Hawaii - Saturday-Sunday, Aug. 17-18

Oh no!  She's pulling out more vacation photos!!!!!   Ok, this is going to be somewhat of a travel log without a lot of action photos.  In fact, the entire vacation will be that way, so you've been duly warned.  As a result, I really don't want anyone to feel obligated to leave a comment - wander through them at your own desire and pace...

Waikiki from Punchbowl

Diamond Head crater from Punchbowl

Punchbowl

Saturday we went for a drive and ended up inside the Punchbowl Crater.  Since Oahu is nothing more than an island created from a lot of volcanoes, the fact that one of them is used to house the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific for military should not be a surprise.  The fact that there was a spot in the middle of all the insane craziness of Waikiki and Honolulu that was quiet and calm and peaceful - now that was the pleasant surprise.

Punchbowl memorial  - the walls along the sides of the stairs have names of all the soldiers killed in action with bodies missing from many of the wars.  It was so very sobering.

Base of the flagpole

 Leo kept talking about a man who was buried in this cemetery, like he was a best friend or something.  Brent and Leo went into the Information Building to see if they could find the location of his headstone and not only did they find the location, they found an entire display about the man.  Turned out he was a war hero whom Leo had met once when Pyle came to visit with the General.   You can find out more about this man here.

So we set about looking for the headstone.  Brent went the logical direction, and I went the next logical direction.  Leo went the other direction. Edna stayed in the car.

After Brent located the headstone, he went and gathered is father and brought him back to where it was.

 Honolulu Stake Center

Dad's experiences with the Honolulu Stake Center during WW II were not really positive ones.  He only actually attended meetings here once or twice, but went to a little more humble building for his weekly meetings.   However, we needed to find it because it was the most logical option for Church on Sunday.   Garmen brought us up to the back door, rather than the front (which was where the Mission offices were located) on our way to Punchbowl earlier in the day.   We found a small group of missionaries who eagerly took our left over cinnamon rolls to share among themselves.  Then we took off for Punchbowl.

After we left the cemetery, Dad expressed a desire to still see the Stake Center.  We told him we had already been there.  That was when he said but we didn't see the front of it. Apparently it had always been a stopping place for their tours.   When we went back to it, this time finding our way to the front, we found out why.   This was the view of the stake center from the parking lot:

A huge old banyan tree graces the front yard of the Stake Center complex.  I was fascinated by it and took more pictures than were necessary.  Will only post a couple for your benefit.  Appears to be more than one tree making up the structure.

This was no ordinary building - rather a collection of several smaller buildings connected by an outside courtyard.  The doors above are the doors to the chapel.  But you can tell by the leaves scattered that this "hall" was an outdoor one.

Honolulu Stake Tabernacle on the right.  The building on the left housed the Relief Society room.

The stunning front of the Tabernacle boasts this mosaic of Christ watching over a reflecting pond that was added during a renovation back in the later 1900's.  This was what Dad wanted to show us.

Map of the Stake Center found on the back of the program from church on Sunday.

Windows to some of the bishops and clerk offices in one of the buildings built around the courtyard.

Brent, Leo and Edna

Edna and Leo at the Stake Center.   I could not get Leo to look at the camera the entire trip, but at least he was willing to kind of smile on occasion.

  

 Old Honolulu

Aliiolani Hale (home to the Hawaii State Supreme Court)

Statue of King Kamehameha

 We took more time finding a place to park than we did exploring these great sites in old town Honolulu.   Leo and Edna did not feel like going into the Palace - they had been there before, probably more than once, and I'm not sure it was user friendly for a person with limited walking abilities - so we just wandered outside for a minute, snapped some photos, and then went on our way.

Iolani Palace - across the street from the statue

Detail of the architecture on the palace.

Diamond Head Beaches

We finished the Saturday's excursions by driving down the road to Diamond Head.  This is what I wanted to see:

Figured there would be a parking place and ability to get out and get some photos.  I really enjoy lighthouses, and so does Brent.  Unfortunately, there was no parking, no photo ops, no photos.  I had to get this one from the Internet.   By the time we realized the lighthouse was there, we were past it.

So we went up the road a little bit, and Brent parked while I stepped out and snapped the photos below from the roadway, which at this point was quite a ways up a steep hillside down to the ocean:

Surfers

So many more things to do with waves now.   The surfers in the first photo were nothing compared to the flair of the guy skiing with the para-glider.  He'd do flips and somersaults through the waves using the force of the wind pulling him.  Really fun to watch!  I was fascinated with the big waves, which I understand were quite small compared to the surfing waves you see at Costa Vida.

Sunday we went back to the Stake Center for church.  During Priesthood Meeting  when Brent and Leo introduced themselves a voice shouted from the back of the room, "Hey, I stayed with you!"  Turned out it was the son of a friend of Leo and Edna's - Dan  (or was that his dad?)  Kwak.  And he did stay with them back in the 80's (I believe) while he was getting ready to get into BYU.  It was fun to see him and to find out where his mother lived.  Visiting her turned out to be our Monday afternoon activity.   Which I'll post about later.  Between breakfast, church, and dinner, there wasn't much time to do much else, so Sunday was an easy day.

The only photos I took were with my phone camera on our way back from eating dinner at Outback:

Yeah, I know.  Hawaii - dinner at Outback?????  But it was a known entity with parking (two blocks from our hotel but only a half block from its parking lot.)   We enjoyed a very laid back no pressure quiet dinner there just ahead of the evening dinner rush.  It was simply nice.