While the weather in Utah has been frightful--frightfully frigid for many weeks--I was studying the weather chart for our upcoming vacation to Hawaii and things were looking pretty nice there compared to here.
We wanted to get a jump on the fun by spending some days on Oahu before boarding the cruise ship.
Once we landed in Honolulu, Mike and Glen both rented cars. Mike took his group to the north part of the island where they stayed in a rental home.
The pool area of the hotel was pretty--especially at night.
We were appalled at the $55/night valet parking charge. We drove around a bit to try and find parking ourselves, but were unsuccessful. We turned the car over to the valet and set off on foot to try and find something for dinner.
We stayed in the Marriott Courtyard in Honolulu, within walking distance of Waikiki Beach.
Not far from our hotel we found a BBQ restaurant and the food tasted mighty good to us because we hadn't had a real meal since breakfast that morning.
We hadn't explored too much and were limited on our choices for breakfast, so I consented to McDonald's. Not one of our favorite meals of the day, that's for sure!
The Kualoa Ranch is a 4,000-acre private nature reserve and working cattle ranch. It is a popular tourist attraction and filming location.
We had booked a jungle expedition and set off to board our jeep and be on our way.
How nice it was that the seats were very cushioned because we got jerked all around in that thing going up and down the mountain and all around the bumpy roads.
We met up with Mike's group at Kualoa Ranch, enjoying some beautiful scenery along the way.
We heard all about our group who were awakened in the wee hours of the morning with a rooster crowing. Everyone was holding a grudge against the feral roosters who do their cock-a-doodle-doing when they wanted to sleep.
It seemed fitting that in the gift store, the rooster was used as a prop in a photo to forever remind us of how obnoxious it is to be awakened in such a manner.
It was interesting how many roosters and chickens we saw running free. I started noticing how many times all throughout the day, every single day, on every island, we could hear random roosters crowing.
We found another gem in that gift store--a Spam recipe book. We were all sharing our memories of Mom serving Spam when we were growing up and we all had our opinion about the deliciousness, or not, of Spam.
Mike and Lorene brought a pillow from their rental home to provide extra protection from the bumps for Lorene who had fallen on ice right before our vacation and had hurt her tailbone.
What ended up working for her was bracing her legs tight and keeping herself up off the bench. That was an intense leg work-out for her, I am sure.
We stopped at a sacred area to take a look around and to look out over the water from that vantage point.
We could see the small pointed island called Chinaman's hat at various stops along our way.
Our driver did all he could to get them to get up and move so we could pass. It might have been my highlight of the jungle ride seeing how little the animals cared about us getting through them.
There were some pretty views as we drove through the jungle.
We got to the location where the Jurassic Park movies were filmed.
It looked like there was a big building, but when we drove back behind it, it became clear that it was an optical illusion. There were only the front walls and no further structure.
After leaving the ranch, we went to the macadamia nut farm.
We were hungry by then, so it was a real treat to see bowls full of a variety of flavored macadamia nuts for us to taste and see which were our favorites.
It seemed strange to be in a warm climate in December, but they celebrate Christmas in their own way.
Behind the store, there was a big bin of shelled macadamia nuts. Some tried their skill at getting those shells broken and keeping the nut intact.
We made a lunch stop at a big open area where there were lots of different food trucks.
We stopped at a beach to take a look around.
Even better than the nut farm was the Dole Plantation.
We were looking forward to getting a cold, delicious Dole Whip treat that afternoon. YUM!! It did not disappoint!!!
We took a stroll out in the back garden area where we could see pineapple plants growing and read the informational signs along the way.
Glen and I left the group to go back to our hotel and get some dinner. The group was on their own quest to find some food closer to where they were staying.
We valet parked our car and walked around a bit exploring and trying to figure out where we should eat.
The chicken and fries there weren't even that great. It definitely was our (at least my) worst food day.
Didn't like McDonald's. Wasn't that impressed with my meal at the food trucks. Definitely didn't end on a good note at Raising Cane's.
Our two tasty snacks--macadamia nuts and Dole Whip provided the deliciousness for the entire day!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment