Blogs from Waimanalo, Oahu, Hawaii, United States, North America - page 3

Today was Pearl Harbor day. When one goes to Oahu for the first time, one must go see the U.S.S. Arizona Memorial. I believe it's a sort of a civic duty. People my age do not understand at all what it was like on December 7th, 1941 and the days following. The terrorist attacks in New York and DC do not really shed any light on what it was like to be attacked by a foreign military for military goals; those attacks weren't military, they were criminal acts committed by criminal people, and it's just not the same thing. Because of those attacks, though, the Arizona is now one of those secure places where you can't take purses, backpacks or anything else (including "large cameras"). As such, I left my big lenses and my backpack and ... read more

Today was a partial day of rest. We've been go go go since we got to the island, and it was a welcome change of pace to have a little down time. I slept in this morning (6:45 a.m.) and spent some time relaxing, and then we went down to the beach and played in the water some. After that I worked on the photographs that I'd taken, burning them to CD-ROMs, just in case the worst were to happen to my laptop. Finally, we all got restless and decided to go do something, so after everybody got a shower in, Barb, Laura, Cheryl and I piled into the minivan and headed for Honolulu to do some siteseeing and shopping at the Aloha Tower. We checked out a ukelele shop where I almost bought cheap ukeleles ... read more

Golf day! Today Greg and I got up early and headed to Olomana Golf Links for our 7:40 tee time. I was extremely apprehensive since I haven't touched a golf club in about three months and my knee is acting up lately. We made a pact in advance to ignore our scores and concentrate on the amazing experience of golf in Hawai'i no matter how play goes. This was, of course, a good idea. Objectively, we really didn't need it; I played quite well enough considering the aforementioned circumstances, and I think Greg plays pretty well, period. But we rarely view our own game objectively, so the pact came in handy on a few holes after all. I do wish to state for the record that I sank a 15-foot putt and an 18-foot putt. I ... read more

We took the scenic route from Hilo Hattie's in Honolulu back to Waimanalo, and stopped here and there to take photos from various lookout points. The first stop was along Maunalua Bay to take pictures of the Hanauma Bay crater, though I originally mislabeled these particular photos as being of Diamonhead. The next stop was an overlook looking down on Hawai'i Kai, and back over Maunalua Bay back to Waikiki and Honolulu, where I took a bunch of bad pictures, but managed a couple of a red-crested cardinal that came out quite well. This lookout point was just up above Hanauma Bay, but alas, we didn't have a view of the bay because the ridge continued to rise between us and the Bay. After that, we stopped at Lana'i Lookout, where the shore was rocky and ... read more

According to Wikipedia, Waimānalo is Hawai'ian for "potable water". I can confirm that the tap water here is not only potable, but tasty. We're refilling our store-bought bottles. (If you're still seeing "Waim 257 nalo" for the location of this post, that's my fault for getting cute with the "ā" when I added the location to the database. Fix-request is in.) This town is absolutely the perfect place for us to stay. It's tiny, quiet, and out of the way. We've got public beach access about 100 yards from our front door. The beach itself, about 200 yards further, is a public park and yet we have it almost totally to ourselves. I guess the only drawback, since I don't surf and cannot really be described as a swimmer, is the wave action here on the ... read more