President's Day Weekend 09

Punalu'u Beach

As I've said before, I'm bound and determined to get this family out experiencing Hawaii whenever we get a chance (or an extended weekend as the case may be:)

This weekend was the first weekend since Dave got his bike back so I suggested we take a road trip. Me and Andi rode in the van all the way and the twins took turns riding with Dave on his bike.

We decided we would drive around the northern end of the island and down the east side to the macadamia nut farm. The drive along the coast alone was worth it and somehow we missed the farm entrance. So we decided to just keep going and we ended up stopping at a place called "The Valley of the Temples". Basically, it's a cemetery, but it's a beautiful, BIG cemetery with cool little Japanese temples scattered through out. At the very back of the cemetery is a Buddhist temple called Byodo-In Temple. It is the biggest temple there and you actually have to pay to get in to see it. It was pretty cool to see though. I had never been in an actual Buddhist temple. It had a cool pond in front of it with lots of coi fish and black swans.

Byodo-In Temple

We then took the H3 Freeway back towards home. The H-3 is probably one of the most scenic freeways you'll ever take. It had some beautiful views of the mountains and it has a big long tunnel the takes you actually through the mountain.

For today we had decided to go to the beach. We wanted to try one of the beaches we had seen the day before on our drive. Dave participated in the Great Aloha Run (an 8.15 mile run that the city of Honolulu puts on every year) with his unit. But when he got home, we headed for the beach. Made a quick stop in Laie at McDonalds for lunch. (right between the Polynesian Cultural Center and the BYU Hawaii Campus entrance) and then on to Punalu'u beach.

The first thing we noticed as we set up our beach towels was a dead sting-ray laying on the beach. It was interesting...never seen one like that before. It's head almost looked like a dolphin head. All the rays I've seen before were just flat. Anyway...here are some pics from our weekend.

Cownose Ray?