A personal victory and a national tragedy - day one in Hawaii

For those of you who don't know (and I don't know who that would be cause I think I've told everyone), I am currently in Hawaii for a much needed, much anticipated, and much deserved vacation. I'm here with my best friend Elise and we're also visiting her cousin Stephy who is stationed at the YWAM base here. Stephy is the daughter of the Spanish missionaries that I got close to when I lived in Spain.

We arrived on Oahu on Tuesday afternoon. We first went to see where Stephy lived at the YWAM base and also saw our other good friend Tatum. For those of you who are complaining about traffic in ATL - Hawaii traffic is just as bad - and our rental car who I've affectionately named Vicki the Versa has no pick-up. I miss my SUV! We then checked into our hotel, took a walk along the beach to watch some locals surf and then went to bed at like 8:30 p.m. Hawaii is 6 hours behind Marietta, so we were exhausted.

With the time difference, we both woke up around 4:30 a.m. It's been a long time since I've seen that hour and it's usually from the other side. So we decided to get up and get going with our day around 7 a.m. We'd already decided our goal for the day was to hike Diamond head and visit Pearl Harbor. So here are those adventures.

A personal victory - hiking Diamond Head.

Diamond Head is a huge crater on Oahu that was left when a volcano erupted. You can hike to the tallest peak - but this adventure is an "all in" sort of thing. The hike starts with a gentle climb up the mountain - nothing to different to what I'm use to in hiking Kennesaw Mountain. But soon you stop walking the rocky trail and climb dozens upon dozens of stairs (including a set of windy stairs inside what feels like a lighthouse.) Here is a picture of the biggest set of stairs we climbed - this was taken on the way down so the stairs weren't as bad.

But despite the seemingly gigantic task ahead, Elise and I both made it to the top and saw breathtaking views of the island. There were times when I didn't think I would make it - including a very claustrophobic walk thru a long, dark tunnel. But we made it - and it was worth it. (see picture below - ignore the sweating appearance - these southern girls skipped glistening and went straight to sweating on this hike). And the good thing about waking up so stinking early was it wasn't nearly as hot or crowded as the hike could have been. I couldn't imagine hiking this with a big crowd.

A national tragedy - Pearl Harbor

After a fairly easy walk back down the mountain, we got back into Vicki to head over to Pearl Harbor. Even though we got to Pearl Harbor about 9:30 a.m. we didn't get tickets to visit the U.S.S. Arizona memorial until 1 p.m. So we bought tickets to go tour the U.S.S. Missouri - Mighty Mo. On this ship, Japan surrendered and WWII in the Pacific was over. Elise and I had a lot of fun posing with the large guns on the ship.

Now I have to be honest that this trip to Pearl Harbor brought a lot of emotions, questions and thoughts to my head. I kept trying to imagine what these soldiers, seamen and Marines thought when the saw the Japanese planes coming over the mountains. Having a military family, including an older brother who is a former Marine, I couldn't help picturing their faces on the men in battle. One question I did ask to the park ranger at the U.S.S. Missouri is - do many Japanese come and visit Pearl Harbor? I didn't ask this question to be mean, I was really curious. His answered surprised me. He said actually tons of Japanese visit Pearl Harbor, but the trip is usually a huge eye opener for them. Many times they've never really heard the true story of what happened that day in December. He said he's seen many of them with tears in their eyes - saddened by what their country did.

We finally got to go visit the U.S.S. Arizona memorial. For those who don't know, the Arizona sank very quickly in the shallow waters of Pearl Harbor. When a torpedo hit it, the battleships ammunition exploded and almost all of the people on board (1,100) died when the ship exploded or sank. The Arizona is just below the water at Pearl Harbor with several portions of the ship above water. Here is a picture of the memorial that goes across the Arizona. The rusted portion in front is actually a portion of the ship.

The visit to Pearl Harbor was very interesting. Did you know that in his famous speech asking Congress to declare war, President FDR originally intended to say that Dec. 7, 1941 would be a "day that would live in world history." But a quick rewrite with a pencil changed that to "infamy."And did you also know that many of the ships that were damaged in the attack on Pearl Harbor were fixed up and used during WWII in the Pacific.

After we got back to the hotel, we went and walked the beach and watched some of the locals surf. Those guys, and girls, are real dare-devils!  Tomorrow our plan is to hang out at the beach all day. But right now I'm fading fast and am thinking about going to bed (still adjusting to the time changed). I'll post more pictures on Facebook later.

Until then - aloha!