Hawaii Vacation - Oahu

We just came home from an excellent Veldhof Hawaiian vacation! Erin and I decided to leave a few days early and spend some time on Oahu. We flew into Honolulu on a Saturday evening and had 2.5 days to explore the island. We stayed on the 43rd floor of a hotel near Waikiki Beach.

The landscape is incredibly unique and hugely variable. There were mountains, rain forests, beaches, cliffs, and much more. We started with the most famous landmark, Pearl Harbor. The memorial was very well done and I enjoyed learning about the history.

From there we drove to Punchbowl Crater (another war memorial) for a terrific view of Honolulu.

We drove to a famous cliff separating the windward side of the island from the calm side.

Then we did a hike along a coastal cliff. Evie was in her element during this hike. She chirped at everyone what walked by and babbled happily on my back for the whole hike. It was priceless to watch the reactions of other hikers as she made noises and laughed in their direction.

To end day one we went to a beautiful beach in a cove called Hanauma Bay.

On Monday we decided to drive around north Oahu to see the famous "North Shore." Unfortunately it rained basically all day so we didn't stop at any of the beaches. In the morning we did a nice hike through a beautiful rain forest to Manoa waterfall.

After driving around the north shore and stopping at few touristy spots in the rain we came a hike that looked good. It was a 2.5 mile loop hike and the rain seemed to be letting up. We had 2 hours of daylight left and decided to go for it. That was dumb; after 30 minutes it started raining hard, baby began crying and didn't stop, and we felt very uncomfortable by ourselves in a rain forest with darkness approaching. We breathed a big sigh of relief when we completed the loop with plenty of light left. The views would have been great if we weren't literally in a cloud.On our last half day we went to the Waikiki aquarium and then enjoyed an hour on famous Waikiki Beach.