We had a really good time at the Honolulu Century Ride today. There aren't a lot of club rides like there were in St. Louis, so we jumped on the chance to sign up for this one. I think this was actually the largest ride we've ever been in, over 4000 cyclists. It started from Diamond Head and the start was at 6:15, which meant we had to leave the house at 5am to drive there, find a parking spot, and get the bike ready.
I don't think I've ever been photographed so many times in my life. We were a bit of a curiosity in St. Louis, but here we were definite head-turners. A LOT of Japanese tourists took our picture (this ride draws a large number of riders from Japan).
They sent us off in stages, so it took quite a while just to get going. Here are some pictures from the start:
The weather was gorgeous (no rain showers) and the scenery was spectacular. We had driven some of these stretches before, but there's nothing like touring them by bike.
The kids were fantastic too. Adam started getting a little whiny just before we got to the turnaround point for the 50mile option. We stopped at the rest stop for quite a while, fueled him up with oranges and cookies and he was good to go.
He got his second wind and really didn't complain much at all on the whole way back until we got within 5 miles of the finish. I never heard a single complaint out of Cole, he enjoyed the scenery and took a short nap. We did a total of 50 miles today and everybody was in good spirits. I think we could have done the 75 mile, but it would have led to lots of whining and bribery. The last time we did 70 miles with Adam, I had to whip out the suckers I had stashed in my pocket from the hotel lobby for the last hour of the ride. Since I didn't have any bribery candy, I didn't want to push it :)
A photographer was taking photos along the route for purchase , so I'm hoping that once the photos are up on his website there will be some good ones of us all on the bike. If I get some good ones, I'll post them later.
So a good day of riding and two happy bikers...
I'm kind of on a roll the last couple days getting some scrapbooking done
We had a fun weekend, bike riding on Saturday on our usual bike path. Then on Sunday we took a drive up the west side of the island and went until the road ends on that side. The mountains up that way were beautiful. I don't remember seeing the haze so much when we were out but it shows up on the pictures, the winds were light and so the vog from the volcanoes has been hanging around the islands. The water on this side of the island looks just bright, brilliant blue. It seems like further south it has a pretty turquoise color. This road seems to have some decent biking potential too. We may have to drive out and bring the bike another weekend to ride.
After we drove up to the end of the road, we headed back to Nanakuli Beach Park. This was recommended in our guide book to be one of the few good swimming beaches on the west side. Much of the west side shoreline is rocky and with large waves. This beach had a nice shoreline area to swim, so we had a picnic and enjoyed some time swimming and playing in the sand. While we were there, a lifeguard recommended another beach that is very calm and good for little kids called Pokai Bay Beach Park that is nearby, so we may have to try that one another weekend too. It used to be a boat harbor with a breakwater and now is a swimming beach.
When we first got to Hawaii, I was a little bit chicken to swim in the ocean. Swimming has never been my strong suit, but little by little I've headed out and now have found it's pretty fun. Usually we end up taking turns going out since neither Adam or Cole can really swim. Adam has been taking lessons and is getting better. I bought him a suit that has a built-in flotation piece, and he gets around pretty good in the ocean with that. He doesn't need it in the pool. Cole doesn't really like the waves at all. He enjoys swimming in a pool, but he doesn't like the ocean at all. 
I guess the welcome wagon came to visit us sometime over the last few days - I'm afraid they didn't bring us any muffins or bread though. I went to the garage this morning and was cleaning up a bit when I noticed Dan's nice road bike was not in the garage. Thinking that was very odd, I called him up to see if he had taken his bike to work for some reason. But of course he hadn't, so someone had decided to relieve us of one bike while we weren't paying attention. Thankfully, it wasn't the triple, but I guess that would be hard to sell around these parts. It might be a little too high profile.
So I guess the garage door stays down unless we're standing in front of it. The policeman who took the report said it's pretty common around here for people to cruise streets looking for an open garage door and then they grab something quick and go. We're keeping an eye out for the bike on Craigslist and may check with the bike shop on this end of the island. It's kind of a conspicuous bike (tall with bright bold colors) so maybe it will turn up (but probably not!)
So I guess that was our 'Welcome to the Island'. I'd rather have the muffins...
OK, paradise is great and all, but I do have one complaint: bugs. They seem to grow them really well here. The thing that drives me nuts is that every time you pick up something outside, you can pretty much expect at least a couple of roaches to go scampering away. Now at least usually these are little beige ones, but on occasion you do find a monster size dark brown ROACH who usually doesn't run off, it's like they stare at you and hold their ground for a while.
The other day I moved a box in the house and there was a dead centipede (about 3" long) under it. Outside I found (again dead, thankfully) a 3" millipede next to the house. The more legs a bug has, the less I like them so I'm glad those creepy crawlies were already dead.
Of course, the roaches do get in the house (thankfully not in the numbers you find them outside!) which really drives me nuts. Note to bugs: I will let you live if you stay outside, but if you come in my house, consider yourself squashed.
We found this big guy in the yard one day, maybe I'll have to keep a couple pet ones around the house to eat our bugs :)
We went to Sea Life Park over the weekend since they had a deal for residents. To get over there, I wanted to take the Pali Highway instead of the interstate. It was supposed to be a scenic drive, and boy was it ever. We stopped at an overlook and here was the first view we got...
There was a path that you could hike down the cliff, which used to be where the old Pali highway ran. We hiked down until Adam decided that he was tired, and I think he was a little scared because towards the bottom the brush starts really overgrowing the road and I think he thought we were heading straight into the jungle. So we hiked back up.
Then we headed over to the sea life park. This park was really cool. The first thing you see when you come in is a GIANT reef tank that is just swarming with fish, turtles, stinray, sharks, etc.
Cole was utterly fascinated by this tank
We walked around the grounds of the park a bit while we were looking at the various tanks they had. Here is a view of the dolphin area where they do the dolphin shows. It was empty at the time, but you get some stunning views of the ocean and some small islands (I believe the tall one in the background is called Manana island)
Here is the first of the shows we went to, the sea lion show. We saw three shows at the park, the sea lion show, dolphin show, and another one that had dolphins, sea lions and penguins all in the same show. All three shows were really good, the kids were enthralled. 
I think we spent over four hours at the park, and with two little kids that is no small feat. It was well worth the trip, I'd recommend this one for anyone who is planning to come visit us! The kids were exhausted by the time we were done and slept most of the way home.
I put more pictures on Flickr, link below:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/26722912@N05/sets/72157607071248515/detail/
He got his second wind and really didn't complain much at all on the whole way back until we got within 5 miles of the finish. I never heard a single complaint out of Cole, he enjoyed the scenery and took a short nap. We did a total of 50 miles today and everybody was in good spirits. I think we could have done the 75 mile, but it would have led to lots of whining and bribery. The last time we did 70 miles with Adam, I had to whip out the suckers I had stashed in my pocket from the hotel lobby for the last hour of the ride. Since I didn't have any bribery candy, I didn't want to push it :)
