Hawaii Vacation- Circle Tour Plus

Many of these photos are from a long day trip we took being driven all around the Island of Oahu in a small bus.

This trip included a stop at Pearl Harbor that is covered in it's own posting.

We also visited a macadamia nut outlet with all sorts of tasting stations. I liked most of the flavors I tried except maybe garlic and onion. Maybe as a coating on fish but just as a snack item I think I prefer my macademia's plain or as a sweet rather than a savory item.

We stopped at a Dole Pineapple visitor center.

There are 28,000 plants per acre. All planting is done by hand. All harvesting is done by hand. 70-80% of the pineapples planted by this group are sold as "fresh." Each plant can produce 2 pineapples. They harvest one and another one grows. After that the plants are replaced.

S and I would definitely would have liked to explore this place further but the bus didn't stay long enough. We did get a chance to savor Dole Pineapple Whip- a concoction of frozen pineapple blended with milk and sugar and intensely pineapply! Our trio voted YES! YES! and NO!

There were stops along the North Shore famous for winter waves and major surfing competitions. Naturally our visit in August held no "big waves" but we saw some pretty scenery.

Along the North Shore S managed a glimpse of a sea turtle on the beach.  I'm not sure those people should have been down there....

A farmer apparently released rabbits on the larger island below. Rabbits did what rabbits do and so later all of the rabbits had to be removed.

Is this Key West? Those of you who have spent any time in Key West will remember seeing chickens/roosters all over. They are protected in Key West. They are pretty well tolerated and have even come to achieve tourism status. However, Waikiki seems to be accepting the birds as well. We were told that recent hurricanes had released a bunch of the birds and now they are all over. And it's true, we saw a lot of them.

We stopped at the famous "blow-hole" on the island. The "blow-hole" was not willing to blow on our visit. However, the water and the surf were very pretty, and the surf sounds were terrific.

Our guide pointed out that on a tiny snippet of beach just adjacent to the non-functioning "blow-hole" was the location for the filming of the famous scene from the film From Here to Eternity. In the scene Deborah Kerr and Burt Lancaster roll around in the sand and surf. I've watched the movie since and this beach has changed quite a bit since the early 1950s when the film was made. In the film there is much more sand and much less exposed rock.