Bring on Day 4! It was a VERY busy day!
It started with some stretching and yoga on the lawn. Ok, just kidding, we didn't participate in this. But many other people did!
Kern and Dorothy were up with the sun on day 4, and they took this picture that looks like a painting!
They also went for a walk and Kern took this picture of Dorothy at the lagoon - I thought it looked cool with the building behind her!
We all got ready for the day and hopped in an Uber that dropped us off at the Diamond Head Visitor's Center. Grant was ready to hike to the top!
Why does it feel like I'm on an African safari?
Diamond Head is also known as Le'ahi, and the trail to the top and was formed about 300,000 years ago in a brief, explosive eruption that happened in relatively shallow water at the time. Now, it's about 560 feet to the top!
That's a steep mountain above their heads! The route to the summit is about 0.8 mile (in each direction) and it's rocky and uneven in some places. And there's a lot of stairs! That's not too much for Kern and Dorothy, though!
Still feels like I'm on an African safari.
The trail to the summit was built in 1908 and it originally did not have any railing on it. Here, Dorothy and Natalie are doing a fist bump of awesomeness at the Concrete Landing/Lookout. This concrete foundation held a winch and cable that lifted materials from the crater floor to this point during construction at the summit.
Todd looks like he's genuinely going to fall and Natalie appears to have smelled something terrible!
The boys! Behind Grant and to the left is Koko Head, another large tuff cone crater that last erupted about 3,000-5,000 years ago (or, much more recent than Diamond Head!)
Lastly, just one of my kiddos making a heart out of their collective hands 💗
I'm still on my African safari, right?
On your way up to the summit, you have to go through a 225 foot tunnel. It doesn't have a lot of room to pass when people are coming down from the summit.
When you emerge from the tunnel, you can go left or right - but you want to go left when you come out of the tunnel. These stairs were kind of daunting anyway so we just too the left!
And the views! Oh the views! That's the Diamond Head Lighthouse which was built in 1917. There was a lighthouse on this site before that (since 1899) but it got a big crack in it and had to be rebuilt.
I just wanted to share a closer-up picture of this pretty lighthouse!
We're not to the top yet! We stopped at the bunker that was built around 1915 along the crater rim. You can already see the great views of Honolulu and Waikiki!
You can actually climb into this bunker and walk around! You've gotta be very nimble in order to get in this thing, though!
Kern took a pretty picture of a sailboat!
Me and my babies in a bunker on a dormant volcano.
Me and my babies at the top of Diamond Head. No joke, this was about 30 seconds before it started raining! It only lasted a few minutes but it also only happened when we reached the summit. Face palm!
As SOON as we left the very top of Diamond Head, the rain let up and the heat came back. But we managed to make our way back down the mountain for a celebratory photo of us with the state park sign.
And then Kern said we all had to look like we were exhausted. He's very good at creating ridiculous photos!
Still feeling like I'm on the African plains. Diamond Head actually got it's name because sailors came here and thought they found diamonds - only it was the sparkly calcite that is found in volcanic rock that they found instead! The name stuck though!
After our exhausting hike up to the top of Diamond Head, we took an Uber back to the hotel, got cleaned up and went out to Surf Alley on our way to the beach to hop on our sunset cruise. This is a surfboard storage lane!
Before we set sail, Natalie and Grant hung out on the trampoline net on the bow of the boat. Little did Natalie know...
Dang, did we hike to the top of that earlier in the day? We did!
And away we go!
This is when the boat ride was extremely peaceful. But because Hurricane Hone was southeast of the islands, there was a Small Craft Advisory and the seas were ROUGH once we got a bit offshore.
Raise the sails!
I couldn't capture everything without the 0.5 - this is before the seas got rough!
We were fairly concerned Kern would throw up since he gets motion sick... but he never did! The Mai Tais must have helped!
Rough seas but a beautiful end to the day!
I'm literally obsessed with Diamond Head.
Me and Diamond Head, with some white caps sprinkled in.
I can see Kern in the reflection in my glasses and I can tell that he is what Todd is laughing at. Meanwhile I was just trying to take a selfie with "Thor" (as we called the boat captain).
Kern really took the best picture of Thor though! A shirtless, surfer captain who doubles as a bartender (he was serving us when we first got on the boat).
As you can see, Natalie is not dry. She was sitting up on the trampoline and we hit a wave that literally dipped the entire front end of the boat into the ocean. Water came pouring into the boat - even as far back as we were. The workers grabbed all of our stuff and took it below deck to keep it dry. Meanwhile, here's Natalie... and of course, as soon as we turned around and headed back toward land (which we did prior to the sunset), everything calmed down and we had a very peaceful ride back!
I liked this cool picture of Grant at sunset.
Me and Dorothy!
And my babies!
Ok ok, a sunset with NO other humans in the shot. Look at all of those sailboats though!
My kids call Kern "the goat" which is super funny.
Ahhh. Now that's just really lovely.
We finally made it back to land! I think Kern was relieved despite his attempt at faking falling down the stairs while he was getting off the boat which caused him to actually get stuck in the mud and fall down!
The sky post sunset was just stunning.
And the palm trees looked so super cool.
Isn't this just paradise??
After our sunset cruise, we went back to the Maui Brewing Company for some dinner. This time, we did NOT get the amazing, delicious water. I was so disappointed. The meal was fine, but I really wanted that water! Kern decided at one point that he needed to eat the hot pepper that came with one of the meals. Todd pretended to eat one but didn't. Kern took a nibble, decided it wasn't very spicy and then ate the whole thing, including all of the seeds. You can see he immediately regretted that decision. We laughed for the longest time about this!!
But Natalie was FREEZING at dinner (because remember, she was soaking wet!), so she and I ate and then left a bit early to head back to the hotel. Nat and I were literally already in bed when everyone came back and decided they wanted to play Among Us... but I was already mostly asleep! Nat hopped out of bed and joined them and Grant was very happy that everyone wanted to play his favorite group travel game!
Next up, day 5!
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