Bottleheads is a wine tasting venue with small plates available. They graciously hosted a huge crowd of us from KOSC. We sampled five wines including the first “palate cleanser”. It pretty much affirmed my already known taste which is I prefer really sweet wines. I really can’t remember the wine that I loved… will have to come back and edit once I know. But anyway, it was a fun night out with the crew!
Diana, my MOH, came and visited me for a week! We had a lot of fun adventures, I’ve already posted about two separately (Hula and Kuliouou hike). Most everything else I’ve already done but I wanted to document the trip anyway. She worked during the day during the week, so we stuck to afternoon adventures.
I picked her up from the airport late Sunday and of course had to get her a lei!
Monday we did my fave intro-to-Hawaii hike, Makapu’u
Tuesday we went for a walk and got shave ice… no photo evidence that I have.
Wednesday we did Diamond Head and Manoa Falls. Manoa falls was a trickle (it’s been very dry here!) compared to when I did it with Jess.
Thursday we snorkeled in Lanikai
Friday we made our way up and around the North Shore (Dole plantation train ride and Dole Whip, the coffee “farm”, Laniakea the turtle beach etc). I tried the famous “sweet lady” dessert, which is like a Hawaiian version of apple pie. Warm taro dessert with haupia (coconut) ice cream. Along the way, we took a detour and stopped a Laie point. It’s so beautiful, a new hidden gem for me.
Saturday we hike Kuli’ou’ou and got Leonard’s malasadas after with a quick pit stop at the Halona blow hole, then got pedicures and headed to Waikiki for Hula. Sunday we walked around Pearl and I dropped her off at the airpot.
It was great to have her keep me company-Brian was away while she was here. I might be at the point where I tell my visitors to just take my car and go do things… but it was good for me to get out and about!
I feel like I’m just now starting to get into the lesser visited places in Hawaii. Lesser traveled hikes, lesser known museums. I decided to organize a visit to Queen Emma’s Summer Palace with KOSC last weekend. What better time to visit than the summer!
It was modeled after a New England style home and it felt familiar. There were all of six rooms maybe? The history is confusing to me, but Queen Emma wasn’t actually a reigning Queen, just like a pretend one I guess. She lost both her husband and her only son. This was one of 7 houses she spent her time at. To avoid feeling lonely, she moved her bedroom into the dining room so she could here the chatter of people visiting more easily.
The trip to Europe was an 8 month boat ride. This beautiful hutch was made from Hawaiian Koa wood, shipped to Germany, then shipped back in three pieces. Amazing!
Those big feather duster looking things are important royalty items, like staffs I believe. They are made out of real feather.
She was really great friends with Queen Victoria (via snail mail) and Queen Victoria sent her a watch with a picture of her and a locket of her hair. Apparently that was the thing to do in those days. Hawaiian history confuses me but I am trying! I also remember she was given away at birth as a present to a couple who couldn’t have children, this was called Hanai. She founded Queens Medical Center, the first hospital on Hawaii. You can read more of her history here.
Kuliouou (pronounced Coolee oh oh) ridge hike starts on the Honolulu side of the island toward diamondhead and hikes 1600ft up a ridge. It’s definitely an intense hike and as usual I was a bit nervous about it. All in all, taking my time I did great. The way up starts with switch backs so that helps. There weren’t any technical spots really. We started at 7am and parked in the neighborhood, that turned out fine.
You can see Diamondhead poking out behind me on my way up.
There are a lot more stairs than I expected- still no where near as bad as Hawaii Loa.
Thankfully the conditions were dry. Although, I did have the thought of forest fires in the back of my head (Hawaii can never really win… either its wet and wicked slippery but there’s waterfalls and no fire threat, or it’s dry and hot and you are worried there might be a fire).
Makiki Valley Loop Trail is in the middle of Tantalus, a protected forested area of Oahu. After all the hiking I’ve been doing, I thought this would be a walk in the park, but it was actually deceptively a bit harder. I didn’t realize it was rated moderate, it was 1000 ft gain but I didn’t look at the map hard enough to realize it’s all in the first mile or so, phew! This is the maze of roots we navigated working our way up. There were beautiful views of the valley on both sides.
The two other spouses who went happened to be sub spouses, it was great bonding!
There’s a secret extension to a waterfall and I was happy we found it and came across it. It was so beautiful.
It ended up taking us a little over two hours with time built in just to enjoy the moment, 4 miles, and 946ft elevation gain. There was a decently big parking lot, maybe enough for 25 cars, but it’s a really popular area and I think it was filled by the time we left. I’m glad we got there early. Still suffering from a low-ish turnout on hikes. But it’s better than the zero I had over the winter!
My family of golfing fanatics will be impressed that I played in a golf tournament. It was my first time ever playing 18 holes and it was LONG and HOT.
It was for the Captain’s cup on Marine Corps base at the beautiful course. We had to get a picture on the ocean facing hole. This is also where I lost my first ball, sadly.
We think some guy yelled at us for cheering too loudly. Whoops.
We came in last, which at least means we won golf lessons. Still debating about buying myself a set of clubs. We’re running out of outdoor hobby storage. I was exhausted after this… even with using a cart! But I rallied and went and took an hour of tennis lessons, which I’ve been doing as well. I’m still exhausted, this was two days ago.
The other ladies I played with were awesome and very encouraging and fun. I got a wicked tan line from that day, and applied sunscreen twice.
I love water parks. Typhoon Lagoon was one of my favorite things to do going to Disney. Oahu has a Wet ‘n Wild which is not something I’d convince Brian to go to, but I did find a milspouse family (Deana) to adopt me for the day.
The park, much like anywhere these days, is suffering from a huge lack of staff. They only have half the rides open at a time, and you kinda have to guess which one… and then it makes for really long lines at the ones that are open.
Despite all this, we had a good day getting wet and having fun down the rides we could get on!
My favorite is the O’hana Highway, which has a bigger tube and can fit a couple people in, although if you get stuck going backwards it’s not as fun.
Pu’u Ohulehule is a hike a bit up the coast from where I live. It’s also known by a geographical feature called “Pride Rock” for the same reasons you can assume. Unfortunately, there was a 40ft stretch of 50% to near 50% grade trail that was very loose gravel. I climbed about halfway up and decided to freak out about trying to get back down. Slowly but surely and thanks to some footing help from my friend I made it.
I didn’t get to Pride Rock, but I did get a couple great peak-a-boo views along the way.
You might recognize the island to the right – it’s Mokoli’i, Chinaman’s hat, the same one we paddled to recently. This next pic is looking back toward where I live.
I think I could do it if I had put my spikes on, but by the time I was down no part of me wanted to put my spikes on to try again.
This marks my fourth DNF hike. Ka’au crater, Koko head stairs, Chinaman’s hat the other three. I’ve never not finished hikes before, unless you counted the one from Yosemite which I didn’t finish due to health concerns.
The new friend that came with me, Lisa, was incredibly understanding and didn’t make me feel bad at all. It was our first time hiking together, so I felt like I let her down, but promised we could go and do one I’ve been successful at.
After, we hit up this roadside Thai place and I had DELCIOUS Pad Thai. It was only $13 and I split it into three meals the portion was so huge.
My goal for the next year is to try to be more spontaneous and stop and places like this. They are everywhere in Hawaii.
Anyway, continuing to be frustrated that my did not finish list is growing… but oh well.
We’ll all be planning out a route
We’re gonna take real soon
We’re waxing down our surfboards
We can’t wait for June
We’ll all be gone for the summer
We’re on surfari to stay
Tell the teacher we’re surfin’
Surfin’ U.S.A.Haggerty’s and Swami’s
Pacific Palisades
San Onofre and Sunset
Redondo Beach L.A.
All over La JollaAt Waimea Bay
Surfin’ USA Beach Boys
We didn’t go surfing, but my friend Jess swam 2.3 miles! The picture above is all the swimmers lined up at the start. Here they go!
While she was swimming another friend, Raquel, and I hung back at the beach. I read “Oona out of Order” and sunbathed.
And she made it! It was really hard to identify her, all swimmers look the same. But we got her. The last stretch you have to get your land legs back and run up this sandy hill.
I’m glad I had this free day to join and support her and now I feel like I can finally say I’ve “experienced” Waimea Bay. It was very calm today, but it’s certainly not usually like this, I think it gets wavier over the winter.
We saw a honu (turtle) “crossing” the finish line! It was cute. Here’s the bay from a walking path back to the car.
I found myself with a free Sunday so I asked a friend if she wanted to get outside with me for a low key hike nearby. Maunawili Ditch trail is your basic walk through the woods and was just what I needed today. It was shaded and made for a great midday jaunt. It’s a multi-use trail, we found horses at the end, we encountered a mountain biker and other hikers. The hike starts at the same place as another hike I did recently. I didn’t take many pics on the trail, just enjoyed the company and movement. But here are a couple to give you an idea!
