Honestly not much more to say. Hard to pick a favorite here.
San Clemente Sunset
San Onofre
Brian’s mom and I went to visit San Onofre which is a hugely popular surfing spot. Unfortunately there weren’t many surfers… but I still enjoyed walking down a new part of the coast. There’s a nuclear power plant that’s being removed, and we walked right up against it to view the coastline further down(seen above).
Saw this iconic VW van.
There’s one surfer!
It costs something like $10 to park for the day. Or you can buy a pass. There’s plenty of parking, but apparently there’s a forever wait in the summer time and cars line up starting at 4:30am.
San Clemente Highlights
My in-laws live about ten minutes from the San Clemente beach, so it’s easy to get out the door and explore the area. T-Street beach is a pretty popular spot for surfing and where Brian and I had our lesson a couple years ago.
There’s a really nice walking path along the beach that stretches at least two miles. Some of the entries are a steep walk down from the main residential area. You can see there are houses precariously close to the edge of the cliffs next to the beach.
Eventually you get past the pier and on this boardwalk which was damaged from some landslides for the longest time, this was only my second time able to walk on it since I first visited in 2018.
I was able to snap some pictures of surfers from the pier.
And observed some Halloween spirit on my walk inland.
It is definitely cooler here than in Hawaii! And I’m often found in my sweater. Still not quite as cold as the Northeast.
Palomar Mountain Hike
Since San Diego I’ve transitioned up to San Clemente to hang out with family. On Saturday we ventured to Palomar Mountain for a quick hike and lunch to celebrate my sister in law’s birthday. There is a fire tower on top that we were able to visit and see the inside of. Visibility was high and you could see the San Diego skyline. (Granted it was tiny)
It was great morning for fresh air and great views! And we did end up spotting a fire! See the smoke?
We ended up at Jilberto’s. I had a taco and it was delicious.
Later we went out for Italian at Casanova’s. I had lobster ravioli.
Surrey rental and boat cruise
Brian and I took it pretty easy on Sunday. I am terrible at time change and we both want to take it easy, so we did a leisurely surrey cruise around the mission bay bike path.
Then later we took a boat cruise around the bay on the Bahia Belle.
This is the hotel and the cabanas are relaxing to lay in.
It’s no Lanikai sunrise but the sunset was pretty beautiful.
Brian and I both had to work on Monday, so less fun and probably not a lot of updates coming this week. But it has been really nice to see him!! I even got to tour his submarine!
Makapu’u Lighthouse and Ho’omaluhia Redeux and Malasadas
Malasadas are Portuguese donuts, I’ve posted them before talking about visiting Leonard’s. It’s a really popular thing here for some reason, so I bought some for Erin to try as a post hike snack. This time we tried Agnes’ food truck in Kailua. These are traditional, no fillings like Leonard’s has. I don’t have pictures of them, but they tasted ok. I think I preferred filled ones.
We made our way up Makapu’u Lighthouse trail starting at 8:45am. There was plenty of parking. Some of these pictures should look familiar. That’s Diamond Head.
The lighthouse.
Us at the top.
View missing beautiful ladies.
I wish I had my polarizing lens for these… next time! It would reduce the glare
This hike is the best.
We were done by 10am and it was so hot I wasn’t really hungry yet, so we drove to Hoʻomaluhia Botanical Garden to eat at the pinic tables surrounded by pretty mountains. (OK, we’re always surrounded by pretty mountains, but these are a lot closer). As I had been there before and we didn’t want to spend too long there, I took her to the highlights.
Aloha from… San Diego??
Brian’s in port! His boat pulled in to San Diego for a port call. I knew this was happening, but it’s something I have to keep relatively on the down low. I was even given the wrong date anyway, but it all worked out.
I booked the flight from Honolulu to San Diego my friend who was visiting was taking, thinking Brian was getting in the next day. Instead, I get a call from him while I’m at the airport that goes something like this:
Him: I can’t wait to see you! It’s going to be a little while before I get to.
Me in my head: Yeah, like 24hrs or so
Me out loud: That’s ok, I’ll be glad to relax after a busy week!
Him: Where are you?
Me: At the airport
Him: In San Diego?
Me: No, Honolulu.
Him: Oh…
Me: Where are you?
Him: On the pier in San Diego.
Me: WHAT??
And that’s how it ended up that he met me at the airport instead of me meeting him at the pier. I had already made plans with our mutual friend to have her pick me up and go to In-N-Out, because neither of our husbands like it… but anyway Brian tagged along on our date and it all worked out.
The next day Brian’s parents came and brought us to lunch. I don’t have many pictures because I have honestly become a little tired of carrying my big camera around and forgot to snap an iPhone photo. But later we ran some errands with them and then took the rest of the day to explore a bit. We’re in a hotel on Mission Bay and very close to Mission Beach. He is in port for a little while, so I will get to see him almost every day for a little bit.
Manoa Chocolate Factory Tour
Manoa Chocolate Factory tour was way less a tour than it was a chocolate tasting. For $15, we were able to taste something like 15 chocolate bars. This was heaven.
She did start out by educating us on how cacao is grown, harvested, and processed to make chocolate. We were able to try the seed of the cacao pod. It was pulpy, kinda like a pomegranate seed, and inside was the “nut” that would make the chocolate. Then we also tasted the roasted “nut” that would be considered 100% dark chocolate. We could also see some of the processing through windows. They make something like 3,000 bars a day, and manually wrap them all. The tasting associates wrap when the store is quiet!
Finally we got to do our tasting.
There isn’t enough Hawaiian grown cacao to source all of their chocolate, but they have bars that are specifically only Hawaiian grown. It is amazing the difference between the flavors of the chocolate grown in Oahu vs. Maui. They don’t do anything differently in growing them, like they don’t feed the soil. It’s just how the nutrients in the ground end up making the cacao taste.
I ended up buying a few bars of chocolate to take on a trip to visit Brian’s parents in San Diego. I also learned they do subscriptions, and so if anyone is looking to get me a Christmas gift this would be it. Although please coordinate so I don’t get three boxes of subscription chocolate.
The fruit infused ones were my favorite (specifically Lilikoi, Mango, and coconut) along with the 70% Hawaiian Chocolate and Mililani. They have a rum infused one that I thought I’d like more, but I don’t. There’s some partnership with Ko’olau distillery where they use the rum for something? or sell that rum? Not a lot of online evidence.
Anyway, tour was cool, but you could easily skip it and go in just for the tasting.
Dangerous for this to be located in Kailua, for sure!
Halona Blow Hole
After Haunama Bay we made a quick stop to see the Hālona Blowhole in action. At first it only spit a few times, and then it really blew!
Here’s the view looking left.
And the view looking right.
I didn’t get great pictures the first time, so here’s pictures from The Hibachi which we went to once we made our way home. (second time coming here, third stop this trip for poke. Erin tried Foodland).
I get half Thai Chili half spicy tobiko. I love them both equally. I love The Hibachi better than Foodland. You can get smaller portions. However, the hours are very limited, so if I did it for dinner with Brian I’d have to go pick it up before he got home.
Haunama Bay Snorkeling
Haunama Bay is a state park and Nature Reserve. It is THE most popular Hawaiian tourist attraction (based on no polls but my rather my personal opinion). It’s been on my bucket list, but it’s logistically difficult to achieve, even for a local. You have to reserve tickets, which become available two days in advance. They only allow 1000 guests per day and are only open Wed to Sun. The parking lot is small and fills up quickly and costs $1 for military/local or $3 for tourists. The actual park is free for Military/local or $25 for tourists.
My friend and I hopped online a little before 7am, her on her phone and me on the computer. I had heard the trick was to aim for an off time, like 11:10am or 12:10am, so we tried those. I ended up getting us two tickets at 12:10AM. If you are military/local, you can go in any day without a reservation between 7a-8a.
The parking lot is small, so Erin and I headed over early to make sure we had time to hover for parking. We didn’t have to, and instead enjoyed walking the park a bit and enjoying the beauty of it as a whole.
Anyway, on to the fun part. After watching a 20 minute video putting the fear of God in you that you might be swept out by riptides and that you need to know how to swim, you make your way down a long pretty steep driveway to the bay. The fish were HUGE and there was a wide variety, so I saw a few I hadn’t seen in Lanikai. I could not believe how big they were, and then how close they’d get to us! The bottom left I didn’t capture fully because he was actually too close!
Erin realized she had heard the name of the Hawaiian State fish somewhere before (pictured top right, the Humuhumunukunukuapua’a fish) and it turns out it’s a song in High School Musical 2. As a going away present, she bought me a small fish identifier card. I don’t have it with me, but when I get back maybe I’ll label the fish above.
We had an awesome time.
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It was definitely murky because we’re getting into rougher water season and it was high tide. So I guess in the future I’d like to pick a calmer day, but it’s hard to be choosy with the logistics as they are. Here are a few miscellaneous pics from the adventure.
I think this next one puts into scale just how much reef there was to explore.
Afterward, I was evaluating the pros and cons of Lanikai vs. Haunama snorkeling. I definitely would go back to Haunama, especially with Brian, but I have to say that for the logistics as easy as they are in Lanikai, we have a great advantage. However, it is highly photogenic, especially with two beautiful ladies.
