Our Second Day Off with the Smiths in Hawaii

Yesterday was another day off.  We woke up to rain, and it rained and rained and rained all day long.  But that's okay!  We loaded up early and headed for the North Shore anyway.  The rain not only lowered the temperatures, but it also kept the crowds away.

We headed to Waimea Bay, where the big-time surfing takes place in the winter.  The water was as calm as a lake--hard to imagine that in the winter the waves are 40 feet high!

One of our favorite things was watching the crazy people jumping off the high rock.  Denise, Art, and Tim think they're going to do it next time.  I will be HAPPY to take their pictures.

I'm thinking some people must not be successful at the rock climbing/jumping.  I wasn't concerned that they would get hurt when they hit the water.  I worried that they would slip before they jumped and fall on the rocks!

After Waimea Bay, we visited the Waialua Sugar Mill, which is a historical sugar refinery that now produces coffee and chocolate.  The refinery closed in the late 1900s, the last sugar refinery on the island to close.  Because of the rain we didn't take the tour, but we loved looking through the gift shop and sampling their coffees and pineapple/coconut/mango/etc. flavored sugars!

An unassuming looking building with lots of goodies!  We were chilled and wet, and the coffee was GREAT!

We visited the wonderful little 100 year old surfing town of Hale'iwa again.  It's one of Denise's and Art's favorite places from their time here last year, and it's where Tim and I went on our first full day on Oahu.  We visited the shops (Art was on a mission to buy a shirt with his birthday "coupon" from Denise),  and we rested and relaxed over a delicious lunch.

Hale'iwa Boat Harbor

We headed on up the shore, stopping at the famous Ted's Bakery on the way.  We sampled the Hawaiian originals--Dobash cake and Chantilly cake.  Dobash is a chocolate chiffon cake with dobash icing (rich, chocolate pudding like icing), and Chantilly is a chiffon caked filled and iced with a smooth buttery-vanilla icing and sprinkled with almonds.  Both were delicious!  We feel obligated to try all things Hawaiian that we don't get at home!

I'm not sure why I took pictures of the building instead of the cakes!

Happy as could be, we continued on to the La'ie Point State Wayside, where a tsunami had at some point punched a hole through the rock!

Dry as could be in our Lee County Schools wind breakers!  Thank you Caroline and Olivia.

We imagined what it would be like to live here, in this very spot.  Would anybody come visit?

As we left this beach and headed on down the windward side of the island, the rain picked up pretty steadily.  We stopped at a macadamia nut farm, but they were closing to try to get home before the road flooded and they couldn't get there.  With our phones beeping with weather alerts, we decided it might be time to hurry back to the "dry" side of the island.  To get there, we once again traveled on H3.  This time, there were dozens of waterfalls shooting from the top of the mountains.  It was incredible--just the perfect ending to a wonderful day!

(Actually, that wasn't quite the end.  After the waterfalls we found a Walmart with a McDonalds, we drank coffee, and I got new sunglasses.  Woo hoo!!!)