Last day in Hawaii and trip home

Our last day in Hawaii, Boo! We went back to the Hungry Hono for breakfast and another frappe. For some reason the thin mint frappe did not taste the same as before, we think because a different person made it. Since our flight wasn't until 9:00 at night we had a whole day to explore and generally relax. The first thing we did after breakfast was lay by the pool for a little while until it was checkout time so that Deb could get some color and I could just relax. After that we did a little shopping for souvenirs at Walmart and then went to the Sadie Seymour Botanical Gardens. This was maybe the smallest Botanical Garden in the world, unfortunately there wasn't a lot to see here, but it was free. We checked out the thrift shop right there, but it was a very thrifty thrift shop, everything there was at least 20 years old.

We then went over to a small beach and watched some kids body surfing which was kind of entertaining, we also just kind of relaxed and enjoyed the sea breeze. From there we drove to a farmers’ market where we bought some more souvenirs. From there we walked over to the Kona shopping village and browsed through some shops. It was actually pretty hot, and mall-itis was really starting to hit me. Because of this we decided it was time for early dinner. We ate at the Kona canoe restaurant right on the ocean where we made a meal of happy hour appetizers and finished everything off with mud pie, which was delicious. We lingered there a bit and watched the sun go down. A pretty good way to end our time in Hawaii.

Once we got done with dinner we had to head to the airport and gas up the rental car along the way. Our gate at the airport was open to the outisde on all sides, like a gate patio. Of course, a woman waiting by us told Deb how much she liked her nails. We got on our plane to Seattle on time with no issues, we had a 2-hour layover in Seattle, so we grabbed some breakfast at the airport and waited for our last plane home. Our flight home was interesting at the end as it was very windy in Chicago, so we had a pretty bumpy ride coming in but we got in on time and made it home to our house. 7 flights, 7 airports, 3 rental cars and 2 sons providing airport drop off and pick up, quite a trip. Oh and 4 people told Deb they love her nails, actaully a couple less than I was expecting.

Hawaii is a beautiful place; I am really glad I got to visit. I’m not sure if we’ll be back but if we do return, we will be sure to hit Kauai, as it is supposed to be the most beautiful of all the islands.

Volcanoes National Park

Today we started with breakfast at the coffee shack which is right on the way to the volcanoes National Park. Interesting place, you eat basically hanging over the side of steep hill that is covered in vegetation. Deb made friends with a lizard that was hanging out on the window frame, feeding it jelly from the little container it was in. Food was OK, my coffee was pretty good.

From there we drove out to Volcanoes National Park. Entering the park was a little confusing because the visitor center is being renovated and was closed. So, we had to drive down to where they have military housing to get any information. The temporary visitor center was packed, unfortunately there were a few tours stopping at the same time as us. So, we really didn't get much information there at all, just stopped for a minute, used the restroom, and then got back on the road. We followed the crater rim road to the lookout at the end so we could see Kilauea. The volcano wasn't doing much when we were there, just a lot of steam you could really smell the sulfur dioxide hey, it was almost too much. We walked around that area a little bit, getting different views and pictures of the volcano. We tehn headed over to an old crater and cinder cone formed by an active part of the caldera which has been dormant for the past 50 years. Here we hiked Devastation Trail through the cinder field by the cone. This was interesting as you can see the cone and also how vegetation is coming back to the area. We then we got back in our car and headed over to Chain of Craters Road, which ends where the latest lava flow rolled over it on the way to the sea. This road goes past several old craters (hence the name). It goes through miles of nothing but old lava. When we were there it was very misty/raining, which added to the atmosphere. I was reminded of Frodo and Sam going through the Desolation of Smaug. We stopped at several places along the way to see different views. The last place we stopped before the end of the road was the Holei Arch lookout. This is a great view of the very high vertical cliffs and a sea arch coming out from them. Eventually we came to gates closing off the road, but you could see that it continued for a while, so we decided to walk up the hill on the road to see where it ended. Once we walked about a mile to the top of the hill we were surrounded on both sides by new lava. However, the road just kept going as far as we could see. I'm guessing they blasted the lava flow and made room for the road.

After all this it was getting pretty late, so we drove back to the main part of the park by the old visitor center and went to volcano house. Volcano house is hotel you can stay at, and they also have a couple of restaurants. We ate at George's Lounge which has floor to ceiling windows overlooking the volcano crater really a cool view, we got some pretty nice sunset pictures out of this, unfortunately the food basically sucked. After dinner we headed back to the hotel with more winding roads in the dark, that seems to be our theme for this trip.

Coffee coast tour, coffee, farm tour, and luau

We started today with breakfast at the Hungry Hono, the food was pretty good, and we shared a thin mint frappe to go, that was really good. We then set out on the coffee coast Guidealong tour.

First stop on this tour is Kealakekua Bay, where Captain Cook arrived on the islands for the first time. Unfortunately, this is the same bay where, when he returned a month later, an incident where the natives stole a boat and Cook's crew tried to kidnap a chief, led to him being killed. In any case, it’s pretty little bay.

We then continued down the coast, mostly through a lava field, to the Place of Refuge. Place of Refuge is a spot where people could go to avoid being persecuted either for a crime or if they were fighting against the local natives in a war. The way it worked is they could stay there and not have to worry about being hurt until a certain amount of time after which the local Kahuna would set them free. This area was pretty interesting, and they had some really cool old tiki statues facing the sea. We also enjoyed watching the fish that were in the tidal pools and all teh goats that were wandering around the area. After that, we had some time so we decided to do be free coffee plantation tour. We found the Greenwell tour and we are really glad we did. We got there at 1:53 and there was a tour leaving at 2:00. Our guide, Nate, was really cool and really informative. He did a great job of showing us all kinds of different plants that were growing on the plantation and also explaining the whole process of turning coffee beans into coffee-from picking them from the trees to roasting the beans and packaging them. This was a great tour.

After that we had some time to kill before we had a luau on the resort property, so we laid around the pool for a little bit. The luau was OK; it was kind of cool to watch the dancing, especially the fire dancing, but it's the kind of thing that now that I've done it once in my life, I don't think I have to do it again. After the luau we were pretty stuffed and just went back to the room and relaxed.

Big Island circle tour

Today we started with breakfast at the 808 Grindz, a small little place with decent food for decent price. We sat outside on wobbly chairs and table, you order at a window inside and they bring the food out to you. It was a very small place but the food and coffee were pretty good after breakfast we started on our circle tour of the Big Island, this is an all day trip.

We stopped at a lot of really good lookouts, the best may have been Waipio valley, which gives a really good view of big deep valley and the coastline. We also met a little cat friend that was hanging out there. During our all day drive we passed through several small towns and saw some beautiful waterfalls, the nicest of which was the Ak Ak Ak falls. We also stopped at another statue of King Kamehameha, there seems to be a lot of these on the different islands. I guess he was kind of a big deal, having united the islands and all that.

Since there was so much to see and this is a pretty big island we were kind of pressed for time as we got towards the end. So we stopped at a restaurant in Hilo called Jackie Reys Ohana Grill and ordered food to go and ate while we drove the “Hilo Loop” of the GuideAlong tour. That was pretty good food and did the job for dinner. After we grabbed dinner we stopped at Rainbow Falls and the Kaumana Caves lava tube, among other places. I guess you can walk pretty far into the lava tube, it's actually 25 miles long. But we just walked into the entrance and looked around a little bit as we would have needed a headlight or at least a good flashlight to walk any farther. As we continued driving around the south part of the island we noticed how much the landscape changed from one area to the other. We basically went through almost every type of landscape you could imagine other than a glacier. It was a pretty interesting drive. Needless to say we were pretty wiped out by the time we get back to our hotel in Kona.

Lazing by pool, flight to Big Island

Today we had breakfast and then laid around the pool for a bit before our flight. The flight to Honolulu was delayed almost an hour, most of that was spent sitting in the plane. We were in danger of missing our connection, so they let us off the plane first. We speed walked 4 gates and made it with just a minute to spare. The next flight was uneventful. We picked up our car and then drove from Hilo over the saddle road to Kona, which took about 2 ½ hours, more hilly twisty roads in the dark. We got to the Outrigger Kona about 8. Since it was so late, we just ate at Piko, the restaurant at the resort. Over-priced blah food, won’t eat there again. A bit of an adventurous travel day, but we made it to the big island.

Whale watching tour

We started with breakfast at the hotel. Then we drove down to Lahaina area to catch our whale watching trip. The first we drove around the area to see how it was doing after the fire two years ago it's still pretty desolate there are large areas that have not recovered yet. In some places there was nothing but burned-out lots with no buildings on them. But in other places the fire didn't touch anything, so they were still good. It also looks like they are working quite feverishly to get the damaged areas back up and running.

I wasn't sure how the whale watching trip was going to go, because at first the guy in the shop was kind of rude to us. When we asked why it said to be prepared to go barefoot his answer was “because everything's more fun barefoot “. And the way he said it was like “what are you stupid?”. All we wanted to know was what was the reason for it and if we could wear water shoes, Some of us have very white feet and were afraid of getting sunburn on them. However, once they took us to the boat everything got much better.

We met our captain, Jack and the marine biologist, Jess. When I asked them if I could at least wear my socks they said “sure, do you want your shoes?” I told them I was just worried about getting sunburned and they were very cool about it-Captain Jack said, “yeah you don't want sunburn on your feet”, thank you! We then went out looking for whales.

At first, I was excited to see a water spout off in the distance and we headed that way. But then the captain noticed another whale and followed where he was going. He had a suspicion and he was right, there was a “whale fight” going on. About 8 to 10 males were battling each other to mate with a female who they were all following. The law says we can't get closer to 100 yards before putting the boat into neutral and that's what Captain Jack did. However, the whales don't seem to care about that law, and they swim much closer to our boat than 100 yards. This was a really cool experience as we watched them swim all over the place battling each other, occasionally you would just see one whale come out of the water sideways, which meant that another whale had gone underneath him and bumped him up. We must have followed these whales for an hour, one of the most amazing things I've ever done. I think we were very lucky to come upon this on our first whale watching trip.

After this great experience we had an early dinner at the Aloha Mixed Plate which is right there by the water I thought my food was really good and they had a pretty good guy playing music for us. Pretty much a great day in Lahaina, I'm glad the area is still able to operate despite all the damage. After that we drove the shoreline for a bit and ended up at a blow-hole GuideAlong told us about. This was kind of a let-down, as it wasn't really "blowing'much. But it was a nice drive and good way to end the day before heading back to the hotel.

Sunrise over Haleakula, napping and lazing by the pool, lame distillery “tour”

Got up at 3 to go to Haleakala, which meant more driving twisting hilly roads in the dark. We got there a little after 5 , so we had plenty of time before the sunrise at 6:45. Most of the show is actually before the sun rises, as the light slowly fills the sky. We knew it would be cold up there and we dressed warm, but freezing winds still made us cold., The sunrise was spectacular, and glad we got to experience it, even with the early wake up and cold. On the way back we stopped at Komoda bakery for cream puffs and masaladas, which Kendal recommended. I liked the cream puffs but Deb didn’t care for them. Back at the hotel we took a nap then went to lunch at Spoon and Key-where the woman taking our order complimented Deb's nails. We went back to the hotel and spent the rest of the afternoon laying around the pool.

We then went to Organic Ocean Distillery for a tour and tasting. This was pretty much a disaster as at first were given no or vague directions “Meet you on the other side “- we are inside a shop, where is the other side? It was raining pretty good, so instead of walking around the property we just went to an outside bar and basically just had a tasting. We were the only 2 people and our host David, in his 5th week, was terrible. He basically just recited a memorized script and his low taking monotone made any little jokes he threw in fall flat. At one point he asked us if we were staying in the West or South part of the island. Since where we were staying was both South and West of where we were I didn't know how to answer that . David needs to learn that his guests are not locals most of the time . Deb was really just there for the tour, so this was kind of doomed from the start, but he did nothing to save it for her.

We then headed back to the hotel. We went to Matteo's Osteria, right behind the hotel, for dinner. We didn't have a reservation, so we ate at the bar. It was pretty good Italian food, then it was basically time for bed after a really long day.

Road to Hana, it’s a loooong road.

On our first day in Maui, we drove the road to Hana. This is a long, twisty road and it's definitely an all day drive. We stopped at a lot of places including Twin Falls and some state beaches, and we were supposed to be at a black sand beach between 11:00 and 12:00 but we were almost two hours late for that time slot. We still managed to get in, the woman said we had 20 minutes. This was enough time for us to walk down to the beach and scatter some of Linda's ashes into the water and soak up the sun and waves for a little bit. We continued on to the seven sacred pools, where we had trouble getting into the National Park because the woman at the gate was not friendly and not helpful. We had a picture of our parks pass, but she said that wasn't good enough since they now had digital passes. So, we pulled over and were able to turn our physical paths into a digital pass through the app. Long story short 10 minutes later we drove through the gate into the park. It was hard to see any of the seven sacred pools though as there was so much vegetation around them and we can no longer go down to the pools themselves. Apparently there was a landslide or something a few years ago making it dangerous to go down to the polls. We tried hiking up to a viewpoint which was basically a mile straight uphill, but we really couldn't see a lot from there either. So, the seven sacred pools were kind of a disappointment for me although we did get to see a giant banyan tree.

Rather than driving back on the road to Hana we decided to drive around Haleakalā to get back to our hotel. This took us through some different landscapes, a lot of open fields with cattle grazing everywhere. We actually had a cow-jam, where we had to wait for the stupid cows to get off the road before we could continue. All part of the adventure. We got back so late though that we just grabbed some subway to bring back to our room for dinner for calling it a night. The road to Hana is a great drive and definitely a must-do when on Maui.

A palace, a museum, and a flight to Maui

Today was our last day in Oahu before we fly over to Maui. so again we walked over to the harbor pub for breakfast, like I said it does the job. After that, we drove over to the Ioleni Palace, which was built by the last king of Hawaii and is the only royal residence in the United States. We would’ve had to pay just to get inside as well as work our way around some field trip groups, so we just walked around the grounds outside, which were kinda nice. We also walked around the Capitol area of Honolulu to see all the different buildings and the Christmas decorations they had up. they also have a big statue of King Kamehameha, who was the first king of Hawaii. We then drove over to the Bishop museum, which we had free admission to with our hotel key and was kind of cool. We thought this would be a good way to kill the rest of the time before we heading to the airport. It was a pretty nice museum a lot of nice Hawaiian cultural items in there. After that, we stopped at a ridiculously crowded Costco gas station to fill up the rental and headed to the airport. No issues with our flight and we got into Maui on time.

Once in Maui we grabbed our rental and drove to the Residence Inn. We then grabbed dinner at a place rightby us called Monkeypod Kitchen by Merriman (Merriman is apparently a restaurant group in Hawaii). We ate at the bar and naturally the bartender was originally from the western suburbs of Chicago.

Pearl Harbor day

Today was Pearl Harbor day. Our reservation for the Arizona Memorial wasn’t until 3 o’clock in the afternoon. This gave us plenty of time to do some other things beforehand.

We started by walking to the bar next door, which I read had pretty good breakfast. Let’s just say they had breakfast, it did the job and my French toast was actually really good. But the sunny side eggs Deb ordered were pretty slimy and I didn’t even have any of those.

After breakfast, we drove over to Pearl Harbor. The first thing we did was go on the USS bowfin, which is a submarine from World War II. We got to go inside the sub and walk around and see just how tight everything was inside there. I can’t imagine being hundreds of feet underwater in one of those things.

The next thing we did was go on the USS Missouri battleship, and this was really cool. The Missouri is where the Japanese signed a surrender agreement and World War II was officially over for everybody. You could stand right on the spot where the agreement was signed by the Japanese and see pictures of the event. You can also walk all over the battleship and get a good feel for how the crew lived. It’s amazing how big that ship actually is and how big the guns are as well.

After the Missouri we got on our boat to go over to the Arizona memorial. This is really something to see and experience. It’s just weird to know that so many bodies are underneath you as well as a ship as big as the Missouri that you were just on. This is a very good memorial and I’m glad we’re able to see it. After Pearl Harbor, we headed to Dixie’s Southern Barbecue and Grill, as we were ready for some non-Hawaiian food. This was actually a pretty good barbecue place and I’m glad we found it on the way home. We stopped at a Walmart, Kendal suggested that this is actually the best place to find some cheap souvenirs. So we picked up a few things and headed home to our hotel.

Byo-do Temple, Chinaman’s Hat, North Shore Dole Plantation

We did and saw a lot of stuff today. Hopefully, I’ll get to most of it. We started with breakfast at Sonny’s local grind, which I had seen some good reviews for on one of the sites. Unfortunately, like most of this area and pretty much all of Honolulu, parking was very scarce. So at first, I parked at a 7-Eleven around the corner from the restaurant, but Deb noticed as we were walking away from the car that there was a big sign that said tow-away zone. So I got in line to order, because apparently a lot of other people saw the same great reviews that I did, and Deb went back to the car to move it. One nice thing about Sonny’s being so packed was that we had time to drive her on the block and find some public parking before our order was ready. The food was pretty good. I wouldn’t say great, but it was good, and the service was really nice.

We then started sightseeing at the Byodo-In temple and followed our Guidealong app circle tour from there. The temple is actually a recreation of a Buddhist temple in Japan, and it was pretty cool to cop. We got to ring a giant bell and we saw a big statue of Buddha in the temple part itself. What was kind of interesting is even though this wasn’t the actual temple, we still had to take our shoes off to go inside. After the temple, we followed the guide along app circle tour of Oahu.

This tour took us around the north part of the island where we stopped at a few places. One of these was a farmers outlet type of place, where they had all kinds of different macadamia nut flavors and some fresh pineapple and other fruits. They also had chickens running all over the place. Seems like chickens in Hawaii are like pigeons in Chicago, they’re everywhere. We got some fresh pineapple to eat on the road. We also stopped at a neat state park right on the northern point of the island and watch the surf for a little while. They have a lot of great beaches on the North Shore, including Sunset Beach and the Bonzai Pipeline which are world famous for surfing. At both of these places, we got out and watched the surfing, but they are also both really packed so we didn’t stay too long. On our way back to Waikiki we also stopped at Dole Plantation and we tried the Dole Whip. This is basically pineapple flavored sherbet, so it was pretty good, but not the greatest thing I’ve ever had. Also,Dole Plantation has a serious Wisconsin Dells vibe to it. for the record, that is not a good thing.

After getting back to Waikiki, we met Kendal, his wife, and son at a restaurant called the Side Street Inn. The restaurant was really hard to find, for some reason it’s not lit up at all on the outside and then even after you find it you have to drive around a little bit to see where you can valet park underneath the building. But the food was good, it was great to see Kendal again, and really nice to meet his wife and young son. That was enough for the day so we headed back to our hotel and to our beds.

Diamondhead, a blowhole, and another dinner adventure

Unfortunately, the beds and pillows at this hotel kinda suck. I slept anyway because I was so tired, but Deb didn't sleep well at all. So apparently we are now in bizarro world. Got up and started our day with breakfast at Sweet E's Cafe. Food was pretty good, and the service was great, except for Deb's iced tea, which was pretty bad. We ate outside in a covered patio; we had several guys waiting on us, and they were all friendly, and the food came out really quick. Good start to the day. We then started our Guidealong audio guide thing. There are 3-4 different ways you can go with this app; we chose the "Volcanoes and beaches" way that goes by Diamond Head and some beaches and ocean viewpoints. We stopped several times, seeing Koko Head from the road (no, we didn't hike it). One of the stops was at a blowhole; that was pretty neat. It is a beautiful view with waves crashing on the rocks where the blowhole is.

We drove past the turn for Diamond Head because we didn't have reservations. Deb reserved the 12-2 time slot while I drove, so we'll come back later. We drove to a few more really nice viewpoints, including one by the Makapuu Lighthouse trail, which we didn't do, saving up our energy (and time) for the Diamond Head hike. We got as far as the Ulupo Heiau, a temple built by ancient Hawaiians. This was basically just a pile of rocks in a field, though; the most interesting thing here was all the chickens running around.

On the way back to Diamondhead we stopped at a small makers market, which was underwhelming. We got some water at Walgreens and made a Starbucks stop for iced tea and a frappuccino, some fuel for Diamondhead. We go to Diamondhead at 12:27, just inside our 12:30 cutoff time. We were sternly told that we had to be by 2 o'clock, whatever. The hike started as a paved trail but then turned into broken-up pavement and dirt. It was pretty steep in some parts, but I think we've done worse. Part of the trail goes through a tunnel, and there are quite a few stairs as well. This is a very popular hike, so it was crowded. The views from the summit are pretty spectacular, once you get around the selfie crowd.

After Diamond Head, we went back and relaxed at the hotel pool for a few hours. It's pretty nice there looking out over the ocean and watching fighter jets take off. Made reservations at Kirin restaurant for 6 o'clock. After showering, we went down to get her car from the valet. The valet looked at our number and nodded, then he helped people with their luggage and disappeared. He was gone so long that we asked another valet to get our car; he was gone for a couple minutes and then came back asking what kind of car we had just as the first guy pulled up with it. By this point, we were very late for our reservation, so we jumped in the car and left without tipping the guy.

We had a really hard time finding the restaurant. Traffic was horrible again, and the Google directions aren't as helpful as they could've been. The restaurant is in the basement of the Hyatt hotel, and by the time we got there, it was 6:30. As it turns out, the restaurant wasn't even half full, so we had no reason to worry. Food was pretty good for the most part, but Deb couldn't handle the texture of the dim sum. There was a statue of Buddha in the lobby, which of course we had to get pictures with. We then headed back to the hotel in our beds. I did complain about the beds and pillows, so they brought up some foam pillows and a bed board, which slips between the mattresses, for my bed. It helped a little bit, but the bed was still basically terrible.

Long day of travel

We got up at 3 AM for a 6 AM flight on Alaska Airlines from O'hare to Seattle. Dylan got up and drove us to the airport. It was cold enough to have the wings de-iced, which delayed our take-off a little bit, but otherwise the flight was uneventful. We were only about 10 minutes late getting into Seattle, which considering we had a 3 hour layover, was not a problem. We grabbed breakfast at The Village Pub in the airport. The waitress was the first person to comment on how much she liked Deb's nails (I'm going to try to keep count for the trip). Pretty good breakfast burrito, pretty bad coffee for me. We then went to the gate and waited for flight #2 of the day. The weather here was very rainy and dreary, so one Seattle stereotype was coming true. Another uneventful, long flight and we're in Hawaii! Picked up the car at Alamo and the toughest thing was getting the bluetooth to work in the Prius. We got to choose our car from any mid-size and Deb wanted the Prius because that's one of the cars she drives for the township, but this one is sportier and smaller than the one she drives. I talked to Kendal and turned down his offer to watch his HS fotball team play for the state title. We were hungry and traffic was a mess leaving the airport. So we thought we'd grab dinner nearby and eat while the traffice died down. Kendal mentioned Zippy's which is a local chain, kinda like the Hawaiian In and Out or White Castle. We were hoping for something a little nice and Google showed Tradewinds nearby with good reviews. So we headed that way. Only problem is it's on the Air Force base and we had to turn around at the gate since we didn't have military ID. We asked the guard where we could eat and he just mentioned the standard fast food places. So Zippy's here we come. We stopped at the nearest one, just to escape the LA-level traffic. It turned out to be in a fairly shady area (homeless guy living in he parking lot). Also, the food was not great, edible, but very dry, chicken. While eating I hit the sleep wall and was pretty out of it from this point on. So Deb continued the drive to the hotel. Thankfully traffic did clear up and it was a much better drive. The hotel is nice and we finally got to our room, about 20 hours after getting up in Chicago. They had fireworks on the beach at 7:45, which was right as we were opening our suitcases. Unfortunately all we could see was some smoke, but we could hear them. Not a big loss. As I said, I was wiped so we went to bed prety early.