Ahi, fresh crab, cheese, jalapenos, and mango on a bed of chips.

We also orders a sampler plate. It came with Grilled shrimp, Calamari, chicken wings, two types of ribs, edemame, Onion rings and Jalapeno poppers.Yum, most of it came back to the condo with us..

While watching the sun set, we met a nice lady celebrating her sweet 16 birthday. She asked if I would take her picture and email it to her. I also posted it here... Happy Sweet 16 Diane from Vegas..


Finishing off dinner with a Mai Tai. We went back to the condo full and happy.

Hawaii - Day Three

sunrise over Makaha






Dole Plantation



Pretty Flowers from Haliewa


Our Condo



Sunset






We are still on PST, waking up around 6:30 am..

At least I was able to get some sunrise picts over the mountains and harbor.

We had breakfast in the room, then headed for the north shore.

If you could draw a straight line between Makaha and Haliewa, its probably 30 miles, however, we have to drive around the Wai'anea mountains. Traffic was hell heading back to Honolulu.. Finally we made the turn North onto H1.

The first point of interest was the Dole plantation. We stopped, used the bathroom, looked at some pineapple plants and headed for the big surf.

We drove through Haliewa, sunset beach, Turtle Bay, and finally stopped at one of the busses on the north shore that sell shrimp out of them. Charter busses bring tourists from Waikiki out here to eat the shrimp. Its caught off the north tip of the island I guess.

We stopped at one called Giovanis. Not a very Hawaiian name, but the sign assured us it was "world famous". Funny, all the shrimp busses appear to be world famous.

There is only three things on the menu. Scampi shrimp with garlic, Hot and spicy and lemon and butter. You get 12 shrimp and 2 scoops of rice for $12.95. It was pretty good.

We stopped at Turtle bay and checked out the resort. Then we swam, I snorkeled. I didn't see any Turtles, but lots of colorful fish, like you see at the aquariums..

Next stop was back to Haliewa to Jamiesons by the Sea. A pub - restaurant on the beach. Here we met Dean, a friend of a friend. We chatted with him for some time, he and his wife moved here in 1968 from Cleveland..

We left the pub, and went and did some shopping. Dean had told me of a flower shop in town. We went in, very small, nothing on display except for a few beautiful ginger flowers. I asked her if she could make us a bouquet for $20. She made an awesome bouquet for us. Our room looks and smells tropical.

The rest of the shops were mostly designer. No souvenirs for us here. We headed back, hoping to make sunset, but not very likely. Dean told us to take Hwy 99, Kamehameha Highway. I didn't think it was smart, figuring it would be like 99 in seattle, 35 mph with lots of lights. Well, it was a lot of that, but it did turn out to be faster. We made it back for sunset, but it was pretty overcast. We went out on the rock point to get some picts.

then back to room, dinner and rest...

Hawaii- day two, part two

View from our room






We left Waikiki in our beat up Geo and headed West..

It was 3 pm and traffic was stop and go for most the way.. clearing for stretches, then stopping again..

H1 ended and we were now heading up the west coast on the Farrington Highway.

When we got a few miles up the coast, we started to see these tent cities along the beach. They were elaborate set ups, multiple tents connected by big tarps and sometimes trucks or busses mixed in. Some had parking areas, with decent cars.. Some had POW MIA flags flying.. These tent homes stretched up most of the West Coast...

Come to find there are some 4000 homeless that live on the beach here. They choose this area because its on the lee side of island, it doesn't rain much here and very few storms hit here. Its the perfect place for outside dwellers. Also, there are not many tourists on the west coast, so the state officials seem to turn the other way. Apparently many of these dwellings have generators. They thumb their nose at society..

We reached Makaha, and were surprised at the lack of services here. We saw two old grocery stores, a few liquor stores, many boarded up "drive ins". Apparently, the drive in burger joints were big here. They all look to be from the late 60's, and 70's in design.

We found the Condo unit, the only ones we saw the whole way up the coast, so it wasn't hard to miss. There are 2 tower condos here, right next to each other and right on the beach. Both have security gates, and then security lock to get into building area, and another security lock to get on the elevator.

We opened the door to the condo, and we were pleased. Its real nice condo, the bedroom is all the way back towards the water and there are double sliding glass doors to the lania, with sweeping view of the ocean.

The front of the condo units are all the louvered glass windows. The entire front wall is made up of louvered windows.. They are secured though, not the kind you can slide out. Its big business in Hawaii, fixing the louvered windows to be secure. Most every structure on the island has louvered windows.

We unloaded our gear and then went to register at the managers office.

It was 5pm now, and it was shift change. We met the night security guard. The security guard patrols 24 hours a day, on the beach, walking the halls, parking lot.. Its nice to see good security.

We asked where we can get groceries. They told us to go to the store on the East side of the road, not the one across the street.

We took their advice and drove down to the Tamakura Supermarket.

The building appears to be 50 years old, and never maintained..

I can barely describe what I saw in that store, but I will try. I wanted to turn around and leave immediately, but we only saw one pizza place that looked decent, so we needed food.

Everything was soo expensive.. Tortilla chips are 4 bucks a bag. 4 bucks for a dozen eggs....


I wanted some fresh fish.. I picked up a package of frozen fish. The label said "codfish". I don't know if it was.. the fish was yellow and completely freezer burned. It looked as if it had been filleted by a 5 year old.. There was bones all through it.. It was the scariest piece of fish I have ever seen.

They had big bags of frozen, whole, in shell oysters. Frozen oysters? can you do that? Did they ever hear of jarred or canned oysters?

There was packages of Dungeness crab, with guts and matter in the packaging.. They all looked very, very old..

We didn't buy any seafood.

We did get a decent head of lettuce, tomatoes, a loaf of bread, small cheese package, eggs, coffee and some misc condiments and snacks. Oh, they had NO macadamia nuts. We bought a big thing of nuts for 3 dollars in Waikiki...

We went back to condo and unloaded groceries and headed to beach to watch sunset. Everyone gathered on the beach for the sunset. I swam a little as we waited.

Sunset was at 6:30 and it was cool and I didn't have my camera.

Right after the sun went down, a group of senior haolis blew conch shells in unison. Then, they turned to the North and blew the conch, then the East, blew conch, then South.. Everyone clapped when they were done. I thought, how great that must be for them. Obviously retired and living here. That is the only thing they need to do each day. I hope I am that lucky some day...

We sat on the lania and watched a family swimming and playing in surf for another hour after sunset. They have big spot lights on the roof that shine into the surf.

Hungry now, we went to the pizza place down the road a mile. We had no idea what to expect and were a bit nervous. When we pulled in, another car parked next to us and a military family got out. We asked them about this place and they said it was good. I asked about other places around here to get drink or dinner. They told us we could go to the army rec center down the street, that was about it..

The pizza place was called Red Baron pizza, no relation to the frozen brand. It was pretty funky, the place was full of locals. We ordered a pitcher of beer. It took a while for it to get to us. Thats island life...

We ordered a big cheese and B ordered a side salad.

The side salad came in a huge place, with two small bowls.. I didn't want salad, it had ham in it. I am not sure, didn't really look at tab, but guess they charged us for two salads.

With the salad came a dressing thing, it had three big bowls of dressing. B likes to mix and match her dressings, so this was good. However, they came by in a few minutes to get the dressing back, it was a community bowl of dressing.. weird..

The pizza was decent and we had lots leftover.

That concludes day two...