Driving Around Hawaii

On Sunday we rented a car and drove around the island. First we planned on going to church. Unfortunately, it took over an hour to get the car so we only got to 20 minutes of church.

This is the church we attended. It was beautiful. It is called a tabernacle. It had a courtyard full of flowers. The chapel had four doors on each side and one more in the back.

We stopped at the Dole Plantation.

Here are baby pineapples. They were tiny.

I never knew that pineapples were different colors -- here are some red ones.

The Dole Plantation boasts of the world's largest maze in 2001 (don't know if one has beat it yet). Christian wanted to go in. There were eight booths that you find and copy the design in the booth on your paper. It was difficult, even with the map showing where the booths were. We were in there an hour. Unfortunately, we were having so much fun we forgot to take pictures of it :)

We took the train ride at the plantation. At the turn around point they had a garden with the plants in the shape of a pineapple.

These are chocolate pods. I that it was interesting. Didn't know they got so big.

After the Dole Plantation we continued driving around the island. We stopped at Waimea Valley where they was suppose to be a waterfall. It was about a half hour gentle hike up to the waterfall. Here are some pictures from the hike.

There was a peacock just sitting on the fence by the enterance.

I had to take a picture of the river -- it reminded me of Arizona rivers. No water!

Check out the roots growing down from the tree. The bigger one has reached the ground and grown into the ground.

I've heard of vines growing in trees, but not plants. I can't tell how these plants grow in the tree without the roots being in the ground. Any suggestions on how it does it?

Look closely at the picture above. Do you see the brown rocks all over the grass? They aren't rocks - they are tiny birds. We saw them all over the place. I didn't realize that they were birds until a couple of them flew to another part of the grass.

Here is the waterfall. The lifeguards said that it wasn't very big right now - they hadn't had any rain in three months. I guess that is their defination of a drought. They said that the waterfall is generally a lot bigger.

Christian was getting tired of posing for pictures by this time.

There were a lot of beautiful flowers all over the place. I just had to take pictures of some of them.

Look at these vines! I couldn't believe the curtain of vines hanging down from the tree branch.

Right before we finished our hike back down, we saw this mother peacock with her three baby peacocks. The mother kept digging at the ground. She was finding food for her babies.

These balls of something on the tree were very weird. I wish I knew what they were.

After Waimea Valley we went to the temple. I was surprised to find the Visitor Center open.

There were beautiful flowers planted along the pond in front of the temple.

This is the Christus in the Visitor's Center.

Look under the tree and you will see a strip of beach. It is only about 5 feet of beach. That is normal for most of the beaches in Hawaii.

This is Turtle Island. Gillian's Island was filmed on it. It is also the place where one of the bases is located that was bombed along with Pearl Harbor.

I know this picture is a little blurry - Christian took it from the moving car. Look at the deep ridges in the mountains. During the rainy season those ridges are waterfalls -- all of them. I would love to see that!