Today we did something simple — we drove up H-1 on the west coast of Oahu, almost to the very end of the road. Actually, H-1 doesn’t go that far. It turns in to Highway 93 at Kapolei. All that means is we go from 4 lanes to 2 and the villages get smaller. But, it’s a nice drive up the coast.

One detracting aspect of the drive is all of the homeless camps along the west side of the road. That means all the homeless camps are pretty much on the beach. There are a lot of tents along Highway 93 but they avoid the villages and resort grounds. One of the resorts in the area is Aulani Disneyland Resort a little north of Kapolei. We drove in toward the property and the landscaping rapidly changed from homeless camps to incredibly elegant surroundings.

From this…

To this …

… and the Disney Resort …

Our purpose for taking this trip was to visit Wai’anae. There’s an Army recreational center there that consists of about 40 cabins, right on the beach. In the early 80’s Diane met me here when my ship, the USS Cleveland, was on the way home from a WESTPAC Cruise. I was granted leave to spend some time on the island with Diane while the ship made the 7 day transit to San Diego without me. We flew home together, to San Diego, which is a much better was to end a 6-month cruise.

If you look close at the above photo you can see about 20 people surfing.

We were happy to discover that the center is still in operation and the cabins have been upgraded considerably. They’ve all been raised about 4 feet off the ground to apparently avoid high surf. We didn’t get to go inside a unit to reminisce but that’s OK. We got to see the place, and walk along the beach where we spent a very memorable week. The only thing missing was my casette of Air Supply songs. We may go back there one day.

We took our time on the trip back to Honolulu, right lane all the way. It’s getting to be a familiar drive and we’re learning shortcuts.

The bellmen here at the Grand Waikikian are getting to know us and are giving us more leeway for leaving our car at the front entrance. Normally people can’t leave their vehicles out front for more than a few minutes, but we’ve graduated to 30 minutes. That gives us time to haul our treasures up to our room. The alternative is for Diane to ‘hire’ a bellman to carry our bags to the room, or I just go park the car and hurk them back myself. It’s only about 1/4 of a mile, and not a bad workout for this old man. But we both prefer the easy way of just taking stuff to our room then I can walk back empty handed after parking the car.

Our daughter, Jennifer, shared a photo of an injury she sustained when she was attacked by BB8 while working in one of her children’s rooms. She said it fell off a chest of drawers, but I think it jumped. I have permission to share the result. She really got thumped.

The reason BB8 was on a dresser was because she’s been super busy fixing up the bedrooms, vacated by their adult children, for the two small guys she and Daniel are adopting. The are Jasper 2, and Siah 1. Quite an adventure they have tackled, but they both love their new babies, as do the grown up kids, Cedric, Lydia, and Jeran. We’re pretty proud of them all and enjoy our new grand babies. They are pretty special.

OK. that’s it for #7.

Aloha.