Saturday was a special day

I have never enjoyed getting lost PERIOD, but Saturday was the most enjoyable day so far, because we got lost.  I guess we didn't really start out with a plan, we just knew we wanted to go to the PCC night show because they were having a fire knife competition...THE annual world fire knife competition actually, so we had a day to kill.  First we stopped to check out the prices and info about Waimea Valley and waterfall.  We will definitely do that when people come to visit.

Then we headed "into town" to the Aloha Bowl Swap Meet because the kids were really dying to buy some souvenirs. They head "into town" here, like we would head into town if we lived in Pine Valley or Hurricane.  It is about the same distance from Pine Valley to St. George as it is from our house to Honolulu.  Quite often I feel like we are in Pine Valley when we are in Pupukea.
Okay so SWAP MEET did not disappoint! Lots and lots of eye candy!

These were only a few of the fantastic treasures we found at the swap meet.  The kids loved it.  Kyle and Matty picked out some jewelry for me for Mother's day and the other kids bought me an aloha apron.  Evan got his ukulele and George got one of those little wooden toads and a new swimsuit.  Emily got a great coconut purse and Matty got a beautiful dress that she wants to wear everyday, and that we changed her into by the end of this day because she had spilled so much on herself!












We thought we would go into Honolulu and Waikiki and let the kids see the crazy tall hotels and all the really touristy stuff, but we took the wrong freeway and ended up bypassing all of that and getting to see the Stairway to Heaven and go thru one of the tunnels that cuts through the mountains.

I didn't take this picture because we passed by it so fast in the car, before I even knew what I saw. This tiny trail leads straight up the cliffs, FOR.EV.ER, and is actually off limits these days.  The trailhead is guarded, but people still show up at 4 a.m. to climb it before the guards come.

This took us over to the windward side of the island (East).  More life down here. More commercial areas, and of course beautiful beaches.  Kyle had been here before.  He took us back to the mall he had shopped at, we bought some new swimsuits, pillows and such.  The funniest thing about Hawaii so far, are the stop signs.  Not all the stop signs but for some reason, some stop signs are not red.

Red is a little too harsh for the islands I guess!







We headed North again and saw these giant wind socks and decided to pull off.  We knew they were big.....but what else was about it?

It was Kualoa Ranch and it is where I would like to retire.  It was incredible.  The best part was that all the tours they do were finished for the day, so we were just about the only one's there, besides the ranch hands and they just kind of explained to us where stuff was and let us wander.

 The horses had done their duty for the day and were being fed and washed down.

 There was a petting zoo.  We just let ourselves in the gate with this giant tortoise.  Everything was chill.  No beast or human alive cared that we were there.

 Especially not this guy.....he made me giggle. He did not move.  I am pretty sure we could have laid down with him and he wouldn't have cared.

 Further up in the property we did find this guy who was a little high strung.  He was actually the only   capuchin monkey on the islands and he was 50 years old.  His name was Fella, and this was his view.

This was their parrot Sirius, he was old too.
He would say Aloha to the kids, but he didn't like me so he would only say Aloha when I was walking away. He was Fella's neighbor.










This was just a big root, unconnected to the ground, laying in the field, but a new tree was growing out of the top of it.  Anything will grow anywhere.

We will definitely come back here and ride these horses and take hula lessons, but today it was great to have the 4000 acres to ourselves!

Finally we made it back up to the Polynesian Cultural Center and they did still have some tickets to the Fire Dance competition.  We picked up tickets, went into Laie for dinner, and headed back over for the show to start.  We were pretty tired.  Most of us were full of caffeine but Matty was really struggling after our marathon day.  It rained really hard for 15 minutes and we stayed under cover, mostly.

 Waiting is so fun!

Pre-show entertainment!

Then we watched the first half of the traditional PCC night show.  During intermission they had the competition.  The 3 best knife dancers in the world competed.  It was the most exciting thing. We were not supposed to take pictures, but I got a few with no flash.

It was an incredible competition.  Unbelievable.  We felt so lucky to have been here to see it.  Unfortunately Matty had HAD it. She was exhausted so we packed up and missed the rest of the show.
I have no doubt we will see it several times more!


It was just a fantastic fantastic day.
I hope we get lost more often.