DATE: Monday, December 26, 2022

Well, last morning on the North Shore. Coffee and sunrise, as was my routine. The rest of the family eventually came down to join me. And Seth stuck around with me until the sun came up.

After the relaxing sunrise, it was time to shift gears and start to pack up. Quite the frenzy! We were out of the AirBnB at about 8:45 and on our way south. Bye-bye, North Shore!

Today, we saw Pearl Harbor’s Arizona Memorial. I’d seen it just before I left Oahu, and I’m glad I was able to bring my family back. It was a truly sad and historic day, December 7, 1941.

It was nice to see the base again, even if only from a distance. Lots of memories came back to me. One of them was riding the ferry back and forth to and from Ford Island where I lived for about a year. An old WW2 hospital on the island was converted to barracks. Now, there’s a bridge to the island, and it looks like it’s much more populated than it used to be.

The only drawback to the day was the crowd. Understandably, there were a lot of people there, as I’m sure there normally is. We reserved the self-guided audio tour, which was very informative. There was also an option to reserve a time to ride the boat to the Arizona, which I was not aware of until today. That cost us over 2 hours in line in the hot Hawaii sun. One of those hours was a lunch break for the Navy personnel running the ferry who apparently haven’t figured out how to eat in shifts. 😐

Off to the airport to turn in our cars and catch our flight to the Big Island’s Hilo! We were checking bags (which was a do it yourself kinda deal) and Zach, Eli, and Seth offered to carry on their bags, which saved us $150 – just in time for lunch/dinner! However, we hadn’t really planned for them to do that, so Eli and Seth got dinged at TSA. Eli was carrying a Nerf dart gun, which the TSA agent just laughed at. However, Seth had a pocket knife that he had left over from a camping trip that he forgot about. See ya, knife!

For lunch/dinner, it was expensive airport pizza, which hit the spot.

We took off for Hilo a little after 7pm and landed about an hour later. All day, for some reason, Vivian had been insisting on sitting next to me on the plane, which she did. However, she slept the entire flight. It was a long, hot day.

We picked up some groceries at a nearby Walmart in Hilo and headed toward our next AirBnB just south of Keaau, about a 1/2 south of Hilo. Compared to our first place, which was pretty small, this place was very impressive! Lots of space for us here. It’s nestled in a wooded property, too. Since it’s dark, we’ll have to wait and see what the property actually looks like.

Showers and bed. Goodnight, everyone.