Hawaiʻi - Waikiki Beach and Oʻahu

There’s something about Hawaiʻi that keeps calling us back. In the past ten years we’ve been to the other main islands (Maui, Kauaʻi, and the Big Island of Hawaiʻi) so we thought this time we should check out Oʻahu. We booked a quick one-week trip through Costco to Waikiki Beach.

Duke Kahanamoku statue on Kuhio Beach

Kuhio Beach

We stayed at the Outrigger Waikiki Beach Resort, which was in a perfect location right on the beach and within walking distance to lots of great restaurants. Our balcony even had a (partial) ocean view. (We also had a full view of the balconies of the hotel next to us; it’s always interesting to look across while sipping a sundowner and see about a hundred other people staring back at you).

Our room was decorated in – what else? – a Hawaiʻian theme.

From the beach in front of the hotel, we had great views of Diamond Head, a huge volcanic cone that is one of Oʻahu’s most-recognizable landmarks.

The other great thing about the Outrigger beach resort is that they have a fantastic jazz venue on site, The Blue Note. We went to two shows here during our stay and it is a great place to see a live performance – there are only about 300 seats and all of them have a great view of the stage. Lots of big names perform here even though it’s a small venue because, hey, free trip to Hawaiʻi.

We rented a car for one day and drove the loop around the island, starting our morning at the USS Arizona Memorial in Pearl Harbor. The Park Service is currently repairing the dock at the Memorial, so we couldn’t disembark and see inside, but it was a very moving experience just to be there and reflect on the many sailors and Marines who lost their lives on December 7, 1941.

Our next stop was at Haleʻiwa Aliʻi Beach Park on the North Shore to watch the Van’s Triple Crown surf competition for an hour or so. The waves were huge and the surfers were just tiny specks in the blue sea, but the hilarious commentary over the loudspeakers filled us non-surfers in on every drop, cutback, and wipe out, and helped us make sense of what we were seeing.

As we made our way to the eastern side of the island, we stopped at the Byodo-In Temple which is a half-size replica of Japanese temple of the same name. Since we plan on heading to Japan in spring 2019, this was an interesting place to visit – we plan on seeing lots of temples while we are in the Land of the Rising Sun.

Our last stop with the rental car was at Kualoa Regional Park, where we had great views of the Koʻolau Mountain Range, which has been the backdrop for many films and TV shows including Jurassic Park, Lost, and Magnum PI.

As I mentioned, we only rented a car for one day, but the local bus on Oʻahu is cheap and easy to use to get around. We took the bus into downtown Honolulu to check out the beautiful ʻIolani Palace, America’s only official royal palace and a National Historic Landmark. It was decorated in Monarchy-era bunting in honor of what would have been King Kalakaua’s 182^nd birthday.

We were also able to take the bus to the world-famous snorkeling site at Hanalei Bay. It was packed with people, and it is so popular that they actually close the site down one day a week in order to try to let the coral recover from all the snorkelers. Unfortunately the coral still looked mostly bleached to us. Although the snorkeling was kind of a bust, at least there were gorgeous views of the bay from the trailhead.

Hawaiʻi is a food-lover’s paradise, and of course we had plenty of kahlua pork, poke, and loco moco on this trip. We also made sure to have at least one token meal that included SPAM.

Too. Much. SPAM. (And way too many pancakes, too!)

But something new that we tried on this trip were malasadas from Leonard’s Bakery. Malasadas are the Portuguese version of little jelly doughnuts, covered in sugar and filled with all kinds of sweet jams. We tried a variety of them – the guava flavor was my favorite.

This was Kevin’s second trip to Oʻahu and my first, but there was just so much to do and see on the island that I know we’ll be back again soon. Aloha!

Santa Barbara Week Four

"Viva La Fiesta!"

Our last week here in Santa Barbara kicked off with a bang. For the past 94 years, the town has celebrated its Spanish heritage and history with the Old Spanish Days Fiesta. One of the main events of the five-day festival is the Desfile Histórico (historical parade) which features over 600 horses. The parade started just around the corner from our apartment, so we went to check it out.

Horse riders in traditional costumes

Mariachis

Flamenco dancers

Santa Barbara on a horse-drawn float

We went to the Mercado de la Guerra a couple of times to enjoy some food (mmmm....churros!) and live music.

We also learned about the tradition of cascarónes. These are hollowed out eggs that are colorfully decorated and filled with confetti. Some are just dyed a single color, but many of them are miniature works of art.

Photo courtesy of Santa Barbara Independent

The fun thing to do is to go around breaking the shells (cascarón is the Spanish word for shell) over unsuspecting people's heads. We were sitting next to a family at one of the Fiesta events and their cute little boy about two years old was very excited to break one over my head, shouting "Viva La Fiesta!". Very fun! As you can imagine, the city spends several days sweeping up confetti after the festival...

We also took some time over the weekend to tour the gorgeous Santa Barbara Courthouse building, which is modeled after a Spanish-style castillo and has a beautiful Mural Room. Weddings are often held here.

The clock tower of the Courthouse offers 360-degree views of the entire city and surrounding mountains.

We managed to keep quite busy this week! We also went to Stearns Wharf...

...visited the Sea Center...

...watched the locals lounge on the beach …

... and saw the largest ficus tree in the US, a Moreton Bay Fig tree. This is just a block from our apartment and was planted in the late 1870's.

It's been a lovely (and relatively cool) month here in Santa Barbara. We will certainly miss it once we are back in the summer heat of Arizona!

Santa Barbara Week Three

Probably the main tourist attraction in the area is the Santa Barbara Mission. The Spanish founded a series of 21 missions all along the California coastline, and Santa Barbara's was the tenth -- established in 1786 by the Franciscan order. We took a guided tour on Saturday, which gave us a lot more insight than if we had just wandered the grounds on our own. The church itself is built more like a Greco-Roman temple than a contemporary Catholic cathedral because at the time the missionaries copied the design out of a book by the ancient Roman architect Vitruvius.

For anyone who read "Island of the Blue Dolphins" back in grade school, that book was based on a true story about a Chumash woman who was accidentally left behind on one of the Channel Islands when the missionaries evacuated the rest of her tribe. She lived alone, Robinson Crusoe-style, for 18 years until she was "rescued" and brought to Santa Barbara. She was the last of her tribe -- all the others had died in the interim, mostly due to catching European diseases. She died just seven weeks later, having contracted dysentary, and is buried in an unmarked grave in the Mission churchyard.

We got to Santa Barbara a few months too late for the I Madonnari art festival, which was held at the end of May. Street painters create works of art in chalk on the Mission's entry plaza. Luckily the pastel chalk they use lasts a long time and Santa Barbara doesn't get much rain, so we were able to see the remnants of the artworks. I'm sure the colors are much more vivid when fresh.

After visiting the Mission, we drove up into the surrounding hills to have lunch at the Cold Spring Tavern. This used to be a stagecoach stop on the San Marcos Pass - the tavern building dates back to 1886. On weekends they have live music, and the bluegrass band that was playing when we were there (the Salt Martians) was really good.

On Sunday we took a ferry out to the Channel Islands National Park. It's one of the few US National Parks that you can't get to by car. The park consists of five isolated islands and the surrounding water which is a marine sanctuary. (Other Channel Islands, like Catalina Island near Los Angeles, aren't part of the National Park). We only had time to go to one of the islands, Santa Cruz.

We had booked a sea cave kayaking tour through Santa Barbara Adventure Company, and this was a great way to explore the island and keep cool at the same time.

For three and a half hours we paddled our hearts out, exploring a whole bunch of caves and even seeing a sea lion briefly, before it dove below the surface. But the caves were really the highlight.

After kayaking we had a little time to explore the island itself. We were actually glad we'd booked kayaks instead of hiking -- the islands are really dry, and the midday sun in August is hot. Besides, the main thing I really wanted to see on land were the Channel Island foxes, and we saw plenty of them just hanging out in the picnic areas, no need to hike at all!

Each of the islands has its own unique subspecies of fox. They are about the size of a large housecat and don't seem to have much fear of people. During the early 2000's the population rapidly declined due to predation by Golden Eagles. In 2004 there were only about 100 wild foxes on the island of Santa Cruz, and they were listed as "critically endangered". After successful intervention the fox population on Santa Cruz has made a comeback and there are now more than 1700 foxes living on the island. It's nice to hear a conservation success story for a change!

Santa Barbara Week Two

We're loving the beautiful weather here in Santa Barbara. Even though we had a "heat wave" this week (temps shot up to 86 on Wednesday!), we couldn't tell any difference -- the days have been breezy and the evenings are even a little chilly. Such a nice change of pace from the record-breaking highs in Phoenix right now.

On Friday evening we packed up some snacks and tried to attend an open-air screening of a Wallace and Gromit movie. There were signs posted on the grass warning "No Non-natural fiber blankets allowed". (It's to protect the grass). Unfortunately we had only brought a fleece blanket that was lined with plastic, so we thought we'd go ahead and be rule-breakers for just this once. But crime doesn't pay -- we got caught by one of the "blanket police" and were asked to remove it. I guess we were lucky they didn't confiscate it! Here is a "before" mugshot:

And here is our "punishment" -- an almost-as-comfy spot that we claimed on the nearby wall. It was only a few feet further back, so we could still see the screen just fine.

Over the weekend we took a couple of Architecture Walking Tours which are offered by the city. A massive earthquake in 1925 is largely responsible for the uniform Spanish-style look of the buildings in Santa Barbara. After the earthquake destroyed most of the downtown area, the town rebuilt with a very strict aesthetic (wrought iron, white walls, and red tile roofs) that continues to this day. The Saturday tour took us to mostly pre-1925 buildings, while the Sunday tour focused more on the newer buildings. I preferred the Saturday tour and I especially liked the Meridian Studios complex, which contains one of the oldest buildings in town, the Lugo Adobe built in 1830.

We also visited the Presidio historic park, which includes the remnants of the fort built here by Spain in 1782.

Over the weekend we also roamed around the brewpubs and wineries in the "Funk Zone" which is an area of town that is clearly NOT subject to the strict Architecture Review Board.

We love being in the heart of town where we can easily walk to dinner or a pub or a wine tasting room. We heard some funky jazz at the Carr Winery:

We went to an all-you-can-eat taco buffet in El Paseo's open-air restaurant on -- what else? -- Taco Tuesday:

But we don't go out for *every* meal. The Farmer's Market always seems to have some yummy ingredients so we've managed to scrape together a nice meal or two at home, too.

Santa Barbara Week One

Arizona is face-meltingly hot this time of year, so we made a hasty escape to Santa Barbara for a few weeks. We got an Airbnb rental in an area that would be walkable to Stearns Wharf, restaurants, shops, and bars.

Upon arrival the apartment needed a good cleaning (and a thorough spray of Raid to evict some ants), but other than that it is pretty great. Kevin will have a great view of Mission Creek (and a sliver of a view of the ocean) while working at the desk upstairs. The duplex doesn't have air conditioning, but it's not really needed since temps are in the 70's and there is usually a breeze. One drawback is that we are near two (!!) construction sites, a busy hotel, and the train station so there is a lot of traffic and noise on our street. But we could see the construction in the listing photos (see below), so it wasn't really a huge surprise.

Another drawback is that there are no dedicated parking spaces with this rental -- just street parking. We spent a good amount of time puzzling over the many different parking signs in the area. We *think* we have it figured out - we will just need to move the car around a couple times a week to avoid being in the street sweeping zone.

But we love that we are just a block from the beach, and the cool weather here is perfect for taking a nice long walk every morning. We are getting way more than 10,000 steps each day that's for sure!

It's good that we're getting plenty of exercise, because one of the first things we did in town was to take a walking/food tour, which was a great way to get our bearings. There are tons of restaurants in this town. I doubt we will have time to hit them all, but we will certainly do our best!

The food tour included stops at several downtown area restaurants and a couple wine tasting rooms: Grassini Vineyards and Cebada.

We have also discovered that Santa Barbara is a great place to get a pint -- there are tons of pubs and brewhouses within a couple-block radius of us. So far one of our favorite places has been a spot aptly named "The Brewhouse". Cheers!