Waipi'o Valley

 Our first hike on the Big Island was into the Waipi'o Valley!   This valley, also known as the Valley of the Kings is towards the northern end of Hawaii and we drove through ranch country to get there.  The drive was beautiful if frustrating .... Hawaiians love their slow speed limits apparently.  :)  

In preparation for the trip, Wifey packed a 'sack lunch', plenty of water, our camera gear, and some water shoes.  

Upon arrival at the lookout ... Russ saved the day with his parallel parking skills.  Kee would have just had to turn around and go home.   

The lookout includes facilities .... and the folks managing it much be quite wealthy .... this is COVID gold:  

Before we began our hike, we walked over and snapped this view of where we would soon lunch:

The hike down begins on a paved-ish road and then reaches a fork. 

At the fork you turn right to reach the black sand beach at the mouth of the valley and turn left to reach a dead end.  We turned left.  But we were rewarded for this minor error with a stunning view of the waterfall at the end of the valley opposite of the beach!  

We also saw some wild horses in the interior part of the valley.  

Unphoto-ed - we reached a dead end, consulted our map, turned around and eventually found the beach!  

It's blurry, but we're in this.

Koko Head Stairs

 Due to a bit of a GPS mix-up we ended up taking an unplanned route to the Halona Blowhole (more on it later).  Along the way, we glanced some small white dots along a mountain ridge along what appeared to be Wifey to be a power line.  After some quick smart-phone googleing we discovered these white dots were people, and the power line was an abandoned tramway turned into a 'stairway' hike.  

We arrived at the parking facility for the Koko Head Stairs at 5:00 and had to be back down and heading towards the airport by about 7:00 for our 8:30 flight.  Per google, this was a 30-60 minute hike.  

Partway up is a short bridge.  It was a bit nerve wracking, but we made it across.  On the way down, we found an alternate path, however.    

It took us 65 minutes to reach the summit.  

This hike was tough for Wifey.  Hubby was a trooper, pausing when she needed to.  We didn't really take photos on the way up, but the following are a collection from the trip back down.

We just came from right there~~~

This guy was way more impressive than us ... he was carrying a huge beam up the stairs!  

Halona Blowhole Lookout

We went to this lookout and watched a blowhole.  It was pretty.  We took two pics.  The wind was insane.   

And a video! 

 

Dole Plantation

After visiting Pearl Harbor we continued our quick tour of O'ahu by traveling north to the Dole Pineapple Plantation.  Here we took a picture or two, learned how pineapples are grown, and enjoyed some Dole Whip.  Basically pineapple flavored ice cream.  It was YUMMY!  

To get into the gift shop and grille area, each tourist was temperature checked.  Luckily we passed despite the outdoor temperature being about a bazillion degrees.  

After waiting in line, we placed our orders for a Pineapple Float and a Dole Whip on a bed of pineapples!  

Outside the giftshop there were gardens showing different varieties of pineapples.  Pineapples just growing on plants ... all chill like!  

Oh, and gotta take a hula dancer photo :P 

 

O'ahu - Arrival and Pearl Harbor

 Since this is Hubby's first trip to Hawaii (the state), we made time and prioritization visiting O'ahu so we could go to Pearl Harbor.  This was actually a bit more complicated than normal due to Neighbor Island travel restrictions.  Similar to the COVID testing requirements to enter Hawaii yesterday from the mainland, one of our pre-travel swabs was for re-entry today!  

We woke bright and early which was easy due to jet lag and caught a 6:30 flight over to Honolulu. 

Goodbye Hawaii Island! 

Drink Service!  

First Stop: Rental Car Pickup!  While chatting up the Avis Preferred attendant, Wifey mentioned we were only on O'ahu for one day ... as a result, she asked if we'd like a Mustang convertable for the day .... "yes please!".  

Second Stop: Pearl Harbor!  - We pre purchased our tickets and audio tour to visit the memorial.  The audio tour was interesting, however several stations were also within a museum that provided video/audio information as well as text presentations. The conflicting input was alot.  All in all, I think doing the audio tour was a net positive.  We learned alot about both the events leading up to the attack as well as the results of the attack on O'ahu.  

After exploring the exhibits, we took a Navy operated ferry out to the Arizona Memorial.  

A video of our experience: 

Here you can look down into the water and see the USS Arizona where she still rests on the Ocean floor.  Interestingly, survivors of the attack who have later passed away still chose to be interred in the wreckage.  Their remains are given to Navy divers who perform the interment.   

The USS Arizona memorial is the white line on the horizon in the below photo.