Oahu: Day 3

So after days of semi-patient waiting for her particular kind of fun, Miss V was finally rewarded on Saturday.  After a leisurely start, we drove down to Honolulu to shop at the Aloha Stadium Swap Meet.

This temporary shopping center rings Aloha Stadium and is filled with all manner of goodies to warm the cockles of your materialistic little heart.

It's about a mile's walk to complete the full circuit of the swap meet.  You can find everything from souvenirs to food to clothes to cell phone accessories on sale.  Even green coconuts, which were being sold out of the back of a pickup truck by a wizened little guy with a baseball cap, a cigarette and a machete.

I picked up some postcards and a package of li hing mango for my mom.  Captain Midnight got himself a Lava Blues T-shirt emblazoned with a humuhumunukunukuapua'a.  And Miss V?  Well, she went a little crazy with the whole "7 T-shirts for $20" concept.  Let's just say she's not going to run out of casual tops any time soon.

Now, I'm well acclimated to the rain and cold of a Pacific Northwest winter.  But "Hawaiian winter" looks and feels a lot like "Northwest summer."  Plus I'm diabetic, woefully out of shape and chronically dehydrated.  What did this all add up to?  Why, the magic of heat exhaustion, my friends!  I completed a mere circuit and a half of the swap meet before the dizziness and nausea hit.  Gleah.  Captain Midnight went forth and picked me up in the rental car, gallantly running the A/C while I panted like a German shepherd and sucked down a bottle of water.

Eventually we dragged Miss V away from the premises.  We then embarked on a drive that would take us more or less on a circle route of Oahu.  First stop: the island shopping paradise known as Costco.

Yeah, I know, "why Costco, Sooz?"  After all, the Costco experience is pretty much the same everywhere you go -- your basic big ol' steel-trussed box fulla economy-sized goodness.  But each one carries local products unique to the area, and lemme tell you, I have never seen SO MANY MACADAMIA NUT PRODUCTS in my entire life.  Plus they had some Korean barbecue flavored pork jerky for sale.  It was pretty much a moral imperative.

(By the way, if you ever get the chance to buy Korean barbecue flavored pork jerky, do it.  Seriously choice.)

More driving.  Along the route I spotted this sign, which filled my soul with equal measures of poetry and glee:

Is this the street that launched a thousand memes
And burnt the cheezburgers of lolcat fame?
Sweet Ohai, be thou immortal on this blog!

Um.  Clearly I'm no Kit Marlowe.

Our next stop?

Pineapple Central!  Also known as the Dole plantation in Wahiawā.

The inside of this place is full of souvenirs...

...including my own personal favorite, the tried-and-true penny smasher.  Plus they're pretty much selling pineapple-flavored everything as far as the eye can see.  And Dole Whips.  Mmm.

Captain Midnight and I wandered around outside for a bit to take a look at the grounds.  We did not take the Pineapple Express train nor get lost in the world's largest outdoor maze, but we did walk through the exhibition gardens.

Yes, those are little pineapple plants underneath the directional arrows.

Also, does anybody happen to know what kind of tree this is?  The odd stripy bark caught my eye.
ETA: Captain Midnight did his homework and informs me that this is a rainbow eucalyptus.

Speaking of eyes, CM and I noticed a feral cat living in the drainage hole just at the entrance to the plantation.  He had the most amazing luminous green eyes.  Unfortunately, he skedaddled into the hole the moment he decided we were getting too close.

Having satisfied our lust for all things pineapple, we drove on to Haleiwa where we met up with Brian and Caryn and the kids and had a late lunch at the Grass Skirt Grill.  Mmm, grilled ahi plate.  Plus I got to steal some bonus fries from Captain Midnight.  Forbiddenlicious.

We continued up the North Shore to Laniakea Beach, informally known as Turtle Beach.

It's quite beautiful, even without any turtles on the beach, though Miss V and Little C did spy some turtles in the surf.

Then we drove on to Waimea, where they spied a few surfers in the surf.

Another photo, another chance for Miss V to be fabulous.  She was really loving the beach, and wished she had brought her swimsuit with her when we left that morning.

I didn't take all that many photos on the beach because I was getting lazy and tired.  Rest assured, though, that there were wild chickens on the premises.  Then we completed the loop around the top of the island and back down to La'ie on the windward side.

A long day of fun requires a shave ice when you're done.  Brian and Caryn's neighbors down the street make and sell shave ice concoctions right from their driveway to help support their son, who is currently off being a missionary.  They didn't have any sugar-free syrups, so I just had a snaky lick of Captain Midnight's shave ice instead.  Mmmm!

Next: a day of rest means almost no foties.  Sorry.