On Thursday we packed up our stuff and started heading south to the airport in Lihue. We picked up a sub to eat on Ke'e Beach. We ended up in
very heavy traffic because of road work and merging traffic, so it was good that we had left extra time. We caught our jumper flight back to Honolulu. I'm so glad we didn't rent a car there, because there was so much traffic. We checked into our hotel and walked five minutes to Waikiki Beach. We didn't swim, but just walked along the beach.
On Saturday, we took a tour bus to Pearl Harbor. We were going to go on our own, but we were glad we booked a tour. The tour guide was in line for tickets at 5:30 am. The park opens at 7, and all the ferry tickets were sold by 7:20 am! But we had tickets for 11:15. We first started with U.S.S. Bowfin submarine. Dan really enjoyed the whole day, even though I wasn't too sure of what half of these pictures are...
As were finishing up on the sub, it started to drizzle and cloud over. By the time we went through a gift shop and had found a sandwich, it started to downpour!
We were in line for our ferry by 11:00, but because of the rain and low visibility, the Navy stopped running the ferries out to the memorial. I was praying so hard that the rain would stop and we would get to go to the memorial because I didn't want to spend the whole trip home next to Dan if we didn't get to! Thankfully, the rain let up around 11:20. The 11:00 group ahead of us forfeited their tickets because they were seeking shelter from the rain and weren't ready to go when the Navy resumed the ferry. The U.S.S. Arizona Memorial was a very humbling experience.
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| The "rainbow" in the water is still oil leaking out of the sunken ship. |
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| Over 900 men are entombed in the U.S.S. Memorial. |
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| Since it was so cloudy, the remains were hard to see. |
After we were done at the U.S.S. Arizona, we headed to the Battleship Missouri Memorial. Again, Dan was super excited to be on a battleship, and he understood more of this than I did!
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| Statue of "Victory Kiss" |
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| Place where Japan surrendered |
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| Captain's Quarters |
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| Dan didn't fit in the bunks too well! |
On the way back to our hotel, the tour bus quickly rode through Punchbowl National Cemetery.
We also swung by Iolani Palace, which was home to Hawaii's original royalty.
We flew home on Sunday, May 19, the same route as when we went there. In Denver we had a two hour layover that turned into four hours because the crews got caught up with storms that were happening in the Midwest. Because of the delay, we didn't get home until 5:00 am Monday morning. We had a wonderful trip, but it's always nice to come back home!
