Monday, May 7, 2012

Heading home

On the sail back to Honolulu we passed the Na Pali coast. This place looked like a fairy land of Lord of the Rings or something. It was so surreal. I think I took about 100 pics of the same coast line and finally just had to pick 1. Doesn't it look amazing?
 Since we got stuck in Hawaii an extra day (darn) we decided to go to Pearl Harbor. WOW! What an eye opener. We took a boat out to where the USS Arizona lays (still sunk under water and is a tomb to thousands of our sailors and marines). Very sad but made me proud to be an American.
Here is a pic of part of the Arizona still sticking up out of water.
 Names of all the men who died on the Arizona.

 Oil still comes up from the battleship to this day. 

Kauai

Kauai was my absolute favorite island of all. I could move there. They call it the garden isle and I've never seen anything so lush or beautiful in my life! The first day we went tubing down a ditch. All my pictures from that are on a waterproof camera (the old school kind) and are currently being developed. 

The second day in Kauai we went kayaking, swimming and hiking. It was our best day in Hawaii over all.






We found a coconut. Those things really are hard to open! Brad said the taste was "alright".

We hiked to this beautiful waterfall and went swimming under it. Then the skies opened up and it poured warm rain. We weren't complaining though. :)



Brad trying to climb behind the waterfall.
Hiking back
Surprisingly, there are roosters everywhere in Kauai. I guess a hurricane set hundreds loose and they over bred. There are no natural prey for chickens in Kauai so they just keep multiplying. This rooster came out of nowhere (and we were literally in the middle of nowhere). Random.


Kona

Next stop was Kona, also on the big island (just the other side). We decided to do some snorkeling again. Guess we couldn't get enough of it. We rented wet suits, grabbed a floaty and went to town.

 This water slide was so cool! It was actually a huge drop. So fun!


 That night we went to a Hawaiian luau. It was a great show. These dancers can really shake their hips. Brad knows first hand (see first post.) Here are some pics from the property we were on. Gorgeous!





Hilo

Hilo, the big island. This place was pretty cool because we got to see a volcano in action. There is some dirt cheap land in Hilo. They had 3 lots (all with houses on them) for a combined sale of $150,000. Not too bad! Just watch out for the volcano. 
Some pics from Hilo.


 This used to be a beach. Now it's just frozen lava. I think the guide said that this was all from the eruption that took place in the 90's.
 For LB and boys... this is where we picked your lava rocks! Pretty cool huh?




 This was a spring that was over a lava vent so it was like a hut tub!