Disclaimer: Back in May of 2006, when I started posting about our vacation to the Hawaiian Islands, we were severely limited regarding photos I could share due to bandwidth limitations. Here in 2022, I’m updating these posts using the original image and text I shared, but I’m adding the rest of the photos I would have liked to share if bandwidth and storage had not been issues 16 years ago. 

Best flight ever to depart on, even though we were up at 4:00 a.m. this morning to arrive at the airport at 5:30. What made it so great? At the waiting area of our gate, there were two ladies who talked to everyone about the islands and performed a couple of hula dances. Even before leaving the crispy brown innards of the Arizona desert, we were in the mood for lush island life. Once in the air, we were treated to the taste of Aloha Pass-O-Guava, and over the next nearly dozen days, we’d fall in love with all things passion fruit.

We arrived in Honolulu on Oahu by direct flight at midday, but this was not our ultimate destination for the day. We have a six-hour stopover, allowing us to take a short drive around the southeastern corner of the island toward Diamond Head.

Caroline doesn’t always wear hibiscus flowers in her hair, but when she does, it’s in Hawaii.

There’s no need for us to try and get off some beaten path as every sight is new to us. This view is from the Lanai Lookout and is probably known to everyone who has visited Oahu, but we’d never seen it before, so this is the best location ever to stop at. Until we get to the next stop.

The view is from Highway 72, looking out to Kachikaipu and Manana Islands; the overlook is known as the Makapuu Lookout.

The reason the previous photo is from the Makapuu Lookout was that we were on the Makapuu Lookout Lighthouse Trail. The lighthouse can be seen off in the distance. With only about six hours on Oahu, we are trying to be well aware of how long we linger at every stop as we have no good idea of how far it is back to the airport.

Caroline doesn’t always stop to stand in the ocean but when she does….oh wait, she does stop to stand in every ocean, lake, river, stream, or other body of water she comes across.

Goodbye Honolulu, it’s like we barely got to know you, maybe another day.

Earlier in the day, we were in the state capital of conformity known as Phoenix, and now we’re on a lush green tropical island surrounded by blue. This kind of contrast made for a dramatic refocusing. After landing in Hilo, we tried sneaking into the Merrie Monarch Festival; okay, we didn’t really try sneaking in as much as we were on the grounds when someone asked to see our passes.

After a brief encounter with Hilo and effectively being kicked out of the festival, we took off down south to check into our lodging for the night at the Volcanoes National Park. Along the way, we ran into this crew who were operating a roadside restaurant in a couple of converted shipping containers. With their recommendations, we went with the pork laulau for me and the squid laulau on seaweed for Caroline. While certainly a cliche, should this have been our only day in Hawaii we’ve seen beautiful sights that will stay with us forever.