Amanda goes to Hawaii Thursday Night and Friday.

In the year 2016 Amanda took her mom (Grandma Morse) to Hawaii. Grandma Morse had always wanted to go to Hawaii her whole life. It was a dream come true, and she now wants to live there....Sounds expensive!

We started out slow meeting up in the Honolulu airport. When I first set up the tickets we would have gotten in two minutes apart from each other. That was the ideal time. The times were changed to an hour apart, but then I had a delayed plane so in reality we arrived three hours apart from each other. We spent our entire 6 days on the island of Oahu.

My mom got this great shot of the island from the plane.

 

Our first night we got our rental car. It was a red ford, with four doors and I didn't like it much at all. Not only did it have a really small gas tank, we filled it up once with only 7 gallons when it was a notch before empty, but it also took me two days to figure out how to adjust the seat back so it was easier to drive. Since there was a fee to add an additional driver, I did all the driving. Here I am!

 

Then we checked in to hotels and stowed our stuff and wandered the streets. We spent some time trying to locate a farmers market and found it as it was closing so people kept giving us discounts on food that we were not able to finish in our week long stay. We got eggplant, carrots, green beans, bread,  and a coconut that we drank the milk from. It was more watery than I had expected. We also took a short walk on the Waikiki beach front to catch our first view like this.

 

Our first full day was Friday the 17th in the year 2016. We routinely woke up at 5 am each day in Hawaii as there is a time difference between where we live. For me it was a 5 hour difference. It was the middle of the day for us when our family was going to bed.Our first stop was to hike Diamond Head volcano. From a plane view it looks like this:

From the secret free parking lot (a look out point) it looks like this:

We walked through a tunnel to reach the main parking and entry way then started our hike. I had read that the whole thing would take about 2-3 hours, but we were up and down in about 1 hour and we stopped to look at things along the way and take scenic pictures.

We saw things like this:

 

 
 

Since we made such good time, we had plenty of the day left. We decided to go visit the Dole Plantation.  That was a great experience. We rode on the train tour and went on a self-guided audio tour. We did not travel through the pineapple maze. But we learned that at one time the Dole plantation was responsible for shipping 90% of the US's pineapple. That is still their largest crop. They also have bananas and cocoa now, and their dirt is all red dirt since they have a high iron content from volcanic eruptions. Pineapples do not grow on trees. They grow on bushes.

 

 

 Here I am inside a pineapple. There is pineapple ice cream on top. We tried some of that stuff and it was tasty.

It rains a lot in the islands so we had lots of experience with drizzles and frizzy hair.

We saw lots of flowers and plants and a koi pond and then spent too much money on souvenirs.

When we left the Dole Plantation, we decided to play at Waikiki beach for the first time. The water was not as cold as I expected it to be and the waves were not as strong as I expected either.

We found this sand tower and added to it a little. Grandma Morse was shaping it to look like a mountain peak in the distance. I added some rocks of coral and sea shells that I found from stepping on them out in the ocean. This little girl had fun pulling them off.

After the sun went down we were greeted with a free fireworks show. The Hilton Hotel (I believe it is that one) puts on a firework show for free every Friday night. It is recommended to be on the beach to see it, but we were able to view it from our hotel window. As you can see from the photos, this area has become rather industrialized. I was hard pressed to have it feel like Hawaii my first night when I could see so many hotels right behind me. But it grows on you, and besides if you walk along the beach you can sneak peeks of Luau's and live bands playing for customers at the hotels and restaurants.

 

I am writing this while on my next vacation, a family reunion, and this internet connection is slow. So that's all for now folks. More updates with other days are to come.