Evan wake-up tracker – 3:45am
Day number 4 – and this was going to be a big one. I had reservations to hike up Diamond Head that I booked a month ahead of time. I brewed up some of the Royal Kona company coffee that I picked up yesterday and watched the sunrise next to the beast. We’ve been staring at you for the last couple days – time to see if we’ve got what it takes to make it to the top.
We hit the road ~7:30am and looked for a spot that would be open for breakfast. On the way there we found a place called the Rainbow Drive-in that had an interesting variety of polynesian-hybrid breakfast food. I got some kind of eggs/sausage thing that was fine – Lydia got waffles soaked in strawberry and sugary-cream.
The entrance to Diamond Head state monument park was another 5 minutes away. You drive through a 1-lane tunnel (with a traffic light to allow traffic to go one way through) and the parking area is right on the other side. I can definitely see why they had to switch to reservations as there was very limited parking. We lotioned up in the parking lot and started up the main trail to the top.
The trail itself starts out fairly easy with a concrete walkway up ,but switched to more of a carved rock pathway that gets steeper as you go. The way they have it cut into the mountain, you’re actually well shaded for most of the hike (at least at 8 o’clock when we were doing it) and the weather was perfect – mid 70’s. Last year, I would have struggled with this trail, but since Noelle and I have been running some in the morning, I was in much better shape to be able to take something like this on. We actually went up at a pretty quick pace, passing other people dying from the exertion. It’s good that we were able to keep pace, because today….we were stalkers…
For several years, Lydia and Victoria have been watching a youtube family called “The Norris Nuts“. They live in Australia and the girls have been watching their videos and following what they do for years. Lydia actually mentioned that she’d like to go to Australia to see if we could meet them. At the beginning of the hike, we heard some Australian accents taking a picture by the national park sign at the beginning of the trail and Lydia lets out an audible squeal and runs and quietly exclaims – “IT’S THE NORRIS NUTS!!!”. Of all the places in all the world in all the reservation times available, somehow we were on the exact same diamond hike as youtube celebrities the girls like!
For those that partake, the ones that were there were Sabre, Sockie, Disco, and the Mom / Dad (Papa). Biggie, Naz, and Charm were not there with them.
It would make the girl’s lives if they could get a picture with them, especially on top of diamond head. They started up the hike at a brisk pace, so we started after them, trying to catch up. We didn’t want to annoy or intrude on their private family time, so decided to wait until they were at the top of the diamond head with no possibility of escape and ask for the picture discretely.
We eventually caught up, then passed them, trying to look as inconspicuous as possible and made it to the top of Diamond Head. Noelle asked if we could take their picture and they were very gracious and nice about the whole thing and even had a quick conversation on what we should see in Australia when we go and what they should see in Atlanta. Thanks Norris Nuts – Lydia can die happy now!
The Norris nuts headed back down the trail while the Hodgson nuts stayed to check out the views. Another crazy 360 view of Oahu – one side is the sprawling metropolis / sky scrapers around Waikiki, another is the blue/turquoise of the pacific , and the whole view of the Diamond Head crater. This crater was created by a volcanic explosion 200,000 years ago. I imagine it was at least half as explosive as the last time Noelle was mad at me for “forgetting” to knock off my honey-do list items for the day.
After a little more gawking, we started the hike back down the trail. It was much easier going with gravity than fighting it. I told every sweaty person we passed “You’re almost there” regardless of if it was actually true or not. Everyone could use a little encouragement.
We drove back to the hotel to rest a bit, but started to get hungry for food and that feeling of being pushed by waves on a surf board with our new surfing skills, so put bathing suits on and headed back down.
We split up for lunch – Lydia and I got some of the best tacos i’ve ever had at a food truck called “Munch ‘N Brunch“. The banana bread I got there to-go made me want to slap my mom (sorry mom) – so good. Victoria has a finer palette, so Noelle took her to go to the McDonalds a few blocks down.
You need a surf board to surf, so we met back up at “Moku Hawaii” a board rental place a block from the beach and rented 3 boards the girls + me and a beach umbrella for Noelle. They gave Lydia a brand new board and told her to be very careful with it (haha, yeah right). The girls used their new board carrying skills and we made it across the street onto Waikiki.
I set Noelle up under the umbrella and we all headed off to catch some waves. Initially I we started out trying to go through the little bay to get there, but I got nervous about trying to jump over the protective wall with the boards, so we got back up and walked the surf boards to the adjacent beach with direct access. Apologies to the 100 people trying to sun tan comfortably for the sand we kicked on you and whining of the kids they had to endure.
We made it over to the first set of waves and the girls immediately started gnarly shredding wave after wave. I struggled quite a bit trying to ride these waves. I think we had a different type of surf board called “long boards” when we surfed before and these ones were more regular surfboards. The one I had was mostly destroyed an seemed like it was 2 feet shorter than the one I had before where I could catch the waves easily. What I’m trying to say is it’s the board’s fault, not mine. I did catch one glorious perfect wave and proudly hung 10.
After what seemed like 30-45 minutes, I told the girls to head back in. After hauling the boards back to her spot, we found Noelle with a sour look on her face, looking a miffed. Apparently we had been out there for 2+ hours and also were 5 minutes past the time to book the reservations for the Arizona memorial at Pearl Harbor, which sold out instantly….whoops. Time does fly when you’re having fun… I saw a couple walking around with drinks being served in pineapples, and decided it was in my best interest to pay whatever they cost to get one in Noelle’s hands immediately as a peace offering. It was some kind of pineapple blended smoothie (non-alcoholic) that definitely did the trick. Hopefully there’s still plenty of interesting things to do at Pearl Harbor…
Noelle did say she enjoyed some of the people watching. There was a lady right next to her in a thong bathing suit and fake eyelashes that slapped the glasses off her boyfriend for disappearing on her. May want to check out the pineapple drink stand my friend…
After relaxing a bit, we went back out to catch a few more waves. We did notice that one of the fins of Lydia’s new surf board was broken in half (after she walked on the board on the beach). I hope surf board fins are cheap… Oh well, we went out any way over the lagoon barrier this time – the risk of bodily harm from that outweighed the thought of walking those surfboards through the crowds again. No waves for me, but the girls got plenty. Towards the end, Victoria got pulled under the water by a big wave and came up a bit panicked, then shortly after that scraped up her knee a bit on the reef. We headed back after that and shut it down for the day.
We returned the surf boards and umbrella – they either didn’t notice, or didn’t care that the fin was broken (and I “forgot” to point it out). The girls and Mom were beat, so they went back to the airbnb and I went off to find dinner. Ended up going to 3 different food trucks to make sure everybody would get something they liked to eat. I got a Poke bowl from same place as yesterday, a pepperoni pizza for Lydia, chicken nuggets / waffles for Victoria, and sesame chicken for Noelle (from Blue Ocean food truck). While I waited for their food, I got a free exciting show as a group of dirty pigeons fought it out for the leftovers in a trash can. So much natural beauty…
Dinner was well received, and I fell asleep sitting up at ~7pm as soon as I sat down in the bed.