The John Family Blog

We took a walk in the morning around Waikiki beach for the last time and then went to breakfast at Denny's. I wish we'd gotten more pictures of the beautiful beach. Its crowded for a reason.

It was a short flight over to the Big Island and after picking up our rental car we drove over to our condo. The landlord didn't hear us knocking because he was upstairs cleaning one of the units, so we went and grabbed lunch while we waited for him to call. We tried one of the "recommended" places from the Frommer's Book called the Big Island Grill. Josh got the chicken alfredo which was okay. I got the beef with rice lunch plate. Sounds innocent right? It was green liquid with big hunks of tough beef floating in it. A lady got up from a nearby table to come over and get a better look. Neither of us could figure out what made it green. Anyway, lets just hope it had lots of vitamins. Josh wouldn't try a bite. It didn't taste horrible, but had no redeeming quality to justify being that ugly. I was really tempted to go out to the car and get the camera, but we were parked across the street. I'll just let ya'll imagine.



The next day was action packed. We drove around the entire island, hiked to a waterfall, explored some really rock roads, and went on our helicopter tour. We were lucky enough to get seats in the front next to the pilot!

On our second day in Oahu we took our time driving around the island to get to the Polynesian Cultural Center. We stopped at Kualoa Regional Park and a nice old couple took our photo for us.



There were mountains behind us...















And the ocean in front of us...























We also stopped to see the Hawaii Temple which is just up the road from the Polynesian Cultural Center.














There was a cute family sitting in front of us during the canoe parade. The little blonde head at the bottom of this picture was a 2 year old who called out "O-ha" to everybody who went by.



I didn't realize Josh was taking my picture while I was attempting to dance Tahitian style.

We flew into Oahu around noon and tried to find our hotel and drop off our luggage so we could make it to Pearl Harbor before it closed. After driving in circles and yelling at each other, I looked up and we were across the street from our hotel. The rest of the day went much better.
I never realized the monument was actually on top of the sunken USS Arizona. It is considered a military memorial and grave site.









Inside the monument















Oil still comes up to the surface of the water.









Part of the ship.
You can see the whole thing from the sides of the monument. Very sad and very interesting experience. Anyone going to Oahu should see this.








On the ferry going back.
I wanted a picture of the sailor's white pants and shiny black shoes.











Our shoes.






Across the street from Pearl Harbor were more military museums. This is one plaque that caught my eye. A circular memorial recorded all the submarines lost at sea and what they know about them. Here is one submarine's story...






























I will post more tomorrow. (Including some pictures of us!)