Of course, no trip to Haleiwa is complete without a stop at the overpriced tourist trap known as the Dole Plantation...
The weird thing is that they haven't grown pineapple in Hawaii for years -- it's much cheaper to do so in South America -- but the tradition of Dole still runs strong in Hawaii. After all, it was Jim Dole who moved to Hawaii a century ago and founded the company that would eventually become the giant fruit company we now know as Dole.
When I was a child, there were huge fields of pineapple from which you could occasionally (and illicitly) grab a fresh one or two from plants closest to the side of the road.
The first time I did that, my cousin Dart sent me into the middle of a field because he said there was a really juicy one he wanted -- sort of like Kekoa here below, but with a much fuller field of pineapples...
Then, while in the middle of the field, Dart starting yelling, "truck!" Which meant the pineapple farmers saw us and were coming to chase us away. So I started tearing through the field toward our car. Unforunately, I was running through a field of sharp spines like this...
Only to find Dart laughing at the other end. "Never pick the pineapple from the middle," he laughed, passing along his sage wisdom since there was no truck at all.
Dart is a real funny guy.
Anyway, the Dole Plantation is now home to the world's largest maze -- at least according to the Guiness World Book of Records...
It is the absolutely huge maze of some 1.7 miles of trails -- most of which I think we covered...
The object is to explore the maze and find six "stations" where you mark your card proving you found it. Here are the boys after finding one of them...
It only took us 36 minutes to complete the maze. Only.
The girls stayed behind, exploring the gift shops, and clearly buying a few flowery things...
The weather turned a little cloudy, so we never actually hit the water, but we did reach Haleiwa for a picnic. When I was a kid, my father would get together with his brothers Stanely and Joe for an enormous Sunday afternoon meal at Haleiwa Beach Park right at this very corner where we ate...
In what is becoming a typical practice, though, Bretty, David and the girls eat sandwiches while our son Kekoa in the middle below shows how "local" he is becoming...
He's the only one brave enough to eat sushi with me!
Kekoa loves exploring and posing, like here on the rocks at Pupukea...
And we reached the enormous Mormon Temple at Laie...
With the girls posing a bit more closeup...
Laie is home to BYU-Hawaii, a branch campus of BYU in Utah. In fact, the Polynesian Cultural Center -- the most highly attended tourist attraction (that you have to pay for) generates revenue for the LDS folks.
The road around this part of the island could make you easily forget that the sprawling city of Honolulu is on this same island...
We finally ended up at the Valley of the Temples...
Where everyone rang the giant bell at the Byodo-In Temple...
To help awaken and enlighten us before standing before the giant statue of Buddha...
The Valley of the Temples is one of those places that just makes you feel more peaceful just standing there...
Of course, once we were at Grandpa's any thought of a peaceful evening went out the window...
Malia was desparate to climb on the wall...
So she crawled along to be with her brothers...
And thankfully Grandpa Bernie was there to offer a steadying hand...
Although eventually they just found themselves sitting around...
However, Cari found something in the paper which freaked her out just a bit...
It appears that Hurricane Daniel is set to arrive later this week...
Just as we are to fly out of Hawaii!
She is dreading the trip. I figure that maybe we'll get stuck here for a few more days!
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