Santa had not completely forgotten Rosie. She woke up to
find two presents at the end of her bed. The first was a portable CD player that
she had been squawking for. The second was a case to hold a dozen or more CDs
compactly. Oh yeah, and there was also the trip to Hawaii, not an insignificant
present. She didn’t seem in any hurry to return home. Neither were any of us,
and our trip was half over already!
We were expecting most things to shut down today. Surely even Waikiki would go dormant for a holiday like Christmas, right? Our assumptions weren’t entirely correct. I guess the lure of tourist dollars is very strong. About half the shops seemed open and the tour buses seemed unaffected by Jesus’ birth. But we had planned a relax-a-day assuming the worst. The only thing we could agree on was that the theaters would be open so what the heck, why not see “The Two Towers” a second time? But that would have to wait until the afternoon.
Just east of Waikiki are the remains of a long dormant volcano called Diamond Head Crater. It gets its name because the volcanic rock sparkles a bit sometimes in the sunlight. It makes quite a site from the beach and towers above the hotels down the beach. It looked like there was a way for tourists to climb to the top too. And it was only a mile from our hotel! I had wanted to climb it but I knew I would have to do it alone. Terri’s knees weren’t in shape for it and Rosie was way too much into gumby mode to do it without the electric cattle prod, which I had forgotten to pack. Since I had a car at my disposal I drove there. That was just as well because finding the entrance was not straightforward. It was approached from behind, making the walk just to get to the entrance close to two miles from our hotel. Then of course there was the climb up. A tunnel wide enough for two lanes had been bored through the side of the volcano and there was a parking area inside the crater that by 9 AM was already close to overflowing. People were coming down from the observation post in the same numbers going up.
Looking at the trail the climb didn’t look too arduous. Although it was Christmas morning there were bottled water and flashlight salesmen at the base of the trail. A sign warned of dehydration and said to allow 90 minutes round trip.
The hike up was a lot harder than I expected. It starts off
as rather easy, but it quickly made me feel like I was climbing the stairs of
Cirith Ungol. Moreover a flashlight was an excellent idea. There were two
tunnels of significant length on the trail and no one had bothered to outfit
them with artificial lighting. That made walking the tunnel challenging.
Sometimes I could tell if someone was approaching me, sometimes I couldn’t. So
sometimes you went bump in the dark. The last tunnel was a vertical one with a
two story narrow and winding staircase. This one had no lighting either. Once at
the top you had to squeeze through an opening of rock about three feet tall to
make it to the observation post. It’s a good thing Terri didn’t come. I
don’t think she has the agility to do that. I found it challenging at
6’2”.
But it was worth the climb to be 534 feet above sea level, as the pictures will attest. You have a commanding view of the coastline from the observation post at the summit. To my right I could look down Waikiki and see Honolulu and Pearl Harbor. To my left I could see Hanauma Bay and beyond. And it was breezy, though not cold. A couple dozen of us took turns shuffling around and taking in the sights before shuffling back down the trail. So it’s something like scaling the Washington Monument, because the height is similar, and the view just as breathtaking.
Same movie. Same movie complex. Different theater. Same trailers. Same goosebumps. Same long line at the rest room after the movie. Same excited talk about parts of the movie on our way back to the hotel. Except we took our rental car, since it was available. One other difference: it was much less crowded. A lot of people actually decided to stay home with family on Christmas.
A dude named Duke Kahanamoku popularized surfing in the
United States. A native of Hawaii he brought the sport to the mainland and
became something of a local legend, and was a ceaseless promoter of the sport as
well as a surfing champion. In short he is everywhere, even though he’s been
dead for 30 years or so. He has a larger than life statue of himself on the
beach at Waikiki. His statue makes for a natural place for a picture to have
your picture taken. Tourists seem to continuously come by and put leis around
his neck and the top of his surfboard. I should be so immortalized after death.
But surfing is to Hawaii what government is to us Washingtonians, and the Duke
is the symbol of surfing passion. If he hadn’t existed he might have to had
been invented.
The Waikiki Outrigger Hotel on the beach named their
restaurant after him and named it Duke’s Waikiki and Canoe Club. I guess
before they renamed the restaurant the Canoe Club restaurant had been there too.
So they put the names together, presumably for marketing purposes. The Outrigger
had been one of the original hotels establishing Waikiki and according to our
concierge the restaurant was very famous. And most importantly a 13 year old
girl could still get a cheeseburger, or so we were told. It was a given that a
cheeseburger was about the only food that Rosie would eat for dinner.
It was a really nice restaurant. Had we more time we would
have gone back again, I’m sure. It was much larger than Tiki’s but still
charming in its own way, with its own panoramic view of the ocean. And this
being Christmas it was very crowded. We were glad to have reservations otherwise
we would have been waiting a very long time for a table. It seemed hardly
necessary to order off the menu because the salad bar was expansive and full of
delicious breads and muffins, as well as a huge variety of salad delicacies. I
had a couple more of their carrot bran muffins than I should have had. I also
ordered a big juicy sirloin steak! Our waiter was very friendly. My only
complaint was that it was fairly noisy because the restaurant was so crowded.
There were no cheeseburgers on the menu so I queried the
waiter. A fellow waitress returned with a kids menu that had a cheeseburger on
it. And she also returned with crayons and something for Rosie to draw on. We
felt a little embarrassed and tried to laugh it off. But there was no way Rosie
would order something on the adult menu. Her taste buds refuse to mature. She
sticks with what she knows and trusts, which are largely cheeseburgers and PBJs,
and there were no PBJs available.
So our Christmas passed pleasantly. When not at the movie Terri and Rosie spent most of their time watching TV. Sometimes Rosie worked on her journal or drew sketches in her notebook, or talked to the pigeons on our balcony.