Hawaii, Day 14 ~ Waimea Valley and Family

On our sixth day on Oahu, we went to Waimea Valley.  Greg and Kylen took a 20 minute walk on a paved trail to a small waterfall while I had lunch and shopped.

I ordered the teriyaki hot dog with fried onions and sweet potato fries.

There were all sorts of birds wandering around, looking for scraps.  One was wandering around on my table.  I should have realized it was a bad omen.

As I was reaching for my drink with one hand and holding my hot dog in the other, a peacock suddenly lunged in with lightning speed and snatched half of my dog.  It startled me terribly!  I didn't scream, but once I got past the trauma and realized what happened, I was pretty irate.  It had been walking around the whole time I was waiting for my order, but the moment it got my food, it disappeared without a trace.  I couldn't even get a picture of the thief.  Grrrrr!

They had a nice gift shop.

Once Greg and Kylen returned, they ordered their lunch: kalua pork and a burger.  The pulled pork is on a purple taro bun.

I had a cookies and cream ice cream sandwich for dessert.  Oh my!  It was SO good!!!!  Kylen had the North Shore coffee ice cream sandwich, and Greg had one of their homemade popsicles.  We liked the sandwiches a lot better.

Greg took lots of pictures on their walk.  :)  He got so many good ones, I had a hard time deciding which to post!

Can you believe these gigantic lily pads???  At least two feet across, Greg said.

He got some shots with bugs!  Sweet!!!

The pool looked muddy, but plenty of people were swimming in it.  I wouldn't be surprised if this wasn't its natural state.  Beaches, pools, rivers . . . they all change drastically when a storm comes through.  On the Big Island, there was a beach across from our condo called Magic Sands.  Occasionally, the sand gets swept out to sea.  And we were told to avoid one side of the island, because they'd just had a hurricane.  They call it brown water.  A bunch of runoff from the hills carries debris into the ocean, and it needs a little time to recover.

Hawaii is a botanist's dream.

This was a skinny tree - less than 2 inches in diameter - with a tuft of green at the end.  It stood out from its surroundings.  I'm sure we could come up with a metaphor here.

We met my extended family at a restaurant for dinner, Shore Bird.

It was a bit unusual.  You cook your own meat.

Definitely a memorable meal!

An hour later, we were to meet on the beach of a nearby hotel to see fireworks.  It was an ordeal getting there, but we finally made it!  Very, very cool.  I'd never been that close to big fireworks shooting off.

Saturation cranked!

Last, we went home and had ice cream.  :)  Thank you, Ben and Holly, for buying!