Ok, so you might ask - haven’t you been to Hawaii before? Is it really any different? But, it’s always shocking how beautiful it is - and I live in Southern California. The views from everywhere are simply good for your soul, the trade winds feel delightful and (most of the time) it’s the perfect temperature. I have so many pictures already and we’re not done yet. The photo below was from the first morning, around 6:30am from the second floor coffee shop at our hotel. Unbelievably gorgeous.
For more crazy beautiful photos see this gallery.
We kicked off our retirement journey with a few days at the Four Seasons on Oahu. We didn’t do much there - wake up too early, grab coffee, take a walk to look at the pretty views, hang out, drink Mai Tais, eat WAY to much, rinse, repeat. It was good for quietly internalizing the upcoming major transition in our lives.
I found out early in the visit that each of the hotel bars had a DIFFERENT Mai Tai recipe. Challenge, accepted! I had to try them all (there were 6), but my favorite was the Diamond Head Mai Tai that was only available at the swim up bar at the adult pool, named Dr. Mai Tai’s 😱.
Dr. Mai Tai wrote me MANY prescriptions…
After day 5, we moved to a VRBO condo near Turtle Bay - it was time for some real adventures. We liked the idea of starting each day with coffee and a “walk” but we upped the intensity a little with hiking trails on the coast (not a lot of elevation, but off road and significant sand walking to get your heart thumping). The first morning there, we hiked to Ka’huku Point - the northmost point on the island. The trail was not as well marked as I’d like, so there was a lot of guessing, but eventually we found our way to the point and the beautiful more than 180 degree view:
The next morning, we trekked in the opposite direction to a WWII pillbox. Can’t imagine sitting in here for hours at a time anticipating the next attack. On the other hand, if you had to be in a pillbox, maybe this is the right one:
Over the next few days, we basically covered most of these trails (with coffee and a lot of sunscreen):
It was beautiful.
On the way to Turtle Bay, we did the required stop at Matsumoto’s Shaved Ice in Haleiwa. It’s definitely a tourist trap, but a fun and yummy one. Craig and I enjoyed observing the well designed assembly line process for serving as many people as possible different combinations of ice and sugar. Mine was Cherry and Blue Pineapple:
Our Favorite Experiences
Are the totally random, unplanned, turned out awesome ones. If you’ve been to the North Shore, you know a big part of the culinary joy is the food trucks. Our plan one night was to check out the trucks at the old sugar mill in Kuhuku and get takeout for a picnic on the beach. We got to the sugar mill and found a beer garden (surprise!). So, we decided to stay, get food from one of the trucks, and enjoy the local beers. It was magical. Perfect temp, good food/beer and good music playing. Extra points for the timeliness of the delicious Snoop POG Sour (we’ve been watching a lot of Olympics and POG is local Passion/Orange/Guava juice).
Last, for now, we just love that many (most?) of the restaurants here have amazing views. Go here for a gallery of Craig and Dina enjoying the views while eating/drinking.
留言