north shore: lost beach and sea turtles

Okay, so being a huge dorky fan of Lost I was excited to try to see some Lost Sights while in Hawaii. Unfortunately, the tour you can take costs over $200 which is ridiculous and couldn't possibly be worth that kind of money unless you get to make-out with your choice of cast member at the end. I mean the show is over so their isn't any set for it there anymore. Maybe if I got to go on the Black Rock, ride in the 70s VW Van, spend the night in the hatch, and get thrown around by the Smoke Monster, but really I can go tramping through the jungle for free thank you.  So Zach's dad had the genius idea to search for "Lost Beach" on Google Maps.  Google returned no hits, but did list a Users map which gave directions to get to the main beach where the show was filmed.  

So we found it:

What do you think?
We were not really sure this was it, but we were satisfied enough.
I was hoping for some plane rubble scattered about, but I wasn't really counting on it.
I was surprised how close it was to houses and buildings however.  It seems like it would have been tricky to get the shots you would need without seeing civilization.  But I guess that is the magic of the movies... or TV or whatever.

The highlight of the stop ended up being that there were two sea turtles on the beach and they were amazing to see so close up.

This guy swam back into the ocean while we were there and it was so cool to watch.
I made a video of it and have been trying unsuccessfully for two days to upload it so I finally gave up.
However, I thought the Discovery Channel might be interested in purchasing it, so maybe it is best that I don't put it on the internet for all to see for free.
(Check back to this post later to see if it ever works... that is if anyone actually cares)

So thank you Lost for making my day once more... even if it was accidentally.

north shore: sunset beach

We went to Sunset Beach on the North Shore twice. It is a really beautiful beach because the water is really clear. It also was a pretty good place to go snorkeling as well.

This became Jimmy's favorite game and Nano was very patient to play it with Jimmy as much as he did. It consisted of drawing pictures in the sand and then watching them get "swept out to sea." This also became a favorite phrase of Jimmy's because Marty had heard a little girl one day on the beach say she thought her shovel got "swept out to sea" so Marty thought it was funny to teach Jimmy to say it.

Then Jimmy started making smiley faces using his frisbee and was very proud of his drawings.

Then they would shout, "GO AWAY WAVES! GET OUT OF HERE!" and other such things.

I have good video of it, but alas, uploading things from my real video camera seems like to daunting a task at this moment or any moment in the near future.

Here is a rainbow, but of course, it was much better for real

... but it was not DOUBLE RAINBOW or anything

Also, if I ever live in Hawaii, I want to live in a funky house like this:

It is right on the beach too!

And it had crazy stuff like this in front of it:

Anyway, we had fun as usual.

And here is why it called Sunset Beach:

dole plantation

One of my favorite tourist stops on our trip to Hawaii was the Dole Pineapple Plantation. Seeing as I love Pineapple, and there was a train for Jimmy, we were both in heaven. I realize I am going a little overboard on the pictures here, but believe it or not I this is a very small percentage of the pictures that I took. There was just so much to see and do that I wanted to include all of it...for your enjoyment of course.

Pineapple Plants! They are everywhere you turn.

There was a garden tour with lots of beautiful plants, but Jimmy was pretty anxious to get on the train.

Zach patiently listened to the whole tour and all the details about each plant, but I just enjoyed the beauty without the education... I had an antsy kid on my hand after all.

This Tree is amazing! It is a Rainbow Eucalyptus Tree and it has the most colorful bark you have ever seen. This picture doesn't do it justice.

Hibiscus

Bananas!

Fortunately, we found a pond where we could feed the fish for 50 cents so Jimmy enjoyed that.

The farm equipment was appreciated as well.

We love the Birds of Paradise because they live in the Tiki Room in Disneyland.

Angie is making this one sing to Jimmy.

He was pretty excited about these lizards we found too.

Horray it is finally here!

The Pineapple Express.

The train take you out to see the fields of Pineapple (among other things) and tells you the history of the Dole Company (with Hawaiian music interludes).

And then at the end they give you Pineapple samples, of course-- it tasted better than any I had ever had!

And the have the World's Largest Maze. It is made out of Hibiscus plants.

Okay, I obviously didn't actually take this picture, but I wanted to show off how cool and huge it is. You have to find all these little stations throughout the maze and trace a little picture on a card in order to complete the whole thing. I think the record is around 12 minutes.

We missed one of the stations and I think it took us over an hour

...and Zach actually had hopes he could beat the record [editor's note: did not! - Z].

Jimmy liked it for awhile and loved tracing the pictures, but by the end we (mainly fat pregnant me) were hot and tired and ready to drink more Pineapple juice and relax... so that is why we gave up with one more to go.

It drove Zach crazy! [there was only one more... - Z]

Here comes my favorite part: Pineapple Dole Whip!

Has anyone out there ever had this stuff? If not, you are missing out. The only other place that I know that has it is the Tiki Room at Disneyland so that should help explain how magical it is (it is honestly one of the things I look most forward to at Disneyland). It is basically like Pineapple soft serve, but I it is so fresh and perfect tasting that I don't think it can be replicated by anyone, but Dole.

Jimmy got a Pineapple Cup with a Pineapple Float inside. This was also delicious because it is just Pineapple Whip inside of the Freshest Pineapple Juice you have ever had. I refilled my cup from lunch as many times as I could because I just can't resist delicious free stuff!

I was a little excited.

And Jimmy loved playing this game with Nano where he would put the lid on Nano's head and then it would fall of and they would both laugh hysterically.

It was a fantastic time!