Hawaii Trip - Oahu (Part II)

Sat - Day 4: This was the first day with Mom, so we did some shopping. We hit Hilo Hattie (which was pretty cool), bought chow family-style at Costco, and hit a giant Asian owned grocery store called Don Quijote which had tons of cheesey Hawaiian stuff. I of course found some Captain Morgan board shorts I couldn't live without for $9. Kim and Shelley spent half an hour going through all of the Hawaiian Christmas ornaments. Grandpa waited outside and made a comment about being in there long enough to buy the whole store. Shelley found a hotel with sharks, so we went over there for a drink. It was really cool. They had several hammerheads that caused a ruckus and I got splashed. We watched the fish while sipping mai tais served in frozen pineapples. Otherwise, we just kind of chilled that day, as all of the other days had been so jam packed. Jon was our driver throughout the week, and the construction on the strip made it a rather long trip between Grandpa's hotel and ours.





Sun - Day 5: Pearl Harbor Day! Grandpa wanted to be there early, so we left Waikiki around 6am and boogied over to Pearl Harbor. Grandpa had a VIP pass, so we got good parking and walked under the covered hangar where the ceremony was to take place. It was a long and drawn out, somber affair, appropriate for the occasion. Grandpa got to sit behind the Pearl Harbor survivors as a member of the USS Tennessee and Missouri and a survior of WWII. There were some really nice native Hawaiian touches. There was of course a lot of brass present and accounted for. One of Doolittle's Raiders was the keynote speaker(Doolie & Co. pulled off the almost impossible raid on Japan immortalized in the film "30 Seconds Over Tokyo"). Oh yeah, Alec Baldwin played Doolittle in "Pearl Harbor". The first successful offense against Japan by the US after Pearl Harbor, and an incalculable boon to the morale of the Americans all over the country. After the proceedings, we did another stint on the USS Missouri, where Jon gave Kim and me a behind the scenes tour of the battleship. We were also lucky enough to be invited to the opening of a new wing of the museum because Grandpa had donated so many cool things (e.g. a ring filed out of a stainless nut).



We also toured the very well done USS Oklahoma memorial which is a stylized representation in steel and marble of sailors lining the railing of a battleship as they pass the USS Arizona memorial. Since we had the VIP pass, we were able to get into areas of Ford Island that are normally off limits to civilians. We drove past the rusting hulk of the Utah, but they were having a service there for a lady whose father had died on the Utah while trying to deliver her twin's ashes to US soil. She had two loved ones' remains to mourn on the Utah, so we respected her privacy and came back after lunch. The ironic thing was that the shuttle bus driver told us about the twin on Friday, and she was sitting right in front of us at the ceremony a few hours earlier.





Kim found the last authentic Tiki bar on Oahu, which also happens to be attached to a marina. La Mariana Sailing Club is nestled between several boat yards and across the street from the only West Marine on the island, so of course we had to check it out. The owner recently passed away, and the whole kit and kaboodle was for sale temporarily for $3M. We inquired within, and it was evidently willed to the estate. The good news is that it's going to remain operational. They made wicked good mai tais. Jon joined us for a zombie before we headed back to the hotel(s). We of course bought t-shirts.



We fired up frozen pizzas in our room that night as part of a Sunday night family tradition. Everyone retired early to pack, as most of us were heading for Big Island in the morning.

To be continued...

Please check out all of our pics here.

Hawaii Trip - Oahu (Part I)

Wed - Day 1: Get up at the butt-crack before dawn, finish up last minute packing and load the truck. Kyle came over to drive Kim's truck back home, so to thank him, Kim backed into his car and destroyed his fender. Kim's fender is pretty gashed too. Oops! I guess we should've wiped the dew off the morrors and windows. Who says FJ's are hard to see out of, and what happened to the backup assist alarm? It evidently doesn't work for cars off to the side that you cut the wheels into. Kyle groaned, Kim didn't freak out, and we made sure Kyle's car was driveable. After exchanging insurance information, we got on the road.



The five hour flight went pretty fast. I read Latitude 38 and did the airline mag's crossword. Not much to see out there. We landed in Honolulu and met up with Jon, Shelly, Haydon, and Grandpa. Kim got a lei for Shelly, which Haydon promptly turned into mulch. Jon picked us up in the rented minivan and we all went to go check into our three respective hotels (don't ask) on Waikiki beach.

We all got back into the van and ran out to the Punchbowl National Cemetary, which gets its name from being the crater of an extinct volcano. I'll let Kim describe what it's all about, but it's a wonderful memorial to our fallen soldiers, including the bodies recovered from Pearl Harbor and the Challenger disaster.

After that, we ran down to the Waikiki strip and had drinks and dinner at Dukes. The mai tais were excellent as we watched the sun set next to the Royal Hawaiian (where mai tais where invented). We watched the charter catamarans head out for their daily sunset cruise. Kim chatted up the waiter for local things to do, and Grandpa filled up on the salad bar. Jon got a much needed cocktail while Haydon chased birds. All in all, a lovely dinner. Kim and I walked down the strand after dinner while everybody else jumped in the minivan. Our hotel room was really a one bedroom apartment, so we stocked up on staples at one of the two ABC stores on Jon's hotel lobbly (they're on every block) and went up to the room for a nightcap. Because of the two hour time difference (vs. PST) and getting up so early, we were tired early and fell asleep watching cable after trying to figure out the air conditioner.



Thurs - Day 2: We all hopped in the minivan and ran up to the North Shore. O'Neill was having their World Cup surfing competition near the banzai pipeline. We stopped where some guys were warming up on fifteen foot waves. Further up the road, we saw the real spectacle with the custom painted RV's and banners. The North Shore was having spectacular surf for the competition. Shelley wanted authentic Matsumoto's Shave Ice (not shaved) so we stopped where they invented that too. We also stopped at the Dole Plantation. I never knew you could make so much stuff out of pineapple.



Other than t-shirts, the only souvenir I really wanted was an authentic fish hook pendant. We saw a burned out city bus on the side of the road with a "Bone Carving" sign out. We turned back around just to check it out and met a really cool guy who inherited the bus from his dad, so he setup a carving shop/studio in it. He had really nice stuff that he made (cha-ching) and the cheap stuff he bought from China. I agonized over what to get and finally settled on an off white one (they get dark with your skin oil anyway). He customized the length, we shook his hand, and we were off to L&L BBQ for lunch.



We also stopped at the beautiful Byodo-In buddhist temple that was built without a single nail, where Haydon got to chase more birds and Grandpa and I talked about koi ponds. We drove back down to Honolulu/Waikiki and met Mike, the curator of the USS Missiori battleship museum, for dinner at Gordon Biersch. Yumm! I may actually get to like real beer. After that, we all went back to our respective rooms.



Fri - Day 3: We had to get up early because they only hand out so many free passes to the USS Arizona memorial in Pearl Harbor, and Grandpa wanted to be first in line. It was quite touching and all I kept doing was visualizing this beautiful island covered in smoke, fire, death, and destruction. There were many Japanese tourists there that some of the older generation didn't quite cotton to, but I felt it was a wonderful testament to the healing powers of 63 years of forgiveness and cooperation, on both sides.



We then headed over to the USS Missouri, where Grandpa is a rock star, and Jon is the prodigal son returned (Jon works on the USS Iowa, the Missouri's sistership). Grandpa likes to sit in the Officers' lounge and when he comes on the History channel documentary that they play constantly, he looks around to see if anyone recognizes him. He was in a lot of pictures that day. We stopped by the Pacific Aviation museum after eating lunch in their cantina.



We joined Jon on his balcony for a beautiful vantage point overlooking the bay and the Friday night beer can races at the Waikiki Yacht Club. I even saw a whale breach next to a sailboat illuminated by the last vermillion rays of thesetting sun. Kim and I ate pizza from Wolfgang Puck's across the street and Jon and I went to go pick up Mom.

To be continued...

Please check out the rest of our pics here.

Lat/Long:
21D 16' 24.18"N x 157D 49' 16.77"W

Hand Update

So, it's been more than a while since our last post. Sorry about that. I had my finger amputated on Nov 19th, we went down to San Luis Obispo for Thanksgiving, got home and packed for Hawaii, got my stitches removed the day before we left (Kim's birthday), and spent ten days in Hawaii. Whew!

It was really close timing with the surgery, because the stitches had to wait ten days afterwards for removal. The doctor released me to do anything I felt like, which is great since we planned on kayaking over to Captain Cook's monument. They gave me little plastic torture devices to strap on to get my fingers to bend again after being pinned for two months. The doctor said I might need another surgery to release my index finger's tendon, but I'm going to see if I can do it manually. Yes, that will hurt. The stump/nubbin/whatever has healed nicely. It's extremely sensitive on the scar, but I'm using the hand as much as possible and even wearing ong sleeeved jackets again. It's been difficult to get my boo-boo all the way down the sleeve with the scabs stickiing out.

Anyhoo, here's some pics. Snorkeling in Hawaii was great for sloughing off the scabs. My physical therapist was elated with the progress I made over the vacation, so to celebrate, she made me another set of torture devices. How's that for reinforcement?

My thumb was pretty well trashed by the saw blade, in fact there's a scar where the blade zipped across the pad. Half of the pad is numb scar tissue, and the other half is hypersensitive. I'm babying the thumbnail so it'll stay on as long as possible, but when wet, it gets a little flippy.

I gave Kim's mom the little middle finger (aka LMF) the other day, which made everybody laugh. I hope I'll be getting back into the shop and participating in sailing soon. I'm not looking forward to modifying my sailing gloves.

Thanks again for all the calls, e-mails, gifts, and well-wishes. It's really meant a lot to me. BTW, I'm typing this with two hands. I just keep stumbling over C, D, & E for some reason. Things are slowly, incrementally returning to normal. I even cut my meat witha knife and fork the other night!