We spent a day exploring the base. Although most of the buildings are quite old, and a lot of them are probably too run down to be considered safe, the location and setting is just spectacular. We drove to the top of, what's known as, Radar Hill to get an aerial view of our surroundings and well, I will just let the pictures do the talking...
This prime location is definitely not typical of Marine Corps locations, and is one of the reasons some of the locals don't necessarily love the military. Rumor has it that their was once an ancient burial ground where the golf course in the above picture now sits. Whether there is truth to that rumor or not, we are not yet sure. The base also has what is considered one of the best surf spots on the island. We aren't quite sure how they manage it, but there are always a handful of local surfers that sneak their way onto the beach.
Views of Pyramid Rock, one of the best surf spots on the island
Can we stop and talk about how amazing the water is?!?!? Just incredible, right? On a sunny day, the blues and teals of the water are almost too beautiful to be real!
In order to get to Pyramid Rock, you actually have to drive across an active runway. They have guard shacks on either side, and a similar system to railroad crossings when a plane is coming in to land. Upon leaving the beach the first time, we got to experience this first hand.
One of Jordan's absolute favorite parts of the base has to be the giant, steel box we found one day at the park. Yep, despite the magnificent beach, it's this steel box that has won over Jordan's heart and what prompted him to ask me to pinch him, because he was convinced he had died and gone to heaven.
Upon unlocking the box and swinging open that wide, heavy steel door, I got a glimpse into what Jordan must have looked like as a kid on Christmas morning. There was a giant yesssssssss, followed by many more excited exclamations.
On Friday we decided to take a drive south along the coast. We had yet to explore this direction and had heard that there were another couple great beaches this way. We also have just come to enjoy cruising around and taking in the sights, as there is no shortage of breathtaking natural beauty all around us. Even with the overcast weather, and the on-and-off drizzling all day, it was actualy quite warm and still no less than beautiful.
Saturday was one of my favorite days so far. We decided to check out the Tropical Farms Macadamia Nut Outlet. It's quite conspicuous from the road, and I have to admit we drove right past it on multiple occasions previously. You really wouldn't know by it's small, humble sign on the side of the highway, what a great treasure this place truly is. It's also a place I didn't realize I already had on my to-do list. After admiring my friend Brittney's, a fellow Marine wife who I first met in VA, adventures in Oahu through her blog for years, I have made a mental list of all of things I have been looking forward to. Although I didn't realize till afterwards, this place was one of those things!
Tropical Farms is a family-owned, tropical fruit and nut farm. Upon entering, you are greeted with samples of freshly brewed Kona coffee and all sorts of different flavored macadamia nuts. After venturing out of the gift shop, we were greeted by two Hawaiian men, wearing traditional hawaiian attire, informing us of the tour. A lady who had just purchased her tickets, said that she would definitely recommend the tour and that it was her 4th time! And well, at $15 each, it was extremely cheap compared to most other tours on the island, so we thought, why not? While waiting for our tour to leave, we joined some of the other tour-goers in cracking our own macadamia nuts. There were macadamia nuts scattered everywhere on the ground, so all that was required was picking one up and smashing it with a rock against an old tree stump! Easy, right? Well it took us a few tries to figure out the perfect amount of pressure to crack the outer shell, without completely smashing the interior nut and keeping it in one whole piece. Jordan was in caveman heaven, and had a second lunch serving of macadamia nuts!
Macadamia nuts galore!
The caveman himself, in his element
This one got a little too much pressure!
There we go! A perfectly whole macadamia nut!
While Jordan had a problem with hitting the shell too hard, I apparently wasn't hitting hard enough, and failed to even crack the shell.
I finally got one!
Our tour started out driving through the farm and checking out the plants and crops on the property. It was extremely interesting, and we learned that the majority of the crops and plants we associate with Hawaii and assume are indigenous to the area, were actually brought in as gifts to the King. For example, the macadamia tree was gifted by Australia and the coffee tree was gifted from Brazil.
Yep, that's our tour bus! Complete with coconuts hanging from the window.
Various coffee trees
This is a red Ti plant. It is used in traditional hawaiian medicine practices to treat various ailments. I'm not sure if our tour guide, who was quite the comedian, was pulling our chain or not, but he said that people massage the leaf against their heads to relieve headaches. There is also a green Ti plant, which is many times used to wrap around food, and to cook over fire. Our tour guide called it Hawaiian Reynolds Wrap! Upon eating out at various Hawaiian restaurants we have discovered a very popular dish is called Laulau, where pork or chicken is wrapped first in edible taro leaves, and then wrapped again in these green Ti leaves. It's almost like a Hawaiian Tamale! It's also considered good luck in Hawaii, which is why it's waved at football games. The spine of the leaf is also what grass skirts are made of.
Our guide showing us the Japanese banana and banana flower.
The heliconia plant, aka Crab Tree
The tour guide hamming it up while showing us the Cocoa Plant.
Papaya Tree
Although writing this now, I can't unfortunately remember what production this prop is from, but the property is home to a number of filming landmarks including: the classics Fantasy Island and Gilligan's Island, the hit movie 50 First Dates with Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore, and many more. However, our personal favorite is the tv show Lost.
Our guide pointing out the Long Back of the Dragon.
The dock where the turquoise boat is docked ahead of us is where all of the arriving/departing and submarine scenes from Lost were filmed. We would later on see the submarine itself on another tour, it was actually quite small in person and only a fiberglass mold of the top half of a submarine.
Back to land again, the tour guide next gave us a lesson on two survival necessitates: fire and coconut water. He promised by the end of his lesson we would be ready to audition for Survivor. I was extremely excited for this part of the tour for a couple of reasons:
1. I am a big fan of the show Survivor. I can still picture, years ago during the earlier seasons, running around as a kid with my brothers and dancing to the opening theme song like Indians.
2. Jordan and I are officially obsessed with fresh, natural coconut water. My first thought upon waking up the other morning was gosh I could really go for some coconut water! I had to laugh. It was definitely a "you know you now live in Hawaii when" moment.
The demonstration was awesome. He first cracked the outer shell of the coconut by slamming it strategically in the upper third portion of shell against a spear. After breaking the shell, he then tore off the protective husk inside the outer shell that protects the coconut inside. Next, he slammed down a rock perpendicular to the spine of the coconut, cracking it perfectly into two pieces, water spilling out faster than he could recover.
In order to make the coconut milk, he then grated the white coconut meat. You can eat the meat, which we sampled, or you can put it inside the husk you just tore off, and squeeze. The result, coconut milk! The tour guide suggested mixing with water before drinking or using it for cooking to dilute it a bit.
Next we learned how to make fire. The keys are to use two of the same woods to rub against eachother, and to rub along the grain slowly. Once heat begins to build, increase the speed until you start to see smoke. Dump the embers formed into more coconut husk, which is extremely flammable, and those small embers will ignite!
We were then treated to a fire dancing show!
To end the tour, they made headdresses for all the ladies on the tour out of bamboo leaves, and adorned them with flowers. When wearing flowers in your hair in Hawaii, it's important to note that flowers on the left side mean married/taken and flowers on the right mean single/available.
It was such a fun day! And for only $15 a person, I say that's an amazing deal for an hour and half long tour, with so much information and entertainment! I'm ready to go again and is definitely a place I'd love to share with our visitors in the future!
King Gunnar with my headdress on! He is not amused!
Sunday we spent with my friend Brittney, who I mentioned previously, and her husband Kyle. As I said, Brittney and I first met back in VA when the boys attended TBS together. Their first duty station after TBS graduation was Hawaii, and since then I have been admiring all of her amazing pictures. On Sunday, they showed us a nearby hike, called Pu'u Ma'eli'eli, that lead up to a bunker with panoramic views of Kaneohe Bay.
Marine Corps Base Hawaii is in the distance
Jordan and me atop the bunker with the Marine Corps base in the background
After the hike, Kyle and Brittney opened up their home to us and had us over for dinner. It was great to see their beautiful home on base, especially considering we are on the 4-12 month long waiting list for our own house on base. It reaffirmed that it was the right decision for our next 3-4 years here, and that our time living in the lodge will all be worth it.
Yesterday, we went on an another AMAZING adventure. Jordan is on 10 days of house hunting leave right now, and we are trying to relish this time here together before he is back to the grind. So in an attempt to continue our vacation as tourists, we went on an 2-hour ATV excursion through Kualoa Ranch. Kualoa Ranch is known as the backlot of Hawaii, and is a much sought after filming location because of the majestic views. Once again we were geeking out at all the Lost landmarks. In addition, we again saw many more tv/movie filming landmarks from various films like Mighty Joe Young, Godzilla (both the original and the 2014 one), 50 First Dates, Windtalkers, Tears of the Sun, Pearl Harbor, Jurassic Park and many more. The ranch is currently hosting 3 more filmings of projected blockbuster movies. There were sets throughout the ranch where photography was prohibited for this reason. I can't wait to discover what these sets were being used for when the movies eventually come out and we recognize them on the big screen.
Another view of Chinaman's Hat Island from our tour on Kualoa Ranch.
Military WWII bunker built into the mountain. The interior structure is now used in many films, including most recently many interrogation scenes from Hawaii 5-0.
All of our ATVs lined up in front of the bunker, overlooking Kaneohe bay.
Isn't this the most magnificent view of the valley? This is also the sight where Hurley jump started the Dharma van . Again, Lost geek-out moment!
Jordan and I were the last two in the fleet of 7 ATVs, so we had a lot of dust and mud being kicked up in our faces the entire drive. Not that we minded at all; this is what we signed up for! We also lucked out with the coolest tour guide of the group. Our safety video before our tour specifically mentioned that our speed limit on the tour would be 10-12 mph, as this was primarily a scenic tour. However, we were hitting 20-30 mph throughout the entire 2 hours of our adventure. It was so exhilirating. The tour guide even said, " you know you have a good group of riders, when even the tour guide, who does this 3x a day, gets to have fun!" And boy did we have fun! There were mud puddles, and shallow lakes of water that we romped through. In addition to movies, the Ranch also raises cattle. So periodically we would go through sections of the cattle ranch, where cattle were grazing feet from us. We even had a few calfs playfully chasing one another and crossing right across the road mere feet in front of us. The trip was full of thrills and lots of laughter!
Dirty faces, halfway through the tour!
Another viewpoint we stopped at during our drive.
Jordan commandeered a souvenir coconut from the site. He desperately wanted some more fresh coconut water. I of course, the strict rule follower, was freaking out over this!!!!
Our last stop on the tour was the infamous log the children hid behind in the Jarassic Park movie when the Velociraptors were chasing them through the valley.
Overall, it was an awesome experience and we had a great time. Don't you love these dirt unibrow family photos?
We even got away with our coconut souvenir, which Jordan attempted to crack later that evening using his new found knowledge from our Macadamia Nut tour...
Ya it didn't go as smoothly as it did for the local tour guide, hahaha. But in the end, we got it cracked open and enjoyed some fresh coconut water!
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