Hawaii 1: From snow shoes to surfing

On Saturday, January 18, 2025, I went snow shoeing near Bear Lake, with my daughter Sienna and our friends Macy and Rob Lym.

It was a pretty funny contrast when two days later, Linette and I flew to Hawaii! We were accompanied by two of her sisters and their husbands, Lori & Jim Davis and Sandra & Dave Turner. Lori & Jim's son J.T. was kind enough to drop us at the airport, even after the flight was delayed by about 5 hours.

Flipping between the weather at our house and Hawaii was hilarious.

Our flight was delayed 6 hours, but then, just kidding, only 5. Fortunately, it was nonstop, so we didn't miss a connection, and we got there just fine. We picked up a Sienna minivan that we had rented via Turo.com, and it worked out great for us.

Our hotel rooms were pretty mediocre, but that was just for one night, and the really nice ones would have been really expensive.

The next morning I woke up early (due to the 3 hour time difference), and walked the two blocks to Waikiki Beach. The sun was just starting to turn the clouds pink.

Linette came out a few minutes later and went for a jog along the shore.

I had always wanted to try surfing, so I took the opportunity to sign up for some lessons at a booth right on the beach. I shared an instructor for an hour with a random gal from Washington.

I will now teach you everything I know about surfing. It won't take long.

You start out well back on the board, with your feet almost to the end.

Then when a wave is almost to you, you pop up on your knees, with your toes bent forward.

Then you bring one foot forward, with your knees between your arms.

Then you twist and stand up (probably taller than this). Keep your eyes on the horizon, since it is level and everything else around you is in commotion. (There's probably a gospel analogy in there somewhere).

Also, I was taught that when you fall off, you should fall mostly flat so that you stay close to the surface, in case there are rocks or coral below you.

After practicing the above move a dozen times or more, we grabbed some boards and headed out to see if this was fun or impossible.

After a couple times, I caught a wave! And I was sitting on top of the world!!

It was actually way more fun than I expected. I caught a few waves for a little while before falling off, and at least twice I rode a wave most of the way in to shore!

When the guy said, "Ok, last one!" I was happy to be able to catch that wave and ride it all the way in. It was exhausting work, so here I am slowly paddling my way back to shore.

Meanwhile, Sandra and Dave were having fun just exploring the area, since they had never been to Hawaii before.

They came across some people performing Hawaiian dances, so they sat and watched them for a while.

Lori and Jim hung out at the beach and watched me try to surf. 

Then we all packed up and drove over to Pearl Harbor. We were a few minutes late for our tickets for the shuttle to the USS Arizona memorial, so we watched the orientation movie first, which was great. Then we got on the next boat via the standby line.

 

The little dock leads to the memorial, which has been built over the middle of the sunken battleship.

Here you can see what the ship looked like originally, and where the memorial is placed over the wreckage.

One of the gun turrets still rises above the surface of the ship.

When the Japanese attacked on December 7, 1941, a lucky bomb ignited the ammunition magazine of the USS Arizona, causing a massive explosion. 1,177 crewmen were killed, out of the 1,512 crewmen on board at the time. Another two hundred men were on shore at the time of the attack.

The names of those who died in the attack are listed on the wall of the memorial.

44 survivors of the USS Arizona later had their cremated remains interred in the ship. The last one was in 2019. There are no remaining survivors of the USS Arizona at this point.

There is still a small stream of oil leaking from the USS Arizona. It has been leaking since the attack on Pearl Harbor, and nobody knows how long it will continue. I could actually smell the oil a little as I looked over the edge.

Across the way from the USS Arizona is the USS Missouri, which was the last operating U.S. battleship. It was built in 1944, and was last used in the Gulf War in 1991, by which time it had been refitted with missiles in addition to its sixteen-inch guns. It was decommissioned in 1992 and now serves as a museum.

Here's our group with the USS Missouri and the USS Arizona memorial in the background.

We walked through the museum there, and read just a fraction of the information provided there. Here is a model of a Japanese aircraft carrier. (World War II was when the world learned that battleships were no match for air power, which is why the U.S. does not have battleships now).

Here is a model of what the USS Arizona looks like now, with the memorial across the top.

We drove to one restaurant that got good reviews and found the address in a warehouse in an industrial district, with no apparent restaurant. Then we took the wrong turn onto a highway that had no exits for a long time. But we finally made it to a restaurant (apparently in a former gas station) called "Da Seafood Cartel." It was mostly a taco place, and was pretty tasty, even if the ambiance was a bit rough.

After taking a wrong turn--again!--onto the same highway with no exits, we eventually made our way to the Nu'uanu Pali Lookout, which was beautiful!!

Near the parking lot were a couple of trees with interesting twisted roots.

Finally we drove up to our AirBnB, which was on the northeast coast about 10 minutes south of Laie.

The place was on the busy road, so we could hear some traffic, but it was also right across the street from the ocean, so the view was beautiful (especially if you ignored the power lines).

That evening, I went for a walk along the shore around sunset, and was rewarded with some beautiful clouds. I came across a church building of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and it looked great silhouetted against the sunset colors.

I poked my head into the church for long enough to see that they were doing a jazz dance activity ("rock, step, triple-step, triple-step...").

Our AirBnB had some funky cube lights in the kitchen that I really liked. (I also liked the shadows on the ceiling).

Linette and I drove a few minutes up the road to get some groceries for breakfast. We found that things are expensive in Hawaii. (Note that this is a sale price).

We had fun playing "Ripple" that night.

The next morning, I woke up at about 5 a.m., due to the time change (it was 8 a.m. back in Utah). So I went for a walk to the south from our AirBnB, towards the sunrise that was scheduled for 45 minutes later.

Soon the sky was starting to put on quite a show!

The light (and the way my iPhone captured it) kept changing as the sunrise progressed.

Soon I arrived at Hale Aha Beach, about a half a mile south of our place.

Linette went for a jog along the beach.

This picture has a sunrise and a palm tree, along with a mailbox, indicating that yes, someone really does have this view out their back window every morning.

So pretty!

This is the view from the window of our AirBnB.

Here's a short video showing what the view was like from some houses along the beach.

The scene was mesmerizing.

As I was taking pictures, this cute gal came jogging up the beach and gave me a hug.

This also happened to be Linette's birthday!

That was the best sunrise we got all week, so I hope you don't mind that I included so many pictures of it.

With that, we headed back to the house.

We had gotten some fresh pineapple at a stand on the side of the road the day before, so that became part of our breakfast.

As I sat in the living room with Sandra and Lori, Sandra said, "We didn't have room in our luggage, so we didn't bring Linette a birthday present."

I leaned forward conspiratorially, paused, and whispered, "I got her..." They leaned in. Then I said, "...a trip to Hawaii!" That seemed pretty obvious in retrospect, so they all laughed.

That morning we all went and did sealings at the La'ie Hawaii Temple. It was dedicated in 1919, so it is one of the first temples.

By the time we came out of the temple, it was pretty cloudy, but it was still such a pretty setting.

We walked over to the visitor's center, and a couple of sister missionaries talked to us for a minute. I saw from their flags that they were both from Korea, so I spoke to them in Korean and they were so surprised!

We had a nice tour of the visitor's center by another pair of sister missionaries, and watched a movie about La'ie's history and the development of the Polynesian Cultural Center. (More on that later).

When we went outside, Lori recognized Sister Rainsdon, who is the cousin of Lori, Sandra and Linette's mom JoBeth. Elder and Sister Rainsdon were on a mission that includes the Polynesian Cultural Center, in charge of housing for the missionaries. They said it was wonderful to serve in paradise.

It was pouring rain by that time, so we enjoyed hanging out under the awning while visiting with them.

After that, we went to check out the famous food trucks just north of there. I ended up going to Seven Brothers Burgers, and got an amazing "paniolo" burger, which had onion rings, bacon and pineapple on it. So good!

Lori and Jim finished their meal off with a drink served in a pineapple.

I discovered ice cream nearby, so I had to give it a try.

We didn't see quite as many chickens on Oahu as we did on Kauai a few years ago, but they were still around.

Wednesday was our day to explore the north shore. Someone said that Shark's Cove was a great place to snorkel. However, the wind and waves were such that day that the lifeguards said we shouldn't swim there.

Occasionally a big wave breaks over the rocks and shoves people into the jagged lava. Apparently some people had already gotten hurt that day.

So then we drove down to Waimea Beach. The waves there were brutal, so we got in up to our thighs and then just stood back and watched the body surfers (who had fins and experience) as they got flung around by the waves.

This 2-minute video gives an indication of how hard the waves were hitting. It also includes a brief view of a surfer taking on one of the waves.

Our AirBnB and rental van both came with some chairs we could use, so that was handy.

Even though it wasn't quite what we were planning, it was kind of nice to just hang out at the beach for a while.

It was interesting seeing the water churn over by the rocks.

Sandra got a picture of a Hawaiian monk seal on the beach (I didn't know it was there until I saw her pictures later).

We also saw a peacock strutting by.

I walked across the bridge and across the street to the entrance to Waimea Valley.

It was closing, and costs $25 to go in anyway, so I just took a peek at an area before the gate.

I saw a couple of pretty cool birds as I walked through there. This is apparently a red-crested cardinal.

And this is apparently a Saffron finch.

We all loaded up and drove up to a lookout. 

Up there was a sacred site called Pu'u o Mahuka (Hill of Escape) Heiau (Hawaiian temple). This was a major temple 250 years ago, but eventually the Hawaiian religion was abolished by King Kamehameha in 1819.

My brother Joe had recommended a restaurant near there called "Haieiwa Joe's." It was excellent, and Linette was so happy to eat there for her birthday dinner. When the waiter saw us shoo a fly, he brought a little spinny thing that does that for you!

They even brought Linette a candle on her dessert.

We didn't get much of a  sunset that night, due to the low clouds. But it was still pretty outside.

The weather was a little bit of a bummer that day, since it didn't allow us to try out snorkeling, but we made up for that later in the trip, so it all turned out well.

In the next episode, we spend a beautiful day at the Polynesian Cultural Center.