Hawaiian Vacation: Day 3

Day 3 was kind of a bust as far as beaches go.  (But we were in Hawaii!!  With no kids! So it's ok! Yes, this was my thought process the entire week.)  My hubby had heard about a place called Electric Beach so we decided to try it out.  Basically there is a power plant located nearby and it flows out clean warm water into the ocean through two giant pipes.  The water is supposedly quite a few degrees warmer than the rest of the water, and thus it attracts lots of sea life.  But we got there and it just looked a bit too advanced for us.  Too many waves for snorkeling for me so we decided to head down to Ko Olina Beach Park.  There are 4 man made lagoons in this area (Disney's Aulani is located on the third one--that place looks amazing!) and we hit the last one where the beach park is.  But it was LAAAAME and really small.  Every person in the water was doing their morning workout. My hubby got in and tried to snorkel but he kept getting in the way of everyone swimming or walking laps. It was kind of comical actually. :)  So we decided to go clear back up to Haleiwa and checked out the town and beaches.  We stopped at one beach park there and discovered it is very much for surfing--and thus, not really what we were going for.  But I loved the town and it felt very authentically "Hawaiian" to me, and very much like a locals hangout.

Still beautiful of course!  We watched the surfers for awhile then decided to go eat lunch at a place called Storto's, a local sandwich shop.

I loved the bread and the papaya dressing. We decided next to completely shift gears and headed to the Pearl Harbor monument.  It's always a neat experience and very moving.  

(I promise we really did take it seriously.)

Not sure why I look like an oompa loompa...

Did you know that the USS Arizona still leaks oil?

An actual anchor from the USS Arizona (I think that's where it was from but I could be wrong):

Sweet submarine:

While we were waiting for the ferry to take us over to the USS Arizona Memorial, we called the kids.  It was our first phone call and hearing my two year old say "wuv you" got me quite choked up.  It was really weird.  It had been almost 3 days and we would have to remind ourselves about the kids.  We would literally go hours without even thinking about them.  Is that bad?  I tried not to feel guilt about it and just chalked it up to the fact that I was having fun and knew that they were fine, but it was so weird to not even think about them for so long.
Next I wanted to work up a bit of a sweat so we headed to Diamond Head Crater.  It is a short hike (only 1.6 miles round trip) but it is straight up hill at the end and can get a bit intense.  I was quite proud of myself because I only got winded the last staircase.  I have running to thank for my endurance and stamina. :)  Anyway, my hubby complained almost the whole time but he did it!  And it was hard!  So I was proud of him.  The view is spectacular, one of the best on the island.  So worth the horrible staircases.

Three cheers for no makeup!

We made it!

We were pretty exhausted by the time we got down, so we drove in circles on Waikiki trying to find a place to eat, finally settling on the Hula Grill at another Outrigger Hotel.  I got fish tacos and pineapple soda and they were pretty good.  After dinner we walked along the beach with the sun down and my hubby bought me a lei.  It was very sweet and romantic and another great day.

Not the greatest photo of Waikiki at night, but not bad for a cell phone pic.