BOXES 201-203: Hawai'i 3: Big Island and O'ahu, plus Los Angeles.

You're seeing Waikiki from a catamaran. Anne, Michelle and I, like many another O'ahu tourist, were taking one of the professionally-crewed boats moored in front of the Outrigger Hotel for a ride out to the deep waters beyond the beach. It was during our 1996 visit to Anne's brothers and sisters-in-law, who lived only a few blocks from the beach. My previous post looked over the first weeks of our visit.

I have more photos of the catamaran ride, and of the rest of our '96 visit, but first I must mention that when I first published this post a week ago, on August 27, I forgot to add some photos of Los Angeles and a couple from Northern Wisconsin, from trips that immediately followed the Hawai'i visit. So if you're read this post before, please skip down to the new material; otherwise just read on from here!

At some point in our O'ahu stay Anne and I took a side trip to the Big Island (our third visit)--probably just for a few days, since I have only a few photos, beginning with this one of the sun over one of the great volcano peaks of the island.

I must have decided not to photograph places we'd seen before (or we also had a disposable camera for snapshots). But I'm sure we flew into Kailua-Kona and no doubt stayed at the Manago Hotel, one of our favorite places on the Kona Coast, in the town of Captain Cook; and we doubtless strolled along the oceanside road through the town of Kona and snorkeled at a favorite spot below Captain Cook. We then drove upland to Waimea and over to the Hamakua Coast, where on previous trips we'd missed seeing the stunning Waipi'o Valley--but this time we stopped at the overlook:

Though walled in by 1000-foot cliffs, the valley has been inhabited for many centuries (you can see houses and taro patches in the last photo). On a later trip we had the opportunity to descend into the valley, but for now we were content with the view from above. On our way southeast toward Hilo we drove through another of the old plantation towns (Honoka'a, I think). We had a convertible rental car, but as you might guess from the sky in my (not well focused) photo, the weather was surprisingly cool. Here's the car--and Anne with freshly bought orchids--at the Hilo open market:

My only other photos from our Big Island visit contradict my no-repeats decision, since these are taken from almost exactly the same spots as some 1994 shots (see BOXES 193-194 if you're curious). They are of Hilo's Liliuokalani Gardens and of Mauna Loa seen from across Hilo Harbor:

Back on O'ahu my next group of slides are of a picnic in Kapi'olani Park, where at this point in our trip Michelle had flown over to join us. For those of you interested in family pics as well as Hawaiian landscapes, I'll ID the folks at the picnic: young Eric and Adam in the strollers; their mother, Lisa, with her mother visiting from California; Bob and Jim on opposite sides of the picnic table with Anne and Lisa in pink and various other friends as well; Michelle looking happy to be here, next to Tripit, Eric, Lisa and Adam; Jim and Anne clowning around; and Tripit and Michelle getting skewers ready to grill (I think) with Eric looking on.

As sunset neared, I pointed the camera upward:

Another day we rented kayaks, or at least Anne and Michelle did:

I'm guessing this is on the North Shore, since that's where the next slides were taken, toward sunset:

Here's another shot of Michelle back at Bob and Tripit's:

The next excursion was that catamaran ride from Waikiki. Here you see Diamond Head as the boat sails past it:

And here we are out in deep blue waters:

The last of the above photos shows Diamond Head from an atypical angle. By the way, I especially like the t-shirt I'm wearing, which my mother-in-law made from cloth fish cutouts. During the ride I took one shot looking up at the sails:

And here we're returning to shore:

I see that we visited the Pali, the dramatic cliff overlooking the Windward Side of the island. But I took only one photo, showing the brand-new H-3 stretching off toward its tunnel. Maybe the typical high winds, sometimes with rain showers, were discouraging more photos; but I took quite a few more on future trips.

Here are more views of Diamond Head and Waikiki, but from the opposite direction as some of the catamaran shots. I think these were taken from up in the Manoa or Palolo Valley.

In the Palolo Valley we stopped at the Korean Buddhist temple

My last set of photos from this trip are of a picnic on Waimanalo Beach on the Windward Side of the island.

In these photos you can see Bob preparing a grill for what turned out to be this:

It's bbq chicken with something in the middle that Bob no longer remembers, though it looks plenty delicious. Here are more photos from that day:

My next slide photos were taken in Los Angeles--most likely I stopped off there while Anne and Michelle continued back to Wisconsin. The first pics are of my good friend Estie, posing in turn with our good friend Foster, with me, and with her dog, Lulu:

My friends Gloria and Jeffrey had divorced sometime before 1996; I took this photo of Jeff, with his then companion Ida, in front of their cottage in Santa Monica. My next slide is a bit unusual: of a wall with a very faded sign above the Fairfax Theatre, a neighborhood movie palace where Foster and I saw Twister that summer. You can barely read the words like "GLORIFYING THE MOTION PICTURE," "GENERAL ADMISSION" and "the place to go":

At some point on this trip I went with Gloria to Knott's Berry Farm, near Anaheim, along with her younger son, Lucas, his friend Russell, and Russell's mother. In the next shot Gloria and I pose where Farmer Knott invented the boysenberry and sold them:

Here are Lucas and Russell in goofy hats, and the three of us on a bench with statues and Russell behaving naughtily:

I remember going on a number of rides and eating boysenberry pie, but my only other photos from that day are these rather dim ones featuring Russell's mother. On another occasion I went with Estie, Foster, Gloria and Gloria's older son, Nigel, to see Disney's animated Hunchback of Notre Dame at the very grand El Capitan theatre on Hollywood Boulevard. Here's a glimpse of part of the interior:

And here we are after the show. I don't know who took this photo--could it have been young Lucas?

No doubt I took the next photo, of the El Capitan exterior, and probably Foster the one of me on Hollywood Blvd.

On a later day Foster and I explored Downtown LA, as we had on other occasions (e.g., BOXES 138-141). We spent time inside the magnificent 1893 Bradbury Building, which Gloria had shown me on my first visit to LA in 1978 (BOXES 124-125), but it's always worth revisiting:

We stopped at a number of the surviving movie palaces along Broadway:

. . . and at historic Clifton's Cafeteria with its unique décor, though my photos turned out far too dim and fuzzy:

Then we went for roast beef sandwiches at another Downtown LA landmark, Philippe's, which claims to be the inventor of the French Dip. Remarkably, in 1996 they were still serving coffee for 5 cents (now raised to 49 cents). My photo shows a mid-afternoon lull, but nowadays the place is packed at all hours, having been freshly "discovered":

My only other photo from this LA trip is of the art deco Wiltern Building and, barely visible in the lower left corner, its splendid Wiltern Theatre, which I'd visited with Gloria and Jeffrey on a previous trip (BOXES 129-131). I have no idea why I shot this particular photo, which leaves out so much, but as usual, I'll include it for the record.

That September Anne and I went to a wedding in a little town in far northern Wisconsin--of Paul Johal, Tripit's brother, Since the marriage didn't last, I won't include photos of the wedding couple (though I can send you some if you like). I will however show this one of Paul's parents with Anne:

And here's one of Anne in a park near or in the town (whose name I've forgotten):

This is my 99th post. Next time I'll comment on the fact that I'm on #100 and show pics of Seattle and Aron's high-school graduation party.