When we were first making plans for this trip, we were thinking that we would only be visiting Kauai. As time went on, however, we started to think more about a visit to Oahu as well.

We already had a connecting flight in Honolulu and we had a day with no real commitments on the last day of the trip. So why not make that connecting flight earlier and spend a day visiting Pearl Harbor before our flight home? My wife and sons had never been there, and I was there only once, when I was 13. I had also never visited the museums there (we were on a tour that took us only to the Arizona Memorial).

Then as we started to do more research on Oahu, we found there were many additional activities that looked fun and exciting. We could go UTV riding at a ranch used in many movies including Jurassic Park. We could visit a Japanese Temple. There were many beautiful beaches and hikes and historic sites that we could visit on Oahu as well.

So after some thought, we decided to extend the trip two additional nights, giving us three days on Oahu. My son Evan would miss a couple days of school, and I would be celebrating my birthday IN Hawaii, instead of the day after we returned home. But in the end I think the trip plans seemed that much more complete.

To facilitate the change in plans, I used Southwest Airlines points that I had available to book an early morning flight for us. We had to get up early and drive down from Princeville to Lihue, drop off the car, and check in at the tiny airport. Arriving as always two hours early, we were the first ones there for our flight. Hmmm. Maybe we did have an extra hour to burn. Oh well.

I told my family that this would be the shortest flight I have ever taken at just over 100 miles, and it certainly was quick. The plane’s ascent was immediately followed by its descent. It was a 40 minute flight that didn’t even seem that long.

Though we were sad to leave Kauai (and I know we will be back again), the sense of being in Hawaii was still there, even if we were now in the most populous region of the state. The open air walkways carried a warm, tropical breeze and it felt good to know we still had a few more days to enjoy before traveling home for work and school.

While my wife and kids collected our suitcases at baggage claim, I went to pick up our rental car. This time it was a Mazda CX-5. A vehicle model we used to own and hopefully the luggage space would be better than the Chevy Malibu we had rented in Kauai. It turned out to be just as cramped. We had overpacked and that would not happen next time.

Oh well, at least we were here, had all of our stuff, and were on time to drive over to Pearl Harbor which is only a short distance from the airport.

Pearl Harbor

We are history buffs and Pearl Harbor is a place where history changed dramatically in a matter of hours.

I remember back in AP US History class in high school having a discussion about the strategic reasons for Japan’s attack on our naval base at Pearl Harbor. Japan was already engaged with China and Korea. The Japanese objectives were creating an Asian empire. Why attack the US, a nation that had the power to defeat it?

Because they knew that war with the US was inevitable. The US had control of the Philippines and the Japanese empire could not advance on Southeast Asia without confronting both the US and the British Empire. The attack on Pearl Harbor was an all or nothing campaign, the Japanese Rubicon. The day after Pearl Harbor they would invade Hong Kong as well.

The attack on Pearl Harbor had to not only succeed, it had to completely cripple the US Navy and knock us out of the war before we had a chance to fight. And it was one of the most audacious and perfectly executed military attacks in history. They succeeded in catching our navy completely off-guard. The mission was a total success.

But the primary objective had failed. They sunk a few battleships, destroyed many smaller ships and wiped out much of our air force at Hickam Field. But the US still held Hawaii, and was now determined to fight.

As my teacher said, the only way the attack really succeeds is if they invade Hawaii and push the US back to the coast of California, something they didn’t have the manpower to achieve because they were already spread thin across the Asian front. So the war would be difficult and costly on both sides, but the end result was already predetermined: Japan would lose the war.

USS Arizona Memorial

The first stop for most visitors is the USS Arizona Memorial which sits above the sunken battleship Arizona. The shape of the structure is designed such that the center roof is lower to mark the defeat at Pearl Harbor, with the ends rising skyward to represent ultimate victory in the war.

It was our first stop at Pearl Harbor as well. Almost 1200 US Navy sailors were killed right at this spot and its only when you see the wall with all of the names that this number really hits you. One bomb that hit at just the right spot caused a massive explosion that sunk this mighty ship and took the lives of over a thousand on board who weren’t even expecting to fight a war that morning.

I had visited the memorial when I was 13 and it was good to take my kids there as well. The Arizona will slowly rust away as time goes on, but for now we can still look at the hull of the ship underwater and appreciate that it is a grave for those service members. It is sad to know that the last survivors of the Pearl Harbor attack have now all passed (for years you could still encounter them at Pearl Harbor) but at least this memorial keeps their memory alive for subsequent generations to appreciate.

We were also lucky that we could even visit the site, since it is part of the US National Park Service and we were visiting during a government shutdown. Luckily there are enough donors who care enough to support the site’s operation that is was open during the shutdown. We also donated at the museum to help keep the park open for more visitors regardless of what happens in Washington.

After viewing the memorial for the allotted 15 minutes, we returned to the ferry boat to return to the naval base. We still had a lot more to see and do at Pearl Harbor.

Pacific Fleet Submarine Museum

When I was a kid our visit to Pearl Harbor was on a tour that left out so much of what you can see and do at Pearl Harbor. The Pacific Fleet Submarine Museum is among the best museums you can visit to really learn about submarine warfare.

The museum is comprised of the main museum building and the USS Bowfin submarine. The building has a large interior exhibit space that covers submarine warfare starting in World War II, then the Cold War, and into the present and future. We spent over an hour just on this section of the museum and learned a great deal more than I would have ever expected.

By the time we exited the museum building it was after noon and we were hungry. We still had the USS Bowfin to explore, as well as the other museums (USS Missouri and the Aviation Museum).

We stopped at the outdoor eatery next to the museum and took a moment to eat and rest. Even outside the museum there was a huge torpedo, artillery, a submarine scope and more and we spent some time viewing each and posing by them for photos. Afterward we walked a gangway to the USS Bowfin submarine.

The Bowfin was in shockingly good condition. The brass components are polished to a shine I would expect from a brass musical instrument. The Bowfin was commissioned during World War II and sunk over 40 Japanese ships. It was finally retired in the 1970s before being converted to a museum attraction in the 1980s.

We explored the lower deck and over the water line. There was a Navy veteran onboard that we spoke to briefly. I asked about the voice tubes that I had seen on the German U Boat U-505 at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. Similar voice tubes weren’t used on this submarine, mostly due to it being built later and being more modern.

After exploring the deck we stopped at the souvenir shop and I added a shot glass to my collection. We also posed for a family photo that was printed on a replica historic newspaper dated to Dec. 7, 1941 which we bought for $20.

Now it was time to take the shuttle bus to Ford Island. There was two more museums to visit.

USS Missouri

Battleship warfare largely ended with World War II, as aircraft carriers and submarines made them obsolete. But the battleship Missouri took decades to fully retire, even seeing service in Operation Desert Storm in 1991.

You can’t fully appreciate the size of the artillery guns on a battleship until you see them up close. They are truly massive. The round conical structures you see protruding above the waterline at the Arizona Memorial are the artillery mounts.

The USS Missouri has several decks to explore and we managed to get separated several times amid the labyrinthine decks. We found the spot where a kamikaze pilot crashed into the ship and where he was given a burial at sea. We found the spot where the Japanese formally surrendered to the Allied forces and the documents of surrender.

It was interesting to see the living quarters as well. They were actually pretty large and spacious. There was a recreation room area that seemed like it would be a nice place to relax. It was effectively a floating headquarters at sea, on a ship that saw significant action in four wars.

At Pearl Harbor you can visit the ship where the US entered World War II and the ship where the war formally ended.

Before we returned to the bus, we were hot and tired and a dessert stop was available to us at the wharf where the Missouri was docked. We enjoyed some Dole whip and shave ice to cool down. It was hot out.

Pearl Harbor Aviation Museum

Our last stop was the Aviation Museum. We were starting to tire and we were hot, but we wanted to see this final museum of the day.

I wanted to see the Japanese zero airplane and it was among the first planes on exhibit as we entered. These were some of the best fighter aircraft of World War II and were technologically superior to Allied aircraft at the start of the war. It didn’t take long for the Allies to catch up and build even faster, more maneuverable aircraft, however.

The aircraft here are not only historical, but had individual histories as well. You see aircraft that were recovered from fields, swamps, and in various states of reconstruction. There was the wreckage of a Japanese plane that crashed on Nihau Island and the accompanying story of the pilot is told there too.

A B-17 bomber that lie in a swamp in Papua New Guinea and was recovered in 2013 is on display. You can see a Flying Tigers aircraft and dozens of Cold War jets just outside the hanger.

After a long day at Pearl Harbor, we boarded the shuttle bus back from Ford Island. My eldest son Daniel felt rushed, but to try to see every exhibit would be a matter of days, not hours. We needed to head to our hotel, unpack, and have dinner.

Waikiki

Driving from Pearl Harbor to our hotel we got to see the city of Honolulu from the freeway for really the first time. I may have been there at 13 years old, but really had no significant memories of the place.

The condominium towers and houses of Honolulu really make it look very different than cities in mainland America. Hawaii in many ways is a gateway to Asia, and this is obvious in the architecture and culture. We intend to visit Asia for the first time in a few years, and are just deciding where to visit first.

We took some time deciding on where to stay on Oahu. It seems like 90% of the hotels are concentrated in the Waikiki Beach area, with some scattered on the north and western shore. We considered staying on the north shore away from the busier Waikiki area, but eventually settled on the compromise of being at Waikiki at the quieter end near Diamond Head. It was a great choice.

The Lotus Honolulu at Waikiki

Hotels in Hawaii aren’t inexpensive and staying at a reasonably nice hotel on Waikiki, even in the offseason like October, will still cost $400-$500 a night plus parking and resort fees. Or more.

On Kauai we stayed in vacation rentals and could buy groceries to mitigate meal costs, but now that we were on Oahu and in a hotel, we would be eating out for every meal. But our hotel was right by the beach below Diamond Head peak, both of which we could see from our balcony.

After unpacking and taking a moment to clean up after a hot sweaty day, we considered our options for dinner. Waikiki is always a busy area, but on that particular Saturday there had been a lot more craziness due to two events that happened the same day (which I won’t get into).

Still parking was limited at the hotel and I was concerned that if we left our parking spot we might not have a place to park when we returned in the evening. Therefore I we decided to just try walking down the beach to one of the restaurants along the beachfront.

Well, the craziness was too much. Too crowded, too insane. After entering one crowded restaurant we made up our mind to drive to an area away from Waikiki for dinner. We had walked a mile from the hotel and so, to save time, I ran back to the hotel to get the car while Shelley and Evan waited. Daniel had decided to stay at the hotel and we’d get takeout for him wherever we ended up going.

I got to the hotel and drove the car past Kapiolani Park and hit gridlock traffic exiting the beach. Yikes. I met up with them after fifteen slow minutes and we set off for Kona Brewing down the road in the Hawaii Kai district.

Kona Brewing Company

Kona Brewing turned out to be just what we wanted. Totally chill environment right by the waterfront. Really nice waitress bringing us nice cold beers and delicious food. We started off sitting outside, but the wind picked up and we moved to a warmer spot inside.

As we were leaving we picked up some souvenir beer glasses from the restaurant store. It had been a busy and tiring day, but Kona Brewing capped the evening off well. Now we could head back to the hotel for the night before another activity filled day tomorrow.