Island Adventures Continued

If you have ever been to Hawai'i then you have probably been to the USS Arizona Memorial in Pearl Harbor. This was my first trip ever to Hawai'i where I stayed longer than a lay over at the passenger terminal at Hickam AFB. The Friday before we left we were able to get a VIP tour of Pearl Harbor that the Navy runs. What was really neat/cool about the tour was that you visit two other memorials the regular Pearl Harbor tour doesn't see. The USS Utah and the USS Nevada.

The Arizona Memorial was very sobering to visit as you realize you are standing on top of the final resting place of 1177 members of her crew. The wall of names has several people with the last names, brothers and in one case, father and son.

We were the only ones out there, no other visitors, just my group of 30ish people. You can see from the flag that the wind was rather strong, so the water was a little choppy and you really couldn't see much under the water.

The white mooring quays in the picutre are where battleships were moored during the attack. Some of the quays bear names of ships representing where different battleships were moored on 7 Dec 1941. This is the base of the number 3 gun turret looking north into the harbor. What you don't see is that battleship row is closer to Ford Island, the island in the middle of the harbor, than I had ever thought.

While in Hawai'i the one thing everyone seems to want to do is go to a Luau, which we did. It was a lot of fun and the kalua pig they served was delicious. The two guys in the picture are about to dig the pig out of the pit.

The reseverations I made for the family are at a hotel right on the beach. The picture of me with Diamond Head in the background are taken from the beach in front of the hotel. Actually that's not entirely true, I had to walk 300 yards from the hotel where the Luau was to the jetty to take this picture.