I told Abby and Daddy that this would be a long day...and it was. We went to the corner diner for breakfast and then headed towards Haleiwa. We stopped for several photo ops and then we came to the Dole Plantation. Unplanned stops are great when you do not have time restraints. We strolled around, tasted some pineapple and got on our way.
When we got to Haleiwa, we parked and walked around town. Went into McDonald's for a drink and continued to look around. Next stop...North Shore! Once we came to the water, I knew it was going to be a beautiful day to be at the beach. Not knowing where to stop, I knew once we saw lots of cars, that it would be the perfect place. We lucked on to a great parking spot on the side of the road and made the trek down to the water. After walking around a bit, a lady asked if Abby and I wanted her to take our picture. Of course, we did and then she asked if we had seen the turtles. Um, no, we had not. There was a female Green Sea Turtle sun bathing on the beach just beyond some rocks. It was roped off so people did not get too close to her. It was so cool! The lady told us that it was a popular feeding area for the turtles and we saw more of them in the water swimming among the rocks.
We stayed there about an hour and then headed to Sunrise Beach. The surf was huge...10-15' according to a local surfer. One guy walked up from the beach with his surfboard snapped in half! The local guy said it was the fifth broken surfboard he had seen that day!
After filling our eyes with the beauty of the North Shore and our ears with the sound of waves, we continued towards the east side of the island. We saw a small farmer's market on the side of the road and stopped to see what they had to sell. We bought some bananas (in case you didn't know, the smaller the banana, the better the flavor), some banana bread, fresh pineapple and some fried bananas...they were wrapped in eggroll wrappers and deep fried. At first I was leery that fried bananas could taste good, but, OMG...they were divine! (don't let the photo fool you...)
Our next stop was to see the Chinaman's Hat Island. I knew it was in the area, but not sure of the exact location. I had Abby call Carolyn to ask her and from that moment on, Carolyn was a great source of Everything Hawaii! I had been to Hawaii 5 other times...but, Carolyn had lived there, so she KNEW! We found a park that was a good location to see the Chinaman's Hat, so we stopped and took some really good photos.
Another unplanned stop was at a macadamia nut farm. Here is a photo of an old cracking machine (?), Daddy cracking some on a stump and a wooden carving at the entrance.
Finally back at the hotel, we rested up and then walked over to the Hawaiian Hilton. On our way over there, we saw some sort of demonstration going on in front of the HH, but did not pay much attention to it. I don't know why we basically ignored it looking back...I guess we were just tired from a long day(?). We found an outside bar area with comfy chairs. We ordered drinks and relaxed. (When Jim and Daddy and I went to Alaska last year, I wanted to get a picture of an Eskimo with Daddy. On our way to Denali, we stopped at a local restaurant and our waitress was indeed just the Eskimo I'd been looking for. I asked her if I could take her picture with Daddy and she of course obliged. So, it made sense while we were in Hawaii that I had to get his picture with a Hawaiian native). Abby actually took the picture of them while I was roaming around. Daddy didn't look like he minded having his picture taken with her, either! Daddy had been hungry for a hot dog. We found a place in the HH that served them, so that is what we had for supper. The hot dog place was right by the pool. I told Abby and Daddy about "crashing" a pool in Maui with Carolyn and Hailey and we got kicked out. Abby and I decided to "crash" the pool at the HH. It was night time and there was no one in the pool. Probably because it was COLD! Sometimes you just gotta live on the edge...haha! We jumped in the pool and Daddy was laughing at us. The water really was cold!!! We quickly got out and dried off and felt proud! I might just try to crash more hotel pools! We headed back to the hotel. There was a washer and dryer in the hotel and we wanted to go to Maui the next morning with clean clothes.
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