Back to Hawaii

August 4th, 2012 – We had not slept in our bed at home for a month and 2 days now. We pulled out of our Florida driveway on the 3rd of July for a nice slow drive to Seattle with plenty of stops in every place that interested us along the way. In Seattle we boarded the Holland America Oosterdam for a scenic cruise of Alaska, returned to Seattle where we stayed a few more days and then took our time driving back to Georgia to have dinner with John and his wife and a quick chance to hold our new granddaughter who was almost ready to celebrate her first birthday.

After dinner Bill called the base terminal in Jacksonville, Florido to get the updated flight schedule and there was a flight to Hawaii the next day (today, August 4th) with a 2PM roll call. We decided to “go for it!”.

We left the Atlanta area at 8AM and made it to Jacksonville in plenty of time to catch our flight to Honolulu! It is 6 hours earlier in Hawaii so we got there early in the morning but discovered that we had the worst of timing. Military exhibitions were going on at Hickam/Pearl Harbor and not only was there not one vacant room, it was impossible to get a rental car.

Bill purchased commercial tickets for us out of Honolulu flying to the Big Island that afternoon – that would be a great place to chill until the exhibitions were over in a few days. Then we would return to Oahu when rooms and cars were available again.

We were very pleased to get a room in the building we love so much on Pearl Harbor, and Bill got a great deal on a beautiful Mustang convertible for 3 weeks. He never lets me down, he knows how much I love riding in a convertible when I’m in Hawaii and doesn’t mind spending a little extra money for it because he knows it makes me so happy!

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Every time we go to Hawaii we visit the North Shore at least once and one stop is always at Fumi’s Kahuku Shrimps. It is really just a little shack of a place on the side of the road. Both sides of the road are lined with shrimp shacks either made out of a converted bus or an actual free standing shack. You order your cooked or raw shrimp at the window and take them with you or eat them in the covered picnic area next to the larger shrimp shacks. Outside dining only!

Behind the shrimp shacks are the ponds where the Kahuku shrimp are raised. They are very sweet shrimp local to that part of Hawaii and a visit to Hawaii would not be complete without our fix of Kahuku shrimp.

When we go to the North Shore we always have an ice chest with us for our fresh shrimp. The building where we usually stay at Pearl Harbor has a big community grill downstairs. We put a pot of water on the grill, bring it to a boil, carefully drop our shrimp in the pot and leave them in the simmering pot for just a few minutes – until they are nice and pink. Just thinking about Kahuku shrimp makes we want to go back to Hawaii!

On this trip Fumi’s Kahuku Shrimps was on the agenda immediately and we cooked them on the grill on the base. We made a second run to the North Shore a little later when our friends, Jeff and Natalie invited us for steaks on the grill at their house. We turned it into “Surf ‘N Turf”. We furnished the “surf” and they furnished the “turf”. Gotta get back to Hawaii!