Monday, November 10th
Monday. Our last day in Hawaii and the day our trip came to an end. David and I purposely booked a later flight in hopes that we could enjoy some of our last day. We got up and checked out of our hotel early (5am) and headed to the airport to catch our flight to Honolulu at 7am. Once we got to Honolulu, we decided to rent a car for the day to go explore. Our first stop was Pearl Harbor. We really wanted to see the memorial and tried our best to make it happen. It was such a moving experience and very sad at the same time. Lots of emotions run through out as you walk through the memorial.
Before we went out to the Arizona, we walked through the museum part of the memorial which had old artifacts from that day. There was even the draft of President Roosevelt’s “Day of Infamy” speech which was neat to see as well as old war artifacts from that day.
After we went through that it was time for us to get on the ferry to head over to the Arizona memorial. Before you board the ferry they take you into a movie room and you watch a 15-20 minute video consisting of actual footage from that day. The video also gives a brief background on why Japan attacked the US, and how we thought we were prepared for an attack when really we created a perfect plan to be attacked (moving all of our battleships into one area close together as well as all of our air force together in the open for easy bombing).
After a short ferry ride, we arrived at the Arizona memorial:
Inside:
Memory wall of all those entombed on the Arizona. Survivors of the Arizona, have the option of being placed back down in the Arizona to rest with their shipmates for their own burial if they wish. They have Divers go down and place them for their families. I forgot the number, but several have done this and there is a separate memorial wall just to the left of this wall with the names of those shipmates.
Three are still parts of the Arizona that are exposed above the water and what’s not exposed above the water can easily be seen underneath. To this day, oil still leaks from the Arizona.
After Pearl Harbor we grabbed some lunch and did a quick search on our phone to see what we could go do and see and still get back in time for our evening flight. David found the Hanauma Bay which had great reviews online and we decided to go. Like Maui, this adventure took us to the side of Oahu with mountains and we found ourselves driving up the mountains and enjoying some spectacular views.
We got to the Hanauma Bay and it was amazing. So beautiful. It made us sad that we didn’t have more time to devote to it as we really wanted to go swimming down there. I mean, look at that water??
After this little adventure it was time to go back to the airport for out flight home. We took a 7:45pm flight home which actually worked out well because we were able to sleep the entire flight and arrived in Texas shortly after 7AM.
Here’s a photo of sunrise from out plane that morning.
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