HAWAII!!!!! Thursday

Welp, it was another frustratingly early morning for muah. You should be able to luxuriously sleep in on vacation, dang it!!!

This was when a balcony would have come in handy. Instead, I went down to the beach to read and squeeze in more beachiness.

Once Travis was up, we started our day with some Ted's breakfast again. Why not? I still needed to try their cheese danish. We also bought some cream pies slices to put in our fridge for later tonight.

We were there earlier than yesterday and noticed it was the school, morning "hang-out" before the bus came. So interesting that this is their life!!

After breakfast, we went back to Turtle Bay to spend a few hours on their beach. I think this was the first time we actually did that! We knew we had to be at the zipline ranch at 11:30am, so we left the beach around 10am and went to BYU-H. My old stomping grounds! (For a month or two, haha.)

This was when I would have LOVED to have Shelley with me! Everything else we had done so far, held vague memories for me. But walking onto campus was trippy. This was where we spent all our time!! It felt so familiar.....like going back in time. Almost everything looked exactly the same. Here is where Shells and I lived!

Travis held back while I went inside and found what I thought was our old room. Turns out I was one door off. I was SO tempted to knock, but I resisted. ;)
I found some of my old pictures to include!
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This place is EXACTLY the same, I swear! We used to hang out here and watch the second season of American Idol, haha. The Clay Aiken year.

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Ohhh, the cafeteria. This place holds mixed feelings for me! They had to accommodate so many different cultures. So there was always an assortment of kim chi, rice and tropical food... among other dishes that weren't exactly up my alley. I think I ate a lot of cereal and waffles.




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We basically just walked around while I pointed out where we took our hula class and institute class. It was a TOUGH summer, I tell ya.
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After our classes, we'd walk up the street to this beach. It didn't used to be fenced off! I was bummed I couldn't walk out there. What I remember most about that summer was checking out John Grisham books from the library and getting Mexican-tanned on this beach. Gooood times. :)
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 Bye- bye BYU! Maybe I'll visit you again when my kids go here! ;)

 

This was a new place in Laie that was recommended. Supposedly the best fish tacos... and they were very good. It had a very Costa Vida feel to it, minus the fresh tortillas. Travis got a super yummy pineapple drink. 

After that, we were off to Kualoa Ranch for some ziplining!

 

Some more driving pictures, for your viewing pleasure. I couldn't get enough.

Chinaman's Hat!

Kualoa Ranch offers all sorts of things like ATV tours, movie tours, horseback riding, etc. But they just opened the ziplining in January. And from what we were told, it's the best on the island. You have to book early, because they sell out fast. First, we boarded an old bus with 4 other couples and took a 20 minute drive up into the mountains. It was great because we basically got the "movie tour" while we drove! The driver was your typical, "corny joke interspersed by interesting facts" tour guide. And I was loving it! He was hysterical. So we got to see where scenes from Jurassic Park, 50 First Dates, and You, Me and Dupree were filmed. 

 

Once we got to the location, we were suited up in our harnesses and given the run down about what we were doing. There were 7 zips in total, all varying lengths. The longest was 1/4 mile long. It would take about 2 hours to do all of them. It was kind of a process for each line... we had to be hooked up to the safety cords and wait for our turn, then get hooked up again when we were done. But once we got in a rhythm, it seemed to go by faster. There were 3 guides taking us and they were great. One girl in particular was just genuinely SUPER happy and acted like taking us ziplining was the BEST thing that had ever happened to her. She also referenced drinking a lot... I wonder if the two weren't connected... haha.

 

I couldn't help but feel like I was on a "Bachelor" date! ;)

All the ziplines were strung out in this huge valley, between massive, green mountains. Off in the distance was the ocean. You couldn't make up a more gorgeous location. 

Woooohooooo!

Another huge plus was that they were tandem lines so we got to go together every time!

I wondered if I would be nervous, but I wasn't at all. It felt very safe and was way too much fun to be scary!

You can see how we were attached to the safety cords while we waited our turn. 

I love this video because you can hear the guide say "zip on!" in his unique way (he did it every time for every couple) and then you get to hear happy girl say, "Perrrfect! Excellent!" at the end, haha.

Ok, embarrassing part. They warned us that if you didn't make sure to be a "coconut" (basically legs scrunched in and arms close), then you might lose momentum and not make it to the end. In which case, one of the guides had to go rescue you. So on the longest zipline, that happened to me! I guess it's the most common one for it to happen on. I thought that as long as I did the coconut at the end, it would all be good. So I got stuck and the happy girl had to come get me! Which meant I had to stare at her rear end for a minute or two while she dragged my line in. Just a tad embarrassing...

In between each zip we had a short walk or hike to the next one. And twice we had to cross these Indian Jones bridges. 

(On this one you can pretty much stop watching after 10 sec. The guide kept taping forever for some reason!)

I was sad when it was over, but it also felt like a good amount of time that we got to do it for! It really was a fun activity. And I couldn't get over our surroundings. It felt so exotic. I'd recommend this for sure!

It's hard to see, but there's a lodge of sorts, nestled in the trees. They told us that this was part of Jurrasic Park 2. 

 

By the time we left the ranch and got back to Turtle Bay it was about 3:30pm. We went straight to their "surfing desk" to rent some paddleboards. We thought it would be easiest to do it there so we wouldn't have to worry about our stuff getting stolen out of the car on some other beach. We were super bummed though when they told us it was too late in the day to rent them! This was our last chance to paddle board since we knew Friday we'd be too busy. So on a whim, we drove back over to Haliewa where we had seen a truck advertising surfing lessons.

Bingo! They were still open and willing to rent us some paddleboards.

 

OK, so to preface, paddleboarding was on my list, but not high on it. I was excited to try it, but basically pictured us taking them out in a bay, paddling around for a bit, then turning around and being done. It's was more of a "check it off the list" activity than something I was dying to do or really looking forward to. So when the guy pointed to that jetty of rocks way off in the distance behind Travis in this picture and told us to paddle behind it and up a river, I was skeptical!! Just making it to the rocks sounded like a stretch! But off we went. I was super nervous to go from my knees to my feet, but when I did it without crashing into the water I was fist pumping! Travis seemed to pick it up no problem, but it took me until getting to the rocks before I had a little confidence.

Just around the rocks was this first bridge. The guy had told us we'd go under two bridges and when we got to the third, to turn around and come back. And that would take us about an hour.

(I am SO BUMMED we didn't take the GoPro!!!! Bah!!! So all these pictures are just ones I found online.)

After passing under the first bridge, what awaited us was AMAZING. We paddled up the most gorgeous, calm, lushly lined river. It was so serene and beautiful, it was like we had entered this other world. Even being in scenic Hawaii, this felt like a different experience. Maybe because we were so alone and everything was so calm and peaceful. Here and there, some nice homes had backyards that backed up to the water. Then we passed a natural spring that was bubbling into the river. Once, I looked down and noticed a huge sea turtle swimming under my board! I called out to Trav who got to see it too. It was nice and warm, but a few different times it started raining. Only, it felt more like a gentle rain or mist that refreshed us instead of being a bother. I tell you, this was magical!! A couple times we passed another paddleboarder, but other than that, it was just us. It wasn't hard to paddle, but required just enough effort to feel like we were getting a sort of workout too, which felt good. By the time we made it to the third bridge, turned around and made it back to shore, it had been around an hour, just like he had said. And I was just starting to comprehend what an amazing experience we had just had!  Later, when we were discussing what our favorite activities were on our trip, we both agreed that paddleboarding that river turned out to be at the top of our list!I would seriously give this 4 stars and a must do if you're ever in Oahu! Such a treat!

After paddleboarding, we bolted to Matsumotos! It closes at 6pm for some reason and it was already a bit past 5pm. Luckily, it was a quick drive. As we parked and got out of the car, we saw a huge rainbow stretching the sky. My jaw dropped. We hurried and got a selfie with it, thinking it would be gone in minutes. Turns out, even after we waiting in a long line for our shaved ice, it was still there! It's super corny, but it honestly felt like the perfect ending to a perfect day. Like, of course! Why wouldn't a beautiful rainbow appear at the end of such a fun day?! It just makes sense!



 

I think I got the Matsumotos combo of flavors and Trav got Rainbow. Make it a large WITH icecream, hold the beans. ;)

 

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K! I just noticed this!! Shell- look at what you're doing?!! Hahaha! Even back then you were the goofball in all the pictures!

After that, we drove back to our hotel and decided to walk out on the large jetty of rocks/reef that goes from the beach out into the water. Here's a look at Turtle Bay from the ocean!

As we neared the end, we suddenly got splashed pretty hard! Didn't see that coming! We had to laugh. It was like being a kid again and getting sprayed by a friend's squirt gun, only the perpetrator was the ocean. The rocks were really pokey and hurt to walk on, but we had to wait for our flip flops to dry off or there's no way we could have made it back to the beach!

So we watched the sun set and did some smooching. :)

My husband is smokin' hot.

Right on the beach is one of the hotel's restaurants called Ola. We were told by the paddleboarding guy that they had amazing Kahlua pig nachos. And he was a super tan, buff, old, beach dude that looked like he'd know his food.

But once we sat down and looked at the really posh, expensive menu and saw a (5) next to the nachos, we started getting suspicious. What we pictured to be a messy slab of pork nachos covered in cheese, actually turned out to be a delicate ensemble of 5 nacho chips, each with a tiny dollop of organic sour cream, guacamole mousse, and sprinkle of goat cheese. Hmmm. Well, I'll be fair- the flavors were quite tasty, I just would have preferred 10x more of them.  

But at least I got my pina colada fix!! I seriously don't know how this was my first one of the trip!!! I am obsessed with this drink and it goes hand in hand with the beach in my mind. 

Sooo, I guess Matsumotos was our PRE dessert (or pre-ssert, if you will), the pina colada was kind of a mid-dessert, and our chocolate cream pies were post-dessert. ;)

Not to diss on the much acclaimed, Ted's chocolate pies, but we both decided they were just, eh. I'll bet they were bomb back in the day. But clearly now, they are just like any other processed, pre-packaged slice of pie. Grandmother's chocolate cream pies, kick this guy's trash. Sorry Ted, in your defense, it is hard to beat Grandmother's cooking. ;)