But we had the whole day. We had packed up the night before, so we got up at a decent time and headed out to make the most of the day.
We started with a hike up KoKo Crater. This was Mat's idea. He had found it online and we did want to try one more hike before we lieft. This mountain has 1000+ stairs straight up. They are made of railroad ties. (the steps). The ties were for an incline tram used by the military in World War II to transport personnel and supplies to the summit.
This hike was intense. Yes, it is climbing rail road tie stairs, but the stairs are uneven, straight up, and there are 1000 of them. One way. The kids were troopers. Arlington didn't want to do it - at all. But in the end she did great. Even Finley managed this without much trouble. She hung on to me on the way up and down, and it was fun. It took us about 90 minutes to make the climb. We took a lot of breaks for water on the way up. We weren't in any hurry, so we just took our time. The mountain was busy - lots of folks climbing up and down.
The view was amazing. IT was worth the hike. And coming down was a lot easier and we were down in about 30 minutes.
After this we were hot and sweaty and so we went to lunch to celebrate our success. After lunch we did some shopping and then drove past the Iolani Palace. It was closed by the time we got there, so we couldn't go in, but we walked around the grounds. The palace was the residence of the rulers of Hawaii during the Kamehameha Dynasty. The monarchy was overthown in 1893 and then the palace was used at the capital building until 1969. After that it was restored and opened as a museum.
Then it was time to head to the airport. We went early because we wanted time to have dinner, return our rental car, and relax a bit before our flight. We also had to change into warmer clothes because we were going to the Rose Bowl parade the next morning and it was going to be in the 40s. Burr.
Enjoy the pictures
The kids at the bottom of the mountain. Look at Arlington's face. Doesn't she look excited?
We saw these before we climbed - tons of shoes thrown over a wire
Koko Crater
View from part way up the crater
Waikiki and Honolulu
A little further up. That is Haunama Bay - where we snorkeled and parasailed
off in the distance - on the right - is Diamond Head - which we hiked
Looking down as we are almost at the top
We made it!!
View form the top
There were two Christmas trees at the top
Haunama Bay
Finley parked herself here
Time to go back down. It was breezy at the top and we stayed long enough to cool off
Iolani Palace
Capital building
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