July 2022 – SarahRuthSeeks

Brian’s Birthday Weekend

July 28, 2022 2 Comments

Brian was supposed to leave “next week” for the last six weeks… so he wasn’t going to be home for his birthday. I had anticipated meeting a friend at the Haleiwa arts festival on his birthday and I really wanted to go… so I convinced him to come along. The festival was huge and eventually I had to feed him shave ice to stave off grumpiness, but we made it!

I didn’t buy anything, still haven’t found anything that fits what I really want. I also didn’t take many pictures, but finally captured a peacock crossing the road and that’s really prime North Shore Hawaii right there.

The next day, we did manage a re-do dinner at Gaslamp (our first was nixed because Brian got COVID on our anniversary). Gaslamp is a “speakeasy” hidden in the back of a town pub. They text you a passcode before going in, it was relatively long so I read the text to the hostess, ha. The cocktails were AH-MAZING and so was my steak.

Sorry, I can’t easily figure out how to rotate this.

After an appetizer, two drinks a piece, meals, and dessert our bill came out to $400!! But for a combo anniversary/birthday dinner it was worth it. I begged Brian to allow me to do it while he’s gone (not that he has much of a say in the matter but it’s nice to make him think so. JKJK!) Truly we indulged and could’ve cut costs significantly.

This experience definitely isn’t for everyone, but I LOVED it.

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Ka’au Crater Hike

July 28, 2022 No Comments

This is a hike with no victory story at the end, no grand climax, no “I pushed through and conquered”. It’s a very, very, difficult hike and I knew that going in, but I didn’t realize HOW taxing it would be. I’m going to open with a picture of the one, of many, technical challenges we faced along the way. We had to get through this jungle gym of a fallen tree.

This hike, when accomplished, has it all – waterfalls, views, and a hidden volcanic crater – by journeying in a loop. However, it’s also very difficult, and my goal this time was just to do an out and back to the first waterfall. Well, we got about 2.5 miles in, and I had tripped over myself more times than I could count (this is irregular for me, it was a combo of my defective spikes and PMSing). I didn’t want to keep chancing it. It felt like every 10ft there was some technical part, and we finally got to a spot where there was very little actual path, and I couldn’t do one more thing. I wish I took a picture, but essentially we follow this pipe up, and at one point that path that is well defined here, essentially narrows to next to nothing.

Some day I’ll go the opposite direction and hope I make it to the crater – I am ok with missing out on a couple waterfalls, but I really want to see the hidden crater.

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Maunawili Falls via Pali Highway Hairpin Lookout

July 28, 2022 No Comments

Maunawili Falls is a waterfall that is so popular among tourists, one hiking access route was closed shortly after we arrived in Hawaii in order for trail restoration to occur. This leaves a couple other, much longer, options to get to the waterfall- the one we took was a 6.5 mile total hike. A couple friends had been eager to go on it, so I asked them to choose a date so we could plan to go together with KOSC. Well, they both ended up needing to bail due to life circumstances, and in fact only 3/14 registrants ended up committing. It’s a pretty typical problem with my hikes. Nonetheless, we trekked and had a great time!

The parking for it is on the “hairpin” turn on Pali highway- it is a really small parking lot and there were threats of both tickets and broken glass. When we arrived, there was a ton of broken glass on the ground. Thankfully, even though we were out on the hike for four hours, my car was safe and sound.

The trail starts pretty ominously with this non descript warning… these signs are around Hawaii due to unexploded bombs I believe. Strange they wouldn’t take care of it but here we are.

Essentially you start with hiking the inside of this mountain range and have some amazing peak a boo views in the beginning. Eventually, we take a left and head down into this lower forested area to get to the waterfall…about 2.75 miles in.

The trail is a mix of about everything, from board walk to rock to streams to lengthy mud puddles. So many natural flowers along the way.

I took a chance on a puddle and unfortunately I sunk right in. Some are pretty dense and you stay on top.

This is where we took a left to get to the falls.

We made our way down some stairs cautiously and found the stream, we’re getting close!

Finally, the falls!

The path was blocked by a fallen tree, so we definitely needed to walk up the stream. This part was tricky, and one of my boots ended up filled with water. Thankfully Kaylynn was there to push us all the way because I had about had it with the stream and slippery rocks. I would DEFINITELY take my water shoes next time and changed quickly. Would’ve made a world of difference for this last section.

Now we turn around and climb our way back out. It was helpful to have beautiful views along the way.

Thankful for these ladies to have joined me. I would do this hike again if I gave it some time to dry out. I will also confess that this was a stressful day – Brian left the morning of this hike. His boat was departing later that afternoon and I wanted to go home, shower, and make it to pearl to see. So I was eager to go quickly. I think I’d like to go back under better conditions, with better shoes, and at a slower pace.

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RIMPAC 2022

July 25, 2022 2 Comments

RIMPAC is a huge military exercise that happens mostly out of Pearl Harbor but also San Diego. There are hundreds (exaggeration, maybe) of boats involved (at least one would think that many for the amount of complaining I heard about base traffic). On one Saturday they open up some boats for tours. I let Brian pick, begrudgingly, and he wanted to start with the Abraham Lincoln, and aircraft carrier. We waited about a half hour to get in and arrived around 8:15am, they opened at 8.

The most critical piece of equipment available on this boat is a plastic(?) replica of the Lincoln Monument statue of Abe.

I think Brian’s submarine could fit into the hangar bay (this is only half).

Speaking of Top Gun… Oh wait, I didn’t mention it, because it speaks for itself.

We did get out to the top for the flight deck!

Brian was particularly fond of these call signs… this one was “Balls”. Oh pilot humor.

Then Brian wanted to go onto the Zumwalt destroyer. This has been called “a failed ship concept“. Incredibly expensive (more than a submarine) and pretty incredibly useless. To give you a taste, it’s currently a destroyer with no guns. However, the sailors on board gave us a tour with pride, and I think it had(s) a lot of promise. We were able to see the control room and it essentially looks like where they launch spaceships at the Houston Space Center. Despite its size, on a radar it only shows up looking like a fishing trawler. We waited for a little over an hour to get in here.

Our final stop was a Philippine boat. My one request for the day was to tour a foreign boat, because how often do you get that chance!. They fed us! But the tour wasn’t that great… and we were wiped so this was our last stop. It looks quite similar to a US boat.

I’m glad we did it! It made for an adventurous morning and we won’t likely experience it again. To give you an idea of just how many boats were in port, the destroyers are double docked!

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Mokoli’i Paddle Boarding and Hike

July 25, 2022 1 Comment

I am approximately a month behind in blogging… I’ve been in a funk but I think I am on the other side!

Brian, Jess, Raquel, and I took an adventure to Kualoa beach park to paddle to this tiny island called Mokoil’i! To tourists it’s more commonly known as Chinaman’s hat. It’s sits about a 15 min paddle board ride away from the shore. That’s Brian in this pic! Believe it or not I was on my paddle board cautiously with my phone out.

The views of Oahu from the island are simply stunning. This is only my phone camera because I didn’t want to risk it… I think I could bring it out in a waterproof bag though.

We started hiking up it and essentially got to this cliff face. I was too uncomfortable but the others carried on without me.

I sat on a little ledge. They made it to the top and got stunning 360 views… oh well. Brian said there was one stretch that pushed his comfort zone so… I am glad I stopped but it’s always a slight disappointment.

I really wanted a pic with two rando palm trees that successfully planted themselves on the island!

Originally, we were all going to paddle or kayak out there. I had heard that you should go during low tide… but I didn’t put much thought into why and I think it’s because most people try to walk the reef out (bad bad!!). It turns out it is actually not the best because it’s too low for something like a kayak. So Jess and Raquel swam out. Anyway, by the time we came back in it was deep enough to try the kayak out. Jess bought it and hadn’t used it yet! So we went for a quick test run beyond that barrier there.

It was a cool adventure- I’m not sure I’d do it again, but maybe! I am disappointed I didn’t get up to the top. 🙁