On the day we left Oahu to go to Kauai, Tom and the boys wanted to explore an old cave near where we were staying. It looked like a big hole that was carved out of the mountain, probably by waves at some distant past. We had bought flashlights to have in case the power went out during Tropical Storm Flossie, so they were prepared for a little bit of spelunking.
Preston and Winston - masters of the lights.
Exploring, exploring, exploring.
Preston checks out some of the rock composition as Tom delves deeper into the cavern. Winston just looks like he doesn't want to be left alone in the dark!
Not a good sign when there are creepy red arrows pointing the opposite way you are going! It's like it's saying 'Leave while you still can!'
Cave Posers!
As we left Makaha, we took a quick little detour through one of the newer tourist areas, Ko-Olina. That is where some of the newer and most premiere resorts are being built. It's a bit quieter and more 'posh' than Waikiki.
The new Disney Resort at Ko'Olina.
Interesting story... a couple of days before this - as Preston, Winston and I were driving back around the mountain to meet Tom and Keaton after their hot, exhausting hike - we were driving down the highway past Ko'Olina. I happened to really look at the car ahead of me. It was a black Lincoln Navigator with very dark tinted windows. I thought to myself that it was a very, VERY, nice looking vehicle. Then I happened to look at the license plate. It said 'MCCARTNY' on it. Of course the first thing I thought of was Paul McCartney. So I sped up a little bit to see if I could see the driver, but about that time it took the off-ramp to go toward Ko'Olina, and I wasn't able to see who was driving. Later I was talking about it to Tom, and Preston said he thought the very same thing when he saw that car and the license plate. Hmmmmmm....
After leaving the west side, we popped back over the mountains on the Like-Like Highway. It's actually pronounced 'Lee-kah Lee-kah', but we kept wanting to call it the 'Likey-Likey'. It's kind of a fun word to say. On the other side we visited a beautiful park called the Hoomalinga Botanical Gardens. We took TONS of pictures, but I'm only going to post a few...
A family picture in front of one of the big 'dinosaur' trees.
Tom and the boys looking at the hundreds of goldfish in the pond.
Winston holding a BIG bean pod from a tree.
There were even bigger ones still on the tree!
Three guys on a bridge.
This is at another point down the road.
the water was soooooo turquois blue here - so pretty!
As we drove farther down the road we saw a rescue in progress. It looked like someone had fallen from an observation point down onto some rocks below. We didn't see the person, but we did see the rescue helicopter and rescue personnel climbing down the side of the rock face. Scary! I only found one instance on the news that might be that incident. In it the person who fell was doing okay, but in the hospital. I hope that was the case here.
Visiting a blow hole spot on the coastline. The white beaches stood out so beautifully next to the black rocks. The wind was really blowing too!
The blow hole - where the waves go in through a cavern and push the water up through holes in the rocks. It sounds like a dragon breathing. Very cool!
As we were trying to take pictures of the blow holes, we happened to look to the right of the observation point and saw people on the rocks below. It's really hard to see in this picture, but it looked like a bunch of teenagers out there, swimming in that cove. Crazy people! Those waves were pounding in there and splashing WAY up on the rocks.
There were three girls who kept walking over to the end rock, and looked over the edge as the waves came crashing around them. Really crazy!
We really felt like we got a good tour of the island of Oahu. A week was a good amount of time to get to spend there. We saw everything we wanted to see (well, except for the Arizona) and got to do a lot of things. It was a great family time together. Next stop... Kauai!
Preston and Winston, hanging at the airport.
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