Waikiki to The Island (Round Trip)

Saturday the 16th consisted of us mostly starting the day with, "Fuck this bus system, let's pick up a rental car." We did. On the phone the previous day, we were promised something wonderful and magical, a compact car! They said they had one if we got there early enough, so hot diggoty if we weren't going to get there early enough and get what would probably be the beigemobile. After a somewhat confusing walk too far down the street, a turn around at an ABC store (where I picked up some more sunscreen - Hawaiian Tropic! Made me smell like coconut and joy) we walked back and realized it was behind the Starbucks Where The Barista Complimented My Shirt. Oddly enough, he said, "Is that from the Northwest?" Meaning, I assume, the continental northwest, but I took it to mean the Northwest of where we were standing, meaning either northwest shore, or maybe Japan? Anyway, it does look like it's from the Pacific Northwest, now that I think about it.

National Rent A Car (I think that's what it was) was friendly and quick, and promised us a car! Yes! After a few tries of missing the stairs to the basement (My fault really, Monica had us pointed in the right direction.), we headed to what would be the Beigemobile. And a compact car, right? Okay, so space 31! Let's look for a compact car in space 31. Well, here's 15, and it increases as we go that way, so let's keep going. We passed a car that screamed OLD PERSON VEHICLE. It looked like it had enough blind spots it shouldn't be on the road. Huh, 32, we must have passed it. We walked past OPV again. Huh, 30. Then it hit us, and we slowly turned our heads down below the OPV, the darkness and dread filling our hearts. Dear readers, this was no compact car, this was a genuine OPV, but not only that, it was a Weird OPV. Everything seemed either obnoxiously big or oddly missing. For example, no trunk to speak of, but a back area where we can throw things. Swallowing our pride, we got in, made the inspection, and were off. It wasn't terrible. And it had air conditioning. We were set for the day.

Our first stop was the Aloha Fleamarket. There's really not much to say, if you've been to a fleamarket before, you'll know what this is. EXCEPT THAT IT'S LIKE 10 BILLION TIMES BIGGER! It was surrounding the Aloha Stadium, which is big in itself, and taking up, I would say about 70% of the parking lot. Big fleamarket. This is why I waited to get my gifts till Saturday. You could get anything there. Well, anything that surrounds the "cheap gift" catagory. That's being unfair, there was a lot of really cool art, plus some food booths. I even got yelled at for taking a picture of a seashell piece of art! I have that on my hard drive somewhere. I feel like a badass.

Anyway, gifts were bought and I was mostly done with my shopping for people, except for maybe some chocolate covered macademias... but that could be saved for the end of the trip for fear that the chocolates would be eaten beforehand. We already had one box casualty. Poor delicious chocolates.

Presents were bought, and sandwitches were made, and we went off on our new highly mobile journey across the island. We were going to just skip and frolic wherever we pleased that day, our first stop going through the island, north of Honolulu, to see just a little less city; by that point, I was ready to see something else, for sure.

I don't quite know how instant it was, but it was very quick before the city disappeared and we were traveling through suburbanish places, and then through country roads. It seemed almost like the entire midwest squished onto an island (military support and all!). It was a gorgeous day, and as we passed the Dole Plantation, we both were charmed and decided to rock that shit out.

I'm sure if Monica was writing a blog she would write something great about the Dole Plantation. She enjoyed it a lot more than I did. It was just one of those places where you could buy overpriced pineapples and well designed shirts, and lots of foodstuffs with pineapple inside. The pineapple garden was pretty cool, but I was less impressed. Off to the North!

We hit some stupid traffic driving north, but we didn't have anything to do or anywhere to be, so we weren't worried about it, and decided to just stick with it as we passed beaches and really beautiful houses. Turns out the traffic was just getting to a beach. Then I remembered something Cousing Ghandi said about how all the beaches in Hawaii would have public access and would always be open to the public. There was no such thing as a private beach in Hawaii. That simply rocks my world. What a cool modern extention of the Aloha Spirit.

We kept on going, and eventually passed Giovanni's Shrimp Truck, the only place I really wanted to go the entire trip. That was the best, most delicious shrimp I've ever had, yes, everything you read about online is true. It's amazingly delicious. Plus they had a smoothie truck - no smoothies that day for me.. just shrimp. Delicious shrimp.

Since Monica was unsure if she was allergic to shrimp, she had my (equally delicious, but not as flavorful) rice. Then we decided to go get some food for her. A little further north on the island we passed a Taco Bell. Scoff all you want, but we love Taco Bell, and it was cheaper than Bay Area's Taco Bell. Yes. I'm liking Hawaii more and more. OH YES! And then we had some Shave Ice. I think the pictures explained it well. So yummy. So large.

The main goal that I thought we were going to do that day is drive around the island, find a cool beach, go swimming, dry off, get back in the car, find a beach, go swimming, get back in the car, repeat as desired. This was a minor frustration on the Saturday drive, because we never really got around to swimming; we were looking for the perfect beach, and I think we never found something perfect - I mean, come on! Isn't Hawaii supposed to be all perfect beaches and lovliness?

We did stop at a lookout point that was absoultely amazing, of which Monica accidentally turned in the wrong entrance, so we almost were heading the completely wrong way. It was a lot more funny if you were there. So amazing of a view. You could actually see how the land was formed. Really neato.

We decided to head back to Honolulu and spend an evening I think eating somewhere in town. I honestly can't remember. That might be a testament to how amazing the day was, or to how medocre the food was. Not sure at all.

Edit: We ate at the Hard Rock Cafe. The food was medocre, but I enjoyed it well enough. We had fruity non alcoholic beverages and our waiter was very obnoxious, but frequent, and fast.

Another terrific day.