News from Oahu

Ms Darlene has been with me over the past 9 days.  While I would be at work, she shopped, walked the beaches and pretty much found her new favorite spot in the world.

 

One Friday evening, we went down to enjoy the weekly fireworks at the Hilton Hawaiian Village under a clear moonlit sky.

 

The place was wrapped up with locals and visitors alike.  Honestly, the fireworks did not go off at the appointed time so we were headed back to the car when the place just lit up with pyrotechnics.  They had delayed setting them off because of the police helicopter nearby that had assisted in the rescue of a capsized yacht.  Fortunately there were no injuries.

Over the two weekends she was here, we pretty much kept the roads hot trying to absorb as much of Oahu as possible.

 

Her spots as well as mine tended to be away from the crowds checking out the beaches and fabulous scenery stopping from time to time to digest it all.

 But each evening we would return back to town and take in Waikiki Beach again and do some serious people watching. 

 

There might have been some shopping involved as well.

Both weekends, we were a little disappointed that the waves were not as large as we had hoped.  Last Saturday, we went up on the north shore to the Pipeline thinking it would be terrific but when we arrived, the place almost looked like a lake.   Only a few surfers were out. 

Still, the drive was great and stopped to snap a few pictures of places we'd always seen but never really stopped long enough to enjoy.  Here's a different view of Chinaman's Hat near the ranch where Jurassic Park was filmed.

 

We stopped in amazement to see a half dozen young men make their way down through the rocks to do some diving from the cliffs.  It was a dangerous thing to do but when you're that age, you think you're bullet proof and the world is all Disneyland.  They probably did not know, but someone was killed doing the same thing a couple miles around the island at a place called Spitting Caves.

 

The Blowhole has been the demise of many as well.

 

I'm really glad she was able to come over for a week and a few days.  I know she enjoyed it and I appreciated her being here with me.

Oahu - Honolulu

A couple of weekends ago, before the rain, I checked out Manoa Falls here on Oahu.   From the parking lot, it's just less than a mile up to the falls through groves of bamboo and a rocky and somewhat muddy trail.

Well visited by locals and visitors alike, it's not all that difficult and little keikis (local word for children) running ahead of their parents who continued to yell at them to be careful.

Honestly, I pretended to stop a lot to be courteous and let other travelers pass on the narrow trail so I wouldn't appear out of breath.  I was grateful I had brought along my tripod to stabilize myself in fear of slipping on the rocks.  They had gotten very greasy after hundreds of muddy feet had plastered mud on them.

I won't even try to tell you it was the most outstanding thing I've seen on Oahu but it was a better venue  than hanging out with the tourists on Waikiki.

Also, on the trip back, I stopped off at a couple of waysides to get down and visit some small flowing streams.

I had planned on visiting the arboretum near there but ¾ the way down, it began to rain so I opted to speed up and visit the Treetops Restaurant adjacent to the parking lot.  The food was a so-so buffet of Asian/Fusion dishes with some good old mainland bread pudding as a comfort food.

This weekend, I took a tour around the NE side, trying to see if I could find the old Magnum PI TV show location.

 

Failing to find the home of Magnum and Higgins, stumbled onto several hang gliders working the cliffs.

A couple of them really got off on buzzing the half dozen bystanders positioned by the road overlooking the bay.  While looking toward the sea, you could hear a little breezy sound and look up just in time to see them zip over you.  Sometimes they approached head on.

So, after church Sunday, I felt a little guilty just sitting around at the hotel so I strolled on down to Waikiki to see if it was still there. Sure enough, it was crowded with the usual surfers coming and going, old tourists trudging around in shorts, flowered Aloha shirts and sandals with socks on them.

I know I will not get a lot of sympathy from anyone but the temperatures were in the low nineties with high humidity making the real feel at 103°.

So I headed back to the hotel to sit under the air condition until late in the afternoon when I would go out.  The light will be better for photos later...yes, that's it.  The light's better.

So just east of here is Hawaii Kai.  Nice sunset.