We all woke up early because we were on Utah time...4 hours ahead. This was a constant our whole trip, but I loved it because everything is quiet, slow, and empty in the mornings. Thats when the locals are up surfing, diving, and snorkeling...they know the drill. Also, attractions on the North Shore close down pretty early...like 5 pm, and since the beaches are too dark for us to go soon after that it wasn't a problem that we were exhausted and wanted to be home watching the Food and DIY networks by 8.
We had a hard time finding breakfast, ended up stopping at the Kahuku Superette, which Miriam and I had read about having great spam sushi and poke bowls..... that didn't seem appetizing for breakfast so we grabbed some granola bars, Nagaraya cracker nuts and Sky Flakes from the Philippines, and then the kids spied Choco Tacos. Choco Tacos are a favorite memory from our first night in California last year. I had run to a gas station for a few things and brought them back. The kids declared them a "vacation must". So the kids had ice cream for breakfast.
Soon after we arrived in Laie, and there were way more breakfast options including a Foodland. So we stopped and bought these super cheap egg, rice, spam, and sausage plates. Soooo good, and just for the record the spam sushi is fantastic.
We were early for our appointments at Kualoa Ranch so we pulled over at a random beach along the road to explore and kill some time.
We were amazed to walk through the park onto this beautiful and completely empty beach!
We told the kids just to get their feet in, but of course that's a ridiculous request at a beach, when the weather and water are warm. This was my first lesson in Hawaii....wear you swimming suit every day, because the beach is right there all the time!
We saw these little purple things all over. Later in the week my niece got stung by a Portugese Man-of-War I wondered if these were babies, or pieces of them? I touched them, but only the balloon part so I didn't really think about them being dangerous.
I ran back to to Foodland to buy beach towels (another part of that lesson, always have beach towels in your car), and then we dried off on the rest of the way to the ranch.
We started off with a Catamaran Tour to get great views of Chinaman's Hat.
The captain and his fat weiner-dog were great to give us a bumpy splashy ride in the front of the boat, and we saw a sea turtle!
Chinaman's Hat.
I have never in person seen anything like it.
There are lots of TV shows and movies filmed at the ranch so I have seen these views on a screen but didn't know where it was. Our kids haven't seen any of the movies they mentioned, it will be fun to go watch Jurassic World with them to see if we recognize the scenery.
The boys had a little conversation to try out their Chinese with the Chinese guide. He is a BYU-H student, and turns out he might be moving to Bountiful in a few months! How random is that?
Then my birthday gift! A zip line tour in the Hawaiian jungle. We had about a 30 min. bus tour in the mountains where our driver pointed out all the remains of past movies...huge dinosaur heads, Godzilla's foot prints, as well as things from the past like pill boxes and other military structures left over from WWII.
7 zip lines through the ranch and 3 little hikes. It was exactly how I wanted to celebrate turning 40; seeing and experiencing something new. It was especially fun to be with Miriam and have a mother/daughter adventure together. She had earned her own money to go and I couldn't be more proud of her hard work and determination. She was the youngest and the smallest zip liner of our tour so sometimes she needed a good shove to make sure she made it all the way on the longest zips.
We got to zip side by side every time. Well...we always started side by side but then I usually smoked her to the landing. Weight helps in these types of activities.
We were gone for 3 hours, so Darin and the boys had ample time to explore the ranch. The boys had pony rides, they visited the "lazy pets" in the petting zoo, had (according to Darin) the best burgers ever (the ranch has their own cattle and they were famished), and did some souvenir shopping.
They laughed at just how lazy the "lazy pets" were, and enjoyed the little goat they saw in a tree, but the boys favorite part was watching two gecko's fight. Byron found about 28 geckos on the trip (including in our condo)...he kept a count.
By the time our zip line tour was finished the restaurant had closed, and the ranch was shutting down. Miriam and I had missed lunch and dinner, but didn't really notice because of the anticipation and fun until it was all over. Since the boys were still quite full from their lunch, but M and I were famished we decided to stop by Angels in Laie for ice cream. I had read about it in a tour book and it is right next to Foodland where we were stopping to get breakfast stuff and snacks for the condo. M and the boys had dole whip floats and I had a huge Acai bowl with ice cream instead of yogurt. So, so so good, and probably made better because we were in Hawaii, and hungry from fun.
Driving around from the North Shore side of the island was so much more enjoyable than the traffic of Honolulu/Waikiki. There are beautiful and interesting things to see all along the highway, and the fastest you go is 45 mph so we could all look around and exclaim at the view.
