Hawaii Vacation Day 5 - North Shore Drive

Thursday was the first day we slept in to a normal hour, 7:00! That is still early for us for vacation, but more normal to our every day lives. I had read a trip report about a couple going to eat at Denny's for every meal, so we had to go try the Denny's and see what the fuss was about. Well, it did not disappoint. But it was still, just Denny's!

After breakfast, we went to the local Goodwill store to see if we could find some Hawaii shirts, cheap! Since Andrew works for a thrift store, we knew we could find some great deals, we just had to look for them. (I know people are rolling their eyes right now, but I don't care.You can save a lot of money by shopping thrift stores!) Well, we did great, and were able to find 2 shirts for Andrew, an Aulani shirt for me, and a shirt for Michael. Total spent on 4 shirts: $8.00!! I don't think the Aulani shirt had ever been worn, and new would have cost us $25+.

So after our adventure to Goodwill, we got on the highway and headed for the North Shore. There wasn't anything specific we wanted to see, just the area in general. 

The first place we went was the town of Hale'iwa, We just drove through pretty quick, because we knew we would be driving back through and stopping for lunch. I know a lot of people go and get the shave ice from Matsumoto's, but we didn't. The shave ice at the resort was so good, and we had one or two everyday, that we just skipped Matusmoto's. 

From Hale'iwa, we headed north to turtle beach to try and find some sea turtles! The beach is actually called Laniakea Beach.  

When driving down the road, you will see a bunch of cars parked on the right hand side of the road, and tons of people crowded around the beach on the left. Park, and walk down to the beach. 

 I promise, there are turtles in those pictures, you just have to look close.

We saw a bunch of turtles in the water where the rocks are. We didn't actually see any up on the beach, like I had wanted, but it was still really cool seeing them swimming around in the water. We ended up seeing close to a dozen turtles! As a plus, the beach there is beautiful! 

 After the turtle beach, we continued driving north. We saw where the pipeline would be, if it were winter time, and their were big waves. But in the summer, it's just a quiet beach. We turned around and headed back to the Hale'iwa for some lunch. We had wanted to go to one of the shrimp trucks, but the one we wanted was closed, and the other one, was up on the other side of the north shore. So we used urban spoon and found a Mexican restaurant with a great rating and tried that. Luibueno's was really good, but more expensive then we realized. But we were all really happy with our meal.

After lunch, we walked around a couple of shops, but by then it had started raining, so we got in the car and tried to drive all the way around the island. We got to where the road ends, but had to turn around.

That blue dot is as far as we could go. 

 It was a beautiful drive. The mountains on one side and the ocean on the other.

So we found our way back to the resort, but kept driving past it until we met the dirt road again. 

Andrew wanted to see where we would have come out, had we been able to go the whole way around. It turns out there is about a 2 mile space between the roads. People park and hike from one side to the other. Again, it was a beautiful drive. Luckily, Michael was in the back seat napping during this adventure. 

Once we did all of this, it was back to the resort for some dinner. We ended up just getting a pizza and eating it in our room. It was a long day of exploring, and we were not really in the mood to go eat somewhere. We watched a movie while we ate dinner. After the movie, Andrew asked Michael if he wanted to go swimming! Of course Michael super excited about swimming at night, so off they went to the pool, and I went to bed! It was a busy day, and I was tired. Michael loved swimming when it was a "Black sky"!

Up next, we celebrate our 10th anniversary with a lazy day at the resort!