HAWAII!!!!! Wednesday

Wednesday

If I remember correctly, this was the only day I slept in. I woke up at 7am. Woohooo. We had originally planned on going to the PCC on Wednesday, but it looked like rain on Friday and I didn't want to ruin what would be a beach day, with rain. I figured the PCC wouldn't be so bad if we got wet though. So luckily, we were able to switch the tickets and Wednesday became a beach day!

 

Really close to Turtle Bay, is a place we heard lots about... Ted's Bakery. I guess they are most famous for their chocolate cream pies. We got there for breakfast and I'll tell you! We had the hardest time deciding on what to get! In all, we ordered a hot ham, cheese, and egg sandwich, a giant cinnamon roll, a chocolate croissant, chocolate donut and apple turnover. Washed down with milk and Passion Orange Juice. It was crowded outside, so we ended up sitting next to an older couple at a picnic table. We joked about the amount of food we ordered and acted like we'd have to take some home. But we just waited until they left and cleaned house. The hot sandwich was super good and so was my flaky turnover. Mmmm-MM!  

From there, we drove to Waimea Falls. It was raining while we drove, but we got lucky once again and it stopped right after we got out of the car!

I wish I had taken a picture of the entrance. This was a good one I found online.

The "hike" slash nature walk to the Falls was GORGEOUS. I guess you used to be able to just drive right up to the Falls, but then they turned that road into a Botanical Garden. It really is so so beautiful. Lush greenery everywhere, enormous trees, chirping birds, ponds, old Hawaiian villages, and the widest variety of flowers and plants. We meandered through some of the paths and took our time taking it in. Trav even mated with a bird that was singing. ;) We heard this bird make a call out and Travis mimicked it's song exactly. I don't know how he can whistle so well! The bird would respond, then Travis would do it again. When he stopped, the bird would stop. I was dying! When we finally walked away, I had to tease him.... that poor bird was getting all excited to meet a friend. What a let down. :)

 

 



Aren't these roots cool?! 

Trav noticed how interesting these trees were. It's like its branches hang down then reconnect with the earth and become roots. I don't know how it works, but it sure looks amazing. 

I brought the wrong lens for my camera so it wasn't very useful on the trip. But it did pretty good with this shot! It doesn't even look like real life. I loooove how this picture turned out. There's no editing. The colors seems surreal. And I love the clarity and depth it gives.

It took about 20-30 minutes to get to the falls. There's an area on the banks with benches that you can sit on and watch or leave your stuff. Then there's a lifeguard station where they hand out life jackets. I guess they are required. It was funny because as we approached the falls, memories started slipping into place. It almost felt like I was remembering a dream. I had been here before!! I hadn't remembered until just then. Deciding to go here with Trav, I thought it would be my first time. Not until I saw it, did I vaguely recall coming with Shelley on a tour of sorts. I just didn't remember the walk at all. Anyway!

 

We knew the water was going to be cold and I was NOT looking forward to that. The weather itself was very cool from the rain. It was with a good deal of trepidation that we donned our life jackets and tip toed into the water. There were only a few people in the pool. It was definitely chilly, but not at all as bad as I expected. And once I got all the way in, it actually felt great! Invigorating, even! The lifeguard offered to take our picture, so I left my phone with him. I'm so glad I did!

 

Trav was brave, and climbed up, under the waterfall. It was coming down SO HARD. I don't know how he managed. I watched him do it and wasn't even tempted. I think it would have washed my contacts right out of my eyes!

Once we were in, I wasn't in much of a hurry to get out. It was fun to just float around and enjoy the peacefulness of it. I'm so glad we did this! It turned out to be such a fun morning!

Some pictures just don't cut it.... you can't really tell, but this vine wall behind us was so neat. On the plus side, we enhance the picture for sure. ;)



It said this flower was from Honduras. I keep meaning to ask David if he saw it on his mission!

How amazing are these trees?!

Well, after that I think it was only around 11am. Which was great because we were able to drive across the street to Waimea Bay and get parking this time!

Ohhh, this beach. I'm starting to sound like a broken record, I know, but Waimea Beach is wonderful. It's so calm and peaceful. Just beautiful. It was starting to warm up and the sun was out. I was in heaven, stretched out on my towel, soaking it all in. 

Waimea is known for this huge rock that juts out from the shore, that people like to jump off of. There are signs that say not to, of course, but there's still a steady stream of jumpers. Trav watched for some time, then was off. I wanted to get close to videotape, but we were trying to be really conscientious about our stuff and avoid anything getting stolen. So I watched from a distance. Without a thought, he just climbed up, and did a back flip off. I got it on our real video camera, but messed up the second time he jumped off and didn't get any pictures! Well, about an hour later, I got up the gumption too.

Trav taped it on the phone. I chickened out a couple times and this guy started counting down for me, to try and help. I think on the third time he counted I finally jumped! Bah! Why does that stuff scare me so bad!

The water felt amazing, so I swam back up the shore to where Trav was and coaxed him into getting in with me! We played in the water for a while. Probably the longest we stayed in the water at any beach we went to. 

Despite my initial misgivings about this book, I was totally sucked in and enjoying every Bachelor-esque moment, reading. After several hours, we almost grudgingly decided we better go get some lunch before it's dinner time!

We had been spying the Giovanni Shrimp truck off the side of the road all week and it was finally time to dig in! 

I got the shrimp scampi and Trav got the lemon shrimp. We went half-sies and loved every bite. But I will say in my opinion, the scampi was bomb. Garlic dripping happiness. The only negative was when Trav inadvertently flicked a bee into my Pepsi can when he was trying to get rid of it. And the dumb thing didn't even drown in syrupy bliss. He crawled out and left me with a insect tainted soda. :(

The shrimp truck is surrounded by other food trucks and touristy laded tents in a field. I sniffed around and found some fruit and deep fried bananas. Yes and yes. 





By then it was almost too late in the day to really lay out, so we decided to watch the sun set on what else, but Sunset Beach. :)

We walked up and down the beach and then sat down to collect sea shells for the boys. OK, hidden picture time. Can you spot the crab? Nuts how they are PERFECTLY camouflaged to the sand. 

 

It's so cool to see it raining in the distance.

It always amazed us to see how empty the beaches would be! I guess we just always imagined them to be as packed as a California beach in the summer. Not complaining!

The sun set around 6:49pm each evening. ;) 

(According to the weather service website.)

Can I say it just one more time??

Beauuutiful.

 

It was a short jaunt down to Haliewa for dinner! Shelley recommended a Mexican place called Cholo's. Ha! No need to be politically correct here. I'll be honest, I wasn't expecting it to be good. So I chowed down on the chips and salsa. I shouldn't have! I ordered the Ahi Tuna taco salad and it was AMAZE BALLS!!!! Seriously. You know when food is so good you're saying it between every mouthful? Like, *bite* "Oh man, this is amazing. *bite* "I can't believe how good this is." *bite* "You have to try this, it's out of this world." Yeah, that was me. Trav was probably ready to slap me! And it was so big, I could only finish half. I still boxed it up. Not really hopeful there would be a time to finish it, but there's no way I could just let it go to waste without making some sort of effort. As if we weren't full enough, there was a gelato place next door that we decided to try. Mmm-hmm. Good choice. The New Zealand girl's accent that that served us made it that much better. Not sure how, but it did.

And there went another day with equal amounts of fun activities and delicious food. I did not know how it could get better. Oh, how naïve I was!