BigWeather's Blog

I awoke before the dawn (and apparently had just missed Michelle being up with nausea) and tried getting back to sleep without success before getting up and beginning the day.  Michelle got up shortly thereafter and all four of us headed down to the Rainbow Lanai for breakfast around 8a.  They had two breakfast buffet options, both expensive — a continental one with cereal, fruits, pastries (including chocolate donuts and raspberry croissants, yay!), and some Japanese delicacies.  As an aside, Hawaii, and Oahu in particular, sees a large number of visitors from Japan, so much that many signs at the hotel are in English and Japanese and there are tour buses and other services that cater exclusively to Japanese visitors.  Additionally, many Hawaiians are of Japanese descent.  Thus many restaurants also cater to them.  Optionally a hot buffet with eggs, sausage, bacon, “garlic chicken”, monkey bread, and Portuguese not-quite-donut-but-yet-not-quite-beignet called malassadas was available for an additional fee.  In addition to the Japanese the Portuguese have a large presence in the state.

We picked up a cab from the main lobby at about 10a. The driver, Rafael, was talkative and friendly and shared knowledge as he drove us from the hotel to Pearl Harbor. He pointed out that the clouds hanging on the mountains that form the spine of Oahu were pretty much stationary and that in Hawaii it rained by zip code, and rarely for a long time except in the winter months when the big storms roll in. He pointed to a school on a ridge overlooking Honolulu that accepted children of a certain percentage Hawaiian blood (falling over time as the population naturally mixes) for a very solid and free education. He joked that he tried blood transfusions for his kids (he himself having a Mexican father and American mother) but it didn’t take. He also mentioned that some of the earliest murals about town were at the airport (like an impressive whale breaching the surface that covered the better part of a building) but their use spread and some sections of town really cultivated them.

We arrived at Pearl Harbor (technically World War II Valor in the Pacific National Monument) just after 10:30a and proceeded to take our cameras and other stuff out of our backpack and checked the backpack. Being an active base security was a bit tighter than normal for a National Monument. We collected our tickets for the 11a tour and, as it was nearly 11a already, passed the museum to stand in line to await entrance to the theater. While we waited a park ranger (monument ranger?) talked about the site a bit.

The video wasn’t very long, at about thirty minutes, but was really well done and informative. It is extraordinary some of the luck — good and bad — that transpired that day. From mistaking the incoming Japanese planes (187 in the first wave) as an incoming delivery of B-17s from the mainland (bad, bad luck) to the US carrier fleet being out to sea delivering planes to other bases (exceptionally good luck). The US commander feared sabotage rather than a surprise attack so had parked the planes together tightly wing tip to wing tip so that they could be protected by patrols easier. Yikes! We learned that though nearly every ship in harbor was sunk that all but three (Arizona, Oklahoma, and Utah) were eventually repaired and put back into service. The Nevada actually almost made it out to sea but, badly damaged, was run aground by its captain to prevent it from sinking in the harbor’s narrow entrance and blocking access for rescue and recovery.

The Arizona was hit by an armor piercing bomb that destroyed its ammunition stores and ripped it apart, its explosion happened to be caught on video. She lost over 1,200 souls that day, the majority still on board the vessel. Oklahoma lost over 400. Today only five USS Arizona survivors remain and, like those before them, they can request to be buried on the ship. They are first cremated and Navy divers swim out on their backs, urn held above water, while full military honors including a 21 gun salute are performed. The urn is then placed in one of the turrets (#4 if I recall). Also each year on December 7th all of the victims of the attack are listed on slips of paper and visitors honor the victim in a solemn ceremony.

While the attack (both the first wave and the latter second wave) was a success with the US battleship fleet destroyed along with many planes at a cost of only 24 planes and 5 midget submarines it had crucially failed to get the carrier fleet (which would be the deciding factor just seven months later at the Battle of Midway in June 1942). Perhaps more importantly, it had the opposite effect on US morale than the Japanese expected. Rather than defeating America’s fighting spirit it galvanized support for the war and in many ways was the birth of the modern United States.

Once the movie was done we walked out to the docks and boarded a fairly small vessel. Addison and I sat in the starboard bow and Genetta and Michelle the port bow. Near us sat a park ranger who would narrate the tour and two Navy sailors that piloted the boat. As the docks at the USS Arizona were being repaired we were not able to go on to the iconic memorial that spans (but does not touch!) the wreck. The harbor tour, however, was a nice consolation prize. In addition to going by the USS Arizona we sailed past the USS Missouri (where the Japanese surrendered in Tokyo Bay in 1945) as well as some (I think) active Marine vessels parked at the adjacent shipyard. He mentioned that in addition to the other victims of the USS Utah there were the remains of a little girl who died in 1937, the daughter of a sailor who had her ashes on board for a burial at sea that sadly never happened due to the attack.

On return to the dock we visited several nice memorials made of stone and nicely manicured lawn. There was one to all of the victims of the attack as well as one listing each submarine lost during WW2 as well as their crew, listed as being “on eternal patrol”. Michelle was wearing her USS Tang shirt (the USS Tang being an interactive submarine exhibit in New Orleans’ National WW2 Museum) and we found its memorial.

About 12:30p we boarded a motor coach for a quick ride over a bridge to Ford Island, a large island in the middle of Pearl Harbor. I chatted with a guy from Washington state for a bit along the way. The coach first stopped at the USS Missouri but we had decided to skip that (as we’ve toured the USS North Carolina a couple of times) in favor of the Pacific Aviation Museum. The museum was located next to the iconic control tower seen in movies such as “Tora! Tora! Tora!” in two large hangars, 37 and 79 — both of which survived the attack on Pearl Harbor.

We entered, purchased admission, then went to the adjacent Laniakea Cafe for lunch. I had an excellent (if a tad salty) kalua pork sandwich while Michelle had chicken tenders and Genetta a grilled cheese. Addison had a burger (which he said was “OK”) and garlic fries that he found much too garlic-y.

After lunch we watched a slide show about the museum and its artifacts narrated by a docent.  Stepping through the exit doors of the auditorium and into the main part of the hangar we were greeted by a Japanese “Zero” (actually a Mitsubishi A6M) restored to look like the Zero piloted by a Japanese pilot that had to crash land his plane on the Hawaiian island of Ni’ihau during the attack.

It wasn’t his actual plane that was restored, however.  That is because the wreckage of that plane was on display nearby as it appeared shortly after US government agents were done picking apart the plane.  Early in the war the Zero was one of the most impressive fighters due to its speed and maneuverability but American aviation experts hadn’t pieced together how the Japanese pulled it off.  Being able to scavenge the wreck proved to be a great boon.  Not only was the wreck fascinating but also the circumstances of the landing on Ni’ihau.  In 1924 a military strategist posited that Ni’ihau would be a perfect launching place for a Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor as it was quite flat and close enough to reach Oahu.  Note that carriers weren’t really a thing at that time, so a land-based airfield would be needed.  The government heeded his warnings and bought the land, plowing thousands of furrows in the flat portions of the island (the tractor used was even on display in the museum!) to make its use as an airfield impossible — and also prevented the injured Zero from landing intact.

Hanging above the wreckage was a reddish civilian plane flown by a father with his son on the morning of the attack.  The incoming first wave of Japanese fighters spotted the plane and fired upon it, forcing it to land at the adjacent civilian airport (now the main Honolulu airport).  One of two remaining Nakajima B5N “Kate” dive bombers was also on display — only part of the fuselage and wings and landing gear exist today — and this one was the more intact of the two!  Shame that has been lost to history.  Other craft on display was the trainer that George H. W. Bush flew, a Douglas SBD Dauntless dive bomber (nicknamed “Slow But Deadly”), a Grumman F4F Wildcat, a Curtiss P-40 Warhawk painted in Flying Tiger regalia, and a B-24 Liberator bomber.  Today, as when I was a child, I’m astounded at the bravery of the gunners of the B-24, particularly the entirely exposed nose.  Rounding out hangar 37 were some simulators that we took a pass on in the interest of time.

We walked the short (but very hot, especially as we were on the tarmac!) distance to hangar 79 where more planes were on display, including a Republic of Korea (ROK) fighter from the Korean War and a slew of helicopters outside the hangar.  The hangar itself still bore damage from the attack, including bullet holes in the hangar’s glass panes.

Unlike hangar 37’s planes the ones in 79 weren’t WW2 but rather Cold War and beyond.  They also weren’t individually displayed with painted backdrops nor placed upon faux carrier decking and the like.  Still really impressive, they had many of the more recent fighters such as the McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom, Grumman F-14 Tomcat, McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle, and General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon.  There was also a pair of Korean War jets, the Soviet MiG-15 as well as its foil, the North American F-86 Sabre.

The hangar was also a restoration workshop and they were currently in the process of restoring a B-17 that crashed in Guadalcanal.  The pilot thought he was landing in a field but quickly discovered it to be a shallow swamp.  It was a hard landing, bending all of the props, rendering the aircraft not flight-worthy.  He destroyed the top secret bomb sight then trekked for six weeks through the jungle before getting to a friendly base.  On subsequent missions he and other pilots would often see the wreckage lying in the swampy jungle below but the US could never recover it.  Years of weather and scavengers took their toll but it was finally recovered in the 2000s by cutting it into pieces and airlifting the pieces out to a local airfield.  There the pieces sat for weeks while the government of Papua New Guinea decided whether to allow export to the United States.  Luckily for us, they did.  It is now dubbed “The Swamp Ghost” and modern Disney artists designed really neat bomber art for it.  I didn’t know this, but one of the many civilian contributions of WW2 was Disney had their artists designing much of the bomber and squadron art for the US military.  Really neat (and explains the incredible quality of much of that art)!

We headed to the gift shop where we got some magnets and post cards and Addison bought a hat.  He wanted a hoodie with the Swamp Ghost design but he preferred the old version (tan rather than blue, really showing off the art better) and that didn’t come in a size he wanted.  Oh well.  Back on the coach for the ride off of Ford Island we learned about Red Hill Underground Fuel Storage Facility, completed in 1943 but not known to the general public until the mid-1990s.  The top secret facility, still in use today, consists of 20 12.5 million fuel storage tanks (250′ high by 100′ in diameter) encased in concrete mined into the volcanic rock of Red Hill.  Gravity-fed 2.5 mile long tunnels connected the tanks to fuel terminals for ships at the Naval base in Pearl Harbor.

A new museum covering submarines is coming in 2020, sadly too late for us on this trip.  Did get a sweet Hawaii magnet with both the map and flag on it, though.  We went through the two small buildings we skipped on the way to the theater earlier in the day.  Inside were interesting exhibits on how the war affected Hawaiians — the threat of invasion was very real, blackouts strictly enforced, martial law declared, etc. — as well as the second generation Americans of Japanese ancestry Nisei regiment that distinguished itself in action in Italy, also known as the Purple Heart Battalion.

We texted our taxi driver from earlier, Rafael, about 4p.  He finally showed up about 4:45p (Honolulu traffic is terrible) and, as traffic was heavy, opted to take us via US-92 rather than H1 (Hawaii’s interstate except, of course, intrastate).  We talked about his parents, moving to Hawaii in 1974, and the light rail system that is coming thirty years too late — built to ferry people from a town to the west into Honolulu.  Seems cheap housing was used to lure people to the new town with the expectation that jobs would follow — they never did.  He also said that for many Japanese Hawaii was a great destination — close and safe and they knew they’d be taken care of.  With China’s rise many Hawaiians figured that they’d be able to attract that tourism in the same way but it turned out that many of the things Chinese tourists valued weren’t the same.  Also, many Hawaiians retire to Las Vegas (a later tour guide would refer to it as the ninth Hawaiian island) due to cost of living being so high in Hawaii.

We arrived back at the room shortly after 5p.  Addison and I walked to the west past the Duke Kahanamoku Lagoon and the marina and across the canal that separates Honolulu from Waikiki to Ala Moana Regional Park situated across from the mall.  As we crossed over the canal and looked toward the inland mountains we saw a bit of a rainbow.  As it was getting dark we headed back to the resort.  We stopped by the ABC Store (in Hawaii that is a very, very common convenience store and NOT Alcoholic Beverage Control!) for a six-pack of bottled water as well as a solar-powered hula dancer figure at a nearby souvenir store.

Exiting the store we saw Michelle and Genetta returning from a little bit of shopping then headed as a group to Round Table Pizza for dinner.  Michelle had a spinach and pineapple pizza while Genetta and I shared a medium garbage pizza that wasn’t bad.  For appetizer we had garlic bread and it was OK, nothing Earth shattering.  Addison and Michelle went back to the room while Genetta and I had some ice cream from Lappert’s Hawaii, a fairly ubiquitous ice cream shop.  I had two scoops of Kona Coffee in a styrocone or (as the rest of the world calls it) a cake cone.  Genetta looked up styrocone as she was convinced it was a Brian-ism (and to be fair, it is…) but at least one other crazy person out there calls it the same thing.  Thank you Internet!

As soon as we got back to the room there was the boom boom boom of fireworks so Genetta and I quickly turned around to try and catch them.  We arrived in time to see the finale and that’s it.  Bummer.  Headed back to the room and to bed around 11p as we were still quite tired from the trip over.

Our latest trip, this time to Hawaii (or more correctly Hawai’i, but I’ll stick with the far easier to type version), began as all the other ones seem to — with about 30 minutes of sleep.  We’ve really got to get better at packing, we always think we’ve started early enough to get a decent night’s sleep but always, always, end up in a panic at the end as we throw stuff into suitcases and hurry out the door.  Though Hawaii should be an easier destination than say St. Lucia due to the availability of the same goods and services you’d expect elsewhere in the United States (except more expensive), there were enough annoying specialized things like prescription snorkeling masks, medicine, clip-on sunglasses, and camera stuff that it was important to have some planning in the packing process.

Anyhow, collapsed in bed at 3:30a prior to our 4a wake-up alarm.  Awake not nearly refreshed and do the final packing (and in Addison’s case, all the packing) and house prep before our taxi was set to arrive at 5:15a.  Yes, we’re old people, I still don’t really fully trust Uber or Lyft.

Maybe I should have.  The taxi driver sure seemed tired — AC blasting, a little weave-y on the road, and stopping waaaaay too early at stoplights and such.  Thankfully (maybe) once he got on the interstate he was quite the speed demon and we made it to the airport shortly after 5:30a.

I figured 5:30a on a mid-may Wednesday would be a perfectly empty time at the airport and boy was I wrong.  The line for American (and other airlines it shares the kiosks and baggage check-in with) snaked around the terminal lobby.  As we had already printed our boarding passes (thank you Michelle!) we ended up doing curb-side and that, combined with TSA pre-check (on all four of us, miraculously) got us to our gate fairly quickly.  We had just enough time for some Breuggers bagels (mine had “peppered bacon” and yes, it was nasty) before setting off to Dallas-Fort Worth at about 7:30a.

The flight was largely uneventful.  At least I think it was.  I was knocked out stone cold for the majority of it.  Unfortunately so was Addison and as a result he didn’t pop his ears properly and was in considerable pain prior to landing.  Genetta wasn’t doing great either as she had been harboring a cold for a day or so and it was really asserting itself.  It was a smaller plane, 3 seats left / 3 seats right, and felt downright cramped by the time we had taxied to the gate.  I thought we’d never stop taxiing, I was only half-joking when I suggested to Addison that maybe there had been an itinerary change and we were driving the plane to Los Angeles then flying on to Honolulu.  It didn’t help that we had a tight connection to our flight to Honolulu to add a bit to the normal travel stress.

We needn’t have worried, we disembarked at a gate in the same concourse as our departure gate.  Not to say the departure gate was near — nothing is near in DFW — but it was nice to not have to change concourses (DFW has five total, accessible via a nifty monorail called SkyLink).  Addison and I got some Chick-fil-A breakfast (mainly some sausage-type biscuits, hashbrowns, sweet teas, that sort of thing, you know, health food) and we ate at the gate quickly before boarding.  I learned a few things in that pre-boarding time.  First, that the flight from Dallas to Honolulu was a bit longer than I thought by about two hours (going from five to seven) and second, Hawaii is normally five hours behind (sharing a timezone with the Aleutians of Alaska) but doesn’t observe daylight savings time.  So tack on another hour for that and then a little extra for strong headwinds and we were looking at nearly nine hours in the air.  Addison wasn’t pleased at the nearly 100% increase in flight time that he was promised.  Ooops.

Once in the air it got a bit better.  A proper plane makes all the difference — this one a 3 left / 4 middle / 3 right and glorious in-headrest entertainment.  I watched Bohemian Rhapsody (perfectly fine, though with crappy earbuds I’m sure it lost some impact, and I’m still scratching my head over Best Actor on that one) and parts of Into the Spider-verse, Fifty First Dates (due to it being set on Oahu), Star Wars (the OG), and a couple other movies.  I just couldn’t settle on one, but jumping around as well as playing with the flight tracking app had me good to go.  Michelle watched The Boy Who Would Be King or somesuch.  The food wasn’t too bad, lunch was Asian chicken wraps with ginger soy dipping sauce, Hawaiian kettle chips, and some chocolate covered fruit and granola that was quite good.  That and some snacks (including those tasty Biscoff cookie wafer things) and drinks helped lots.

We finally landed at just after 2p Honolulu time, 8p back at home.  Right at the gate we were met by a lady that told us where to find the transportation to our hotel (as we weren’t renting a car on Oahu due to traffic and parking fees being exorbitant) as well as gave us each a welcoming lei.  No, it wasn’t free — our travel agent had said it was a fun thing to do and it kind of was.  Kind of still scratching my head how a non-airport non-traveler person was allowed in the gate area but hey Hawaii.  Our fiftieth state!

The airport was big but also had a loose vibe (in addition to strangers bearing flowers wandering around past the security checkpoint).  The bathroom stick figures wore Hawaiian shirts and dresses and the Hawaiian words for “men” (or, perhaps, “brah”) and “women” was just under the English.  Parts of it were connected by open air bridges that crossed over lush landscaping that included gorgeous (and large!) blossoms.  Baggage claim was pretty laid-back too and we soon found ourselves outside on the curb with Lady Lei and two strangers waiting for our limo van.

As a stranger is just a friend you haven’t met (or a scary murder hobo you really shouldn’t under any circumstance be talking to) and I really, really like to talk once the older of the two noticed Michelle’s Louisiana Music Factory shirt (or perhaps our WW2 Museum luggage tags) and struck up a conversation about New Orleans we were off to the races.  The were from Slidell and it was a mother and daughter on vacation in Hawaii celebrating the daughter’s graduation from the University of South Carolina.  Weeee, another connection!

We talked about our plans (they were doing Oahu then Maui) and other things as we were driven through the highly congested Honolulu streets to our hotel — the Hilton Hawaiian Village in Waikiki.  Along the way we passed dockyards (cargo containers emblazoned with “Young Brothers” were everywhere), an impressive Coast Guard cutter, and many buildings with murals.  Honolulu has many impressively tall buildings and the city sprawls up the valleys and ridges of the mountains to its north.  The mountains were amazing — lush with vegetation and suitably craggy with white cloud banks stationed atop them permanently.

Unsurprisingly, we added Hawaii to our list of plates that we’ve been accumulating (in any order, no, never doing the A to Z again!) — leaving only Montana.  Some (very faint) hope of that — we did see Colorado and Washington despite being on an island thousands of miles in the middle of the Pacific!  We arrived at the resort and I stood in a quite long line to check-in while Michelle (not feeling great) and Genetta (ditto) stayed with the luggage and Addison went off exploring.  He returned with some fruit for Michelle (and his favorite Teriyaki beef jerky which he excitedly told us was quite astonishingly $6 cheaper in Hawaii) and that, combined with free water bottles handed out during the wait to check in, saw the ladies through the process and had us off to our rooms by around 4p.

We were staying in the Rainbow Tower in oceanfront room 1027.  When booking our hotels through the travel agent I had asked for oceanfront if possible and had grappled with whether it worth the increase in price.  The view from our room allayed those doubts — we had a beautiful view of Waikiki Beach and Diamond Head, a volcanic cone right on the coast, beyond.  Below sprawled one of many pools on-site.  The only disappointment was that we didn’t get the two queen beds that were requested (and the reservation said they weren’t guaranteed) so we had two fulls.  Not ideal but workable.  The room itself was nice enough with a large screen TV (still unused two days later) and a decent bathroom (albeit with a funky sliding door) and a nice balcony with two chairs and a small round table.

As we were extremely hungry and tired we decided to head to dinner just shy of 5p.  We wandered down to the lobby then along the pool area replete with waterfalls and ponds filled with koi and smaller blue fish to the Tropics Bar & Grill across the way in the ground floor of an adjacent tower.  We were seated almost immediately.  The food was fairly expensive (it being Hawaii) but the servings were very generous.  Honestly it was a situation where I’d gladly pay two-thirds the price for half the food.  Michelle had fish and chips, Genetta has chicken wings, Addison had nachos with kalua pork (pork cooked in an underground oven, often see at luaus), and I had a slab of beef brisket accompanied with corn on the cob, fresh vegetables, and very tasty potato salad.  It was different, though, being more like roasted potato wedges with a herb garlic and scallion topping.  It was great.  Michelle had a sweet tea with ginger pineapple flavoring adorned with a pineapple wedge and tropical flower.

As we were wrapping up a guy wearing a leaf crown and Polynesian garb (mainly just a loincloth) ran around the resort lighting all of the tiki torches in the vicinity.  We returned to the room (via the funky elevator system where you punch in your floor in the lobby and it directs you to the correct elevator and from there it is mostly a direct trip).  Michelle and Genetta relaxed while Addison and I changed and headed back down to the beach.  We watched the sunset at around 7p and swam a bit in the fairly warm ocean water (after a brief period of adjustment).  Sadly I only had the GoPro with me (as we were swimming) so couldn’t get great shots of the spectacular sunset).  In addition to sand there were bits of coral like rock.  One nice thing was that the water was perfectly clear unlike at home.  After getting out we dried off a bit and rinsed off our feet and shoes before heading up to the room to shower.  Exhausted, we collapsed in our beds about 8p.