Last day in Hawaii: Good-byes, Pearl Harbor, and Waikiki

And just like that it was time to go home. Jimmy came over with the shirts we bought, and George and Kathy came over to say good-bye. It's funny how quickly people can feel like family!

 Our flight didn't leave until 8:30 that night, so we got to spend the day sight-seeing. Even though the USS Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor was damaged earlier in the week when a medical ship ran into it, we decided to head that way and see what we could see.

We were happy to find out that we could still see the movie and ride out to the memorial, we just couldn't get out of the boat. And we only had to wait about 30 minutes for our turn! So we looked around at the exhibits until then.

We had seen that white ball thing in the background all week and wondered what it was. According to Google, it is part of our missile defense system.

The movie and boat ride were very sobering and moving.

Even zoomed-in, this was as close as we got.

We ate lunch there--big fat hot dogs! Expensive, but worth it! This "sign" made me "laugh".

After lunch we toured the submarine USS Bowfin. My dad's first couple of years in the Navy were spent on a submarine, and Mike's dad was actually stationed at Pearl Harbor during WWII as an instrument technician on submarines, so it was personal to both of us. It was fascinating to me, so I took a lot of pictures! If it's not fascinating to you, feel free to scroll through them quickly to see the rest of our day!

Torpedo tubes

That's somebody's rack right there!

Officer's galley

Officers' quarter's

Captain

Mike's dad very possibly may have stood right here.

There were more men than racks, so they had to take turns using them.

We still had some time to kill before our flight, and the students had been really wanting to go to the HE>I store in Waikiki, so that was our next stop! They all bought shirts and stickers and things, and we talked to the guys working there, and they prayed with us before we left! You can visit their website here. I also asked them where we could find good shave ice on our way to Waikiki, and they directed us to a store that had been there since 1940 (in a sketchy neighborhood) and it was the best shave ice I've ever had. Mine had sweetened condensed milk poured on top. YUM!

From there we drove to Waikiki (parked at the post office) and just walked around for an hour. Mike, my husband who hates sand, went straight to the beach. There was a concrete jetty type thing that we walked out on in our socks and tennis shoes. It had a little bit of water coming up on it, but not too much. UNTIL that one wave hit me that went up to my knees! Mike didn't believe me until it happened to him, too!!! It was uncomfortable walking around in wet, sandy shoes and socks, but pretty funny, too.

I'm pretty sure that's Diamond Head in the background.

It was pretty, but no prettier than the beaches in Waianae, and more crowded-

The Hard Rock Cafe let us use their restroom.

We ended up just sitting in the shade in this park until it was time to go. I loved this big beautiful tree!

We made it to the airport in plenty of time--Mike and I were even able to put our wet things in plastic bags and find some dry shoes. The only hiccup before we boarded was when one of our students came out of security and couldn't find his boarding pass.  We panicked, but then they told us he could get another one printed at the gate if he showed them his driver's license. That's when he remembered it was wrapped around his driver's license!! Augh. We were all hungry so we ate and prayed he would find it and guess what? He found it in his pocket. Go figure.
The Honolulu airport has several open air areas, and in one of them we saw this.

I thought it was a perfect way to say good-bye.
The flight home was shorter than on the way there, but I didn't sleep as well. We landed in Dallas around 9:00 a.m., were taken to our vehicles, and drove 4 hours home. Home had been getting so much rain lately that there have been road closings, but we made it just fine.

It felt wonderful to hug Jessica and Mikayla again, but in less than 30 minutes I had packed a quick bag, grabbed Jessica to keep me awake, and drove another 3 hours to Conway to get Rebecca. I was too tired to drive back then, so I got to have a nice little visit with Mom before we went home the next day. I even got to see Sally. But it felt really good to sleep in my own bed that night. Even Precious was happy to see us.