Dole Pinapple Plantation, Revenge on the Ocean and The Hard Rock Cafe

One of the things that mom was most excited about doing on this trip was seeing how pineapples grow.  I don't think the rest of us cared that much, but were happy to head to the Dole Pineapple Plantation to humor her.  I'm glad we did because as ridiculous as it sounds, this ended up being one of my favorite things so far.  It was unexpectedly fun!

Outside the building were these crazy trees. They aren't painted, the bark just grows in all those crazy colors!

What? Pineapple grows on a stick? Who knew?

The gardens were so pretty!

They grow more than just pineapple at Dole too. This is a chocolate bush! They also grow every kind of fruit, macadamia nuts, bananas, and I can't remember what else.

This is Riley playing with the fish eye setting on my camera while we wait for the train that is going to take us on a tour of the plantation.

Fish Eye Riley

Fish Eye Granny

Yeah!  The train is here!

Those are some pretty interesting mangos growing on that tree :).

Pineapples as far as the eye can see.

Who knew there were so many different kinds of pineapple?





This sign was there to help anyone who might be lost on their way to the North Pole.

Super pretty gardens.



Vanilla is the NEW flavor?

The big attraction at the pineapple plantation is that they have the world's largest agricultural maze.  Unfortunately, it was closed the day we were there.

 

I had the most fun at the gift shop.  They make EVERYTHING with macadamia nuts and pineapple.  I brought home some pineapple chocolates, chili pineapple pieces, and mango and papaya popcorn.  Random!



Catherine insisted that I be the crazy picture taking pineapple lady.  I wonder why?



Don't know what this has to do with pineapples, but there the pandas were.

Me and Riley leaving the plantation.

We took a vote to see what we would spend the rest of the day doing and heading to the beach was almost a unanimous decision.  We would only have two days left in Hawaii and since we were going home Friday night, but checking out of our house in the morning we wouldn't be able to get dirty and wet at all that day.  Today and tomorrow was it for everything else we wanted to do, so this seemed like it might be our last opportunity to get messy in the ocean.  Riley really wanted to go back to the "Big Wave" beach, and I had something to prove there as well, so we headed back to Wiamea Beach for round two with mother nature.

Granny had the right idea here.

I'm telling you, the waves are HUGE!!!!

Success! We played in the water for a while with no casualties (no boogie boards either).  There aren't any pictures to prove it because we were all in the water, but you can tell from the fact I'm still wearing my sunglasses on my head, that today, the score was Lisa 1, Beach 0!

We almost lost this shovel in the water after we had moved on to playing in the sand.  Riley just went to get some water in a bucket, was holding the shovel, and the waves totally took him out.  Anneli, Dave and Catherine were all there to try and pick everything up, got the bucket and Riley, but watched the shovel get sucked out to sea.  About 5 minutes later, the shovel came back, Catherine not only saw it, but got it.  What the heck!  Where are my glasses!

Have I mentioned how much Riley LOVED the ocean?!!

Mom was having fun walking along the shore and looking for sea shells.  I was having fun playing with the features on my new camera.  This is the single color setting.

I decided that since the pineapple maze was closed at the plantation, I would build one so everyone could get the full experience.  Here I am with my masterpiece in the background (I forgot the camera was still set on "blue" only).

Catherine going through the pineapple maze.

I made Anneli into a mermaid, but Riley just wanted to be buried.

Mom entering the pineapple maze.

Riley's last moments playing in the ocean.  I'm super glad we came back to this beach.

After getting cleaned up from the beach a few of us went to the Hard Rock Cafe for dinner to celebrate conquering the ocean and not losing anything valuable in it... (Catherine thinks we went for her birthday, but that's okay, she can think that if she wants).

Riley doing the "Color Your Own Shirt" that I got him at the pineapple plantation while me, Anneli, Dave, and Catherine clean up to head to the Hard Rock Cafe.



Hooray!  We found it!



The coolest thing at this restaurant was the arching guitar display that went up the main staircase and all across the ceiling...




... but it also had the expected rock memorabilia, loud music, and videos playing.



Catherine's "pumpkin pie-tini" in souvenir glass.

Catherine's birthday ice cream that the singing waiters brought her.

This is my artistic shot from the outside of the cafe looking up.  Notice you can see the guitars lining the ceiling on the inside of the Hard Rock Cafe.