The daily walk (not run today) with Courtney and Starbucks trip happened. I love this morning ritual! Courtney left for work and I was off in search of another good açaí bowl, which I found at Aloha Coffee Co., a cute little kiosk tucked off the strip. I went into another little shop and finally bought some spam musubi, which several people had told me I just HAD to try! It's spam sushi... I still don't get it.
Today's goal was to rent a car and drive around the island to go hiking and/or swimming. I had done some internet research and everything was $70-$80/day for a compact car, which I found super irritating. As a last resort I walked into the Avis car rental kiosk in the International Mall, which I expected to be absurd. Bonnie, the nice lady who was working the desk, chatted with me for a moment, said she thought she could help me out, and then said that she could rent me a Jeep for $90 for the day, and reserve one for me for tomorrow for $70 and I could cancel it anytime before 9am with no cancellation fee. Score! Done. Because, why not? I mean, when in Hawaii...
I drove along the coast and hit up some beautiful overlooks, then I ended up in Haleiwa. Several people had told me that the Haleiwa Whole Foods had an amazing poke bar. I mean, multiple people backed this claim up. So I pulled over just to see how far I was from the Haleiwa Whole Foods. I was ... 0.2 miles. Fate! I parked and went in, and it looked like almost any other Whole Foods. I found the poke bar and there were about 4 or 5 kinds of different seafood poke options! They all looked amazing. I was drooling over the beautiful poke and trying to decide which one to get when I heard some guy say, "Yeah, I just flew in from the mainland so I didn't have time to catch my own fish." The guy behind the counter replied, "Don't worry, brah, they caught this fresh this morning." I decided on a poke and filled up the medium sized container - about $12 for a huge thing of fresh fish. I hopped back into the Jeep and was going to just taste it and save it for sometime in the near future, but I could not. Stop. Eating. It was some of the best fish I have ever had. At WHOLE FOODS? What the heck? Everyone was right. It was amazing. Jim's rigorous retirement schedule meant that he was free today, so I drove back along the gorgeous cliffs overlooking the ocean and picked him up in my swanky silver Jeep.
We took a different route to the North Shore than Courtney and I took on Sunday, so I got to drive past the Dole Plantation (I like pineapples, but not enough to stop and take a tour) and over this funky little one-lane bridge. We checked out Waimea Bay Beach Park, Three Tables Beach and Shark's Cove. We took some photos, and Jim pointed out all the good dive spots for the next time I come back. The water was rough and churned up, so the visibility was no good for diving now anyway. I just have to go back!
We eventually made our way over to a parking lot across the street from a school (excellent directions, Yelp!, thank you) and started the Ehukai Pillbox Hike. I had not heard of a pillbox before, but Jim educated me that they were concrete, dug-in guard posts with openings to fire weapons. Coincidentally, they're placed in locations at the top of mountains with expansive views of the water. Sweet! This one overlooks the Banzai Pipeline, for all you surf folks. It wasn't a very rigorous hike, kind of short and steep, but the views were worth it and the graffiti inside the pillbox was pretty interesting!
After we hiked down we decided to stop at one of the roadside food trucks to get another Hawaiian must do, garlic shrimp. We got them from this place called the Shrimp Shack, which had some fairly rude teenagers working there, but the shrimp were huge and delicious. There was SO MUCH garlic! I smelled like garlic for days. Literally. Just ask Courtney.
We had another beautiful drive back to Waikiki to return the Jeep. I will miss you, rental Jeep. You were fun! Jim and I walked over to LuLu’s to meet Tamara, his wife and the 4th spoke of our craziest Venn digram. She was rocking an Athleta dress that I own in a different color - such good style! We watched the sun start to set over the beach and then I had to scoot back to the hotel to head to run club with Courtney.
Since Courtney essentially lives in Hawaii half-time, she has joined all of these cool Meetup Groups, including a run club that meets at Honolulu Beerworks every Thursday. We had a nice 4 mile run through the park and reconvened at the brewery. I really liked this one - the art on the walls was cool, the people in the brewery were nice (run club or not), the beer was good, and the snacky food we got was tasty. I think it helps that this is a little outside of touristy Waikiki, so there were more locals than tourists.
On the drive back we found some amazing 90s station and rocked out to Boyz II Men for the rest of the night. Oh, the 90s....
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