Exploring one small corner of Oahu

That car thing. The concierge helped me find one. It seems that parking costs $30/night, and we weren’t going to use the car tomorrow anyway due to a tour to Pearl Harbor, so I decided to just go with a single day. We’ll figure out later what to do on Sunday. Even so, I found my stomach was tied in knots by the time I walked three blocks to pick it up. Strange car. Strange city. Big city. (“Gigantic town” as Simeon would say.) Not sure how Mom would handle navigation. And then the guy started checking for scratches and dents before I even got in the car. “Dear Lord, PLEASE let me not put any new scratches or dents in this strange car in this strange gigantic city today. And help me not to get lost.”

I had marked the location of the hotel in my phone before I left with a very tourist-looking map in my hand. Now I set my phone and followed the directions back to get Mom who was waiting patiently with her book. 

Lots of one-way streets in this gigantic town. Very glad for GPS on the phone. I just wished I had brought my phone charger from home and the little bracket thing that would let me attach it to an air vent so I could see it and not depend on Mom who is not used to smart phones.

Anyway, we were off by a little after 10. I set the phone for Diamond Head to get us going the right direction. Inside the crater was dry and brown with barracks kind of buildings, but we were very obviously inside a volcanic crater. Outside was a great view.

Mom decided she wanted to see the breakers to the right of the photo above, so we followed our noses around the base of Diamond Head to a place that overlooked the surfers. Mom sat on the wall and watched.

  

Here’s her view. Sorry the surfers are too tiny out there beyond the white to see in the photo. (Although you can see the wind-surfer's sail to the right.) The signs all said, “Danger. Don’t go beyond this sign.” There was no way through, but there were lots of people beyond the sign, carrying surf boards down a steep path to the sea.

I walked a little further down the road to an overlook where someone offered to take my picture.

 

We stopped at just about every overlook during the day.

Including Halona Blowhole, where water surging in below pushes out a hole like a spouting whale. Most places had handicapped parking and ramps. We took Mom's walker so she had a place to sit if the distance turned out to be too great.

 We didn’t try to go around the island. The two hour drive through the middle didn’t look nearly as scenic, and we wanted to stop wherever without feeling rushed. We passed up McDonalds and a really sleazy looking cafe and found lunch at L&L Hawaiian BBQ in Waimanalo, frequented by a local clientele including the guys working on the road. We split the seafood combo, which included nicely marinated ribs. Couldn’t eat all the rice.

The mountains are spectacular with their vertical ridges and cliffs. Their tops were shrouded in clouds and deep shade, making it hard to get a picture until the sun came out at Kualoa.

We turned back at Kahana Bay. It would have been lovely to continue, but I was starting to yawn. We came back over the mountains via Nu’uana Pali Lookout.

When we first got there, the road seemed to continue. I wanted to see where it went, so continued, expecting it to go on up the mountain. I figured we’d look at the look out on the way back. Except that straight ahead went down instead of up and took us onto the road we had been on, going the opposite direction. We ended up having to go all the way down the mountain before we could get turned around and go back up to the lookout. I swear there was no sign at the top to say Honolulu to the right, Kane’ohe to the left. There WERE wild chickens and roosters, descendants of escapees from local poultry farms during past hurricanes. The good part (for a Smith like me) is that by the time we got back up it was 5 PM and they no longer charge for parking after 5 PM.

Thanks to the phone GPS, I dropped Mom at the hotel and returned the car with no new scratches or dents. Gas mileage was incredible. I never saw a speed limit above 45. Mostly we went 25-35 all day with the curves. On my return walk, I stopped to check out a local grocery and ended up picking up sushi for supper. Mom had cup-of-soup instead.