Kualoa Ranch

Hawai'i Continued:
On Monday Morning after waking up we walked to the Shorebird Restaurant and Beach Bar in the Outrigger Reef Hotel. It is one of our favorite places for breakfast in O'ahu. It is right on the Waikiki beach. The wall facing the beach is only about 3 feet tall with shutters above that that are always open, so it is like eating right on the beach. It is called the Shorebird for a reason too. Last year we managed to get a prime table right next to the ocean for breakfast. After I sat down I realized I forgot my OJ, so I went back to get and when I came back there were 8 pigeons ON my breakfast plate eating MY food! I was soooo annoyed! I had managed to get a table with an amazing view only to have my food strewn all over the table, chairs, the floor, everywhere by those stupid birds! We ended up eating at the bar, which, by the way, also has an amazing view. Looking back now it is pretty funny! Those birds were lying in wait for someone to momentarily abandon their breakfast so they could swoop in. After all, why migrate when you could live in paradise year round and eat tourist's breakfasts! Luckily breakfast on this trip was much less eventful. And the pineapple was fabulous! After breakfast we walked all the way to the end of Waikiki beach at the Hilton. The gardens on the grounds of the Hilton are beautiful! There are so many beautiful flowers and birds of paradise, and koi ponds.
We had a long walk back up to Kuhio Ave. from there to visit our travel agent who booked us a trip to the Movie Set Tour at Kualoa Ranch where several movies and tv shows were/are filmed including Jurassic Park, 50 First Dates, Godzilla, Pearl Harbor, You Me and Dupree, MacGyver, Hawaii 5 O, and best of all LOST!!!!! Being the LOST fan that I am this was one thing that I couldn't miss!! So, we drove up past Sea Life Park once again to our favorite little town and found Kualoa Ranch. We grabbed a rather uninspired lunch at the ranch and and then were off on a really fun tour!
Yes, that was the actual bus we went on. It was as bad as it looks, but we had so much fun!!!
The entrance to one of the hatches. There is a scene with Matthew Fox (Jack) in front of this door. :)Scouts for LOST driving away after we arrived for a closer look at the hatch.
The tour guide took this picture of us at our first stop. Gotta love the view!

Hurley's golf course location. Breathtaking. I love these mountains!

Me! Look what I found!
Yes, we may look like geeks, but I has sooooo much fun!
Remember the episode in Season 3 when Hurley found the VW Bus with the dead guy and all the beer in it? That ridge in the pic. on the front on the mountain is where Hurley had the guys shove the van down the cliff with him and Charlie in it in order to try to push start it. That scene cracks me up! I LOVE Charlie in it. I love Charlie though!
The Starbucks where Matthew Fox gets his coffee on the way to work. I'm not a stalker. Really. Actually I don't really care that much. Now, if it was the Starbucks where Charlie got his Starbucks, that would be another story!
Blurry Pearl Harbor Picture.
Mike with the Pearl Harbor sign.
And on we go to Jurassic Park. Above are a few of the scenes filmed at Kualoa Ranch.
The log that the Archaeologist guy and the two kids hide behind to get away from a stampede of dinosaurs. Then a T-Rex comes out of the bushes to the side and eats one. Of the dinosaurs, not the kids.
Ain't we cute?
Here we are hiding from the stampeding Dinosaurs!

Godzilla and a footprint from the giant lizard.
Another footprint. Funny story, the footprints were originally 6 feet deep for the movie, but the cows from the ranch kept falling in them during the night and the ranch hands would have to haul them out in the morning. :0 I thought that was soooo funny! They got tired of doing this over and over and they didn't want the cows to get hurt, so they backfilled the footprints so they are only about a food deep now.
A series of footprints and the bus leaving without us. Several of us had run up a big hill to take a closer look at Hurley's golf course. The tour guide loaded the bus and was on his way back to get us, but I thought he was leaving without us! I told him this when he picked us up. He was like oh, then you would have been Lost. He had a cheesy sense of humor. :)
After our tour of Kualoa Ranch ended we decided to take the scenic ride back to the condo and drive around the entire island and back to Honolulu. Our only time restraint was we had reservations at Dukes for dinner at 9pm. The drive around the island of O'ahu was beautiful! We stopped at some deserted beaches and saw amazing mountain views. Mikes favorite stop was at Giovanni's Shrimp Truck. The tour guide said it was the best shrimp on the island. I personally am not all that into food that comes out of a camper retrofitted to be a kitchen, but whatever. I like shrimp as much as the next guy. So we ordered the garlic shrimp. Anyway, they comes out in this garlic butter sauce that they have been cooked in and they are still in their shell things. ICK! I thought that was really gross. I always take the shell thing off shrimp before I cook them and have never been anywhere else where it was served that way. Mike really liked it though. I shared mine with a local cat who really seemed to like it as well.
My favorite stop was an amazing beach on the North Shore not all that far from Turtle Beach. The sand was the softest, finest, whitest sand I have ever seen. It loved it! (Unfortunately I used up all of the camera's memory at the ranch, so I couldn't take any pictures.) Mike and I walked along the beach hand in hand with the sun setting in the background and the surf playing tag with our feet. After a while Mike went and sat down in the sand and I continued to walk along in the surf. But I was not going to get wet. We had dinner reservations. That resolution didn't last too long though. It was too perfect of a night not to play in the ocean! I had a bating suit on under my clothes, so I was in the water within moments. Mike joined me and we has so much fun! I felt like a kid again. I did not want to leave that beach. Ever. But it was getting late and we still had almost a 2 hour drive back to Honolulu.
We made it back in time for our dinner reservations at Dukes. Dukes is my favorite place in Hawaii to eat.
It is named after Duke Kahanamoku the famous surfer and winner of several US Olympic gold medals in swimming. The food at Dukes is fabulous. My steak and garlic mashed potatoes were great, but my favorite thing for dinner is their famous Cesar salad. I had no idea how a Cesar salad could be famous until tasting theirs.
Mike at the dinner table while we waited for our food. He is sooo hot!

The two of us at Dukes. Some pictures our waiter took. We are so in love!
We had a fabulous day. I think it was my favorite day of our vacation. After dinner we had a romantic moonlit walk back "home."