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!