Hawaii

This trip to Hawaii would include many of the same places I had gone before, Maui, Big Island of Hawaii, and Kauai. Each year, I had always wanted to visit Pearl Harbor, but since I always traveled alone, I had never made the trip. This year, not only was I going to get to share a beautiful spot like Hawaii with Jack, but we were going to be going in a couple days early and adding Pearl Harbor. Pearl Harbor was definitely the best part of the trip. Jack and I really enjoyed Pearl Harbor. From our hotel, we were able to catch a bus right out front and go straight to Pearl Harbor. We had planned to spend one full day exploring. If we were going to do it again, we would definitely plan 2 days. The place was amazing and has so much to see that you could easily fill 2 days. We decided to try to see and do everything we could in one day. We started off as soon as they opened that morning. Going out to see the Arizona Memorial is free, but you have to get tickets early because the tours out fill up quickly. We also purchased tickets to see the USS Missouri, Pacific Aviation Museum, and the USS Bowfin and museum. Prior to our tour to the Arizona Memorial, we explored the area. It started pouring down rain (and I mean buckets at a time). We were soaked before we could get under cover. Luckily, it didn't rain too long. Around 9:00, we lined up for our tour (and continued to dry out). After the Arizona Memorial, we headed for the USS Missouri. This ship was enormous! It took several hours to go through the tour parts of the ship. They offered another tour of "off limit' sections, which would have included some of the gun areas. We wanted to go on that tour, but just didn't have the time. After touring as much of the USS Missouri as we could, we stopped for a quick hot dog (the only option available, right outside the ship). From there, we headed to the Pacific Aviation Museum. Here, we saw lots of planes and Hanger 79, which still has the original glass, riddled with bullet holes. After touring the museum and the Hangars, we headed back over to the main area of Pearl Harbor to tour the USS Bowfin. This was the first submarine I had ever been on and it was extremely tight quarters. I couldn't imagine 88 sailors in that small area. After touring the submarine, we went through the museum. By this time it was close to closing time and we headed back to the hotel. Once back at the hotel, we walked back down to the little hamburger place we found and had dinner. The next morning, we had a few hours before we needed to be at the airport, so we headed back to Pearl Harbor. We walked around and checked out the exhibit area and just enjoyed the beautiful sunshine. Then we were off to the airport and on to Maui to meet the photo tour. The weather continued to be a factor throughout the trip. A lot of our sunrise/sunsets didn't work out due to clouds cover but luckily, Jack and I are also bird photographers....and thanks to Marti Gaulrapp, we had a little bird refuge to take lots of bird photos, while on Maui. Maui is also the place for whale watching during this time of year. After Maui, we traveled to the Big Island of Hawaii, where things still didn't go smoothly, the lava wasn't where we could get to it...we ended up photographing the NeNe. Then on to Kauai, the garden island, where we photographed lots of Albatross, Frigatebirds, and Red-Footed Booby birds. Our final leg of the tour was back to Maui, where we went on another whale watch tour, then back to the airport for our trip home. Although everything wasn't perfect on the trip, I'm still glad I got to share such a beautiful place with Jack.