A Day with Island Girl

My brother has had an Island Girl daughter for the past two years; she's going to school here at BYU-Hawaii up on the North Shore. It's always better touring with a local and lucky for us she was eager to show us around. We hadn't seen her since State #1 (Oregon) when we all met for her brother's

wedding reception. I have to say Hawaii looks very good on her, and she has the hang loose aura down to a tee.

We started out in her town of Laie where she showed us the nicest and certainly the cleanest student apartment I've ever been in. Adding to the appeal is the Hukilau beach which she calls her backyard. (We got a picture in front of the Hukilau Cafe because we loved 50 First Dates, but sadly the real cafe is in Hollywood somewhere.)

Ted's Bakery was only a short drive away followed by a picnic at Sunset Beach in search of big waves and surfers. Check out my local lunch: a slice of chocolate haupia pie and Loco Moco (think gradeschool cafeteria salisbury steak and gravy, over 2 scoops of sticky rice, topped with a fried egg!).

A good friend of mine told me to go Hale'iwa for Shave Ice at Matsumoto, and Island Girl knew exactly what we were talking about. This place was well worth the wait in line.

Driving along, Waimea looked so gorgeous from the road that we just had to pull in. There were several teenage boys jumping off a rocky cliff into the crazy death-surf, and I was so happy to get a picture of them. Tomcat and the kids were watching them and Island Girl kept telling them to back up. Sure enough an enormous wave came out of nowhere and tried to swallow them alive. Between the waves and the rain we never did completely dry out! This was definitely the fun, surfer beach we had in mind.

In our planning stages we'd decided to skip 4 obvious Oahu attractions: Hanauma Bay for snorkeling (too many people and too easy to get scratched on the coral), Pearl Harbor (not into this history yet with the kids), Polynesian Cultural Center (too cheesy) and the Dole Plantation (kids would be bored?).

Well, since we were so close we decided to visit the Dole Plantation anyway. I really wanted the kids to see how pineapples grow! Island Girl hadn't been there before and my brother used to work on a pineapple plantation as a teenager, so I thought she should see what it was all about. As it turns out we got there at closing time. No worries, they have a pineapple garden and the kids were as impressed with the little spiky bushes as I hoped they would be.

The highlight of this stop goes to Little Man who may have recieved his favorite souvenir of the entire road trip: a blue ukulele. He really thinks he has some kind of talent and can't wait to surprise Grandma back home; she has her grandpa's ukulele and has let Little Man play it a few times. All I can say is, "Look out, Grandma."

Our fun day ended at an L&L Drive In -- greasy fast food Hawaiian followed by a grocery store. I wanted to buy a few things Island Girl told me she'd miss back on the mainland: Li Hing Powder in particular. She said the Hawaiians sprinkle it on fruit, candy, whatever. I'm not urging you to try it, although it does have a certain revolting yet delicious appeal.

Mahalo, Island Girl, for a great day. We wish you could come with us to the Big Island so Tomcat and I could go on a date...alone.