HAWAII – Oahu, Coming
Full Circle, December 11-15
Tuesday morning
we all flew from Kona to Honolulu. Honolulu
has special significance for Venita since it is the city where she was
born. We were greeted at the airport by
PSP Wayne and Colleen Howard, PDDGER John and Colette Brown, DDGER Chuck
Minnick and Exalted Ruler of Pearl City Elks Lodge, Richard Williams. After gathering the luggage, we headed out
for lunch at Sam Choy’s at the Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickham. DDGER Chuck is a retired submariner and still
works as a contractor for the Navy.
Since most of his time was spent at Pearl Harbor, he was a great tour
guide and shared his considerable knowledge of the Base.
After lunch, we
took some time to drive over to Kaneohe Bay and the Marine Corp Station
there. We made a stop to see the church building
where the Kailua Lodge #2230 holds their meetings and had a quick tour of the
facility. We then headed for the Sheraton
Waikiki to get checked in and unpacked.
Dinner that evening was at the Mariposa Restaurant which is part of the Neiman
Marcus store in the Ala Moana Center. It
was a lovely restaurant and the excellent dinner was made even more enjoyable
since it was shared with Jim, Lucia, Chuck, Wayne, Richard and his wife, Rachel.
Wednesday morning
Chuck took us to the Swap Meet at the Aloha Stadium. More an artisans’ market than an actual flea
market, it was amazing to see the things we brought back even though we didn’t
think we needed anything! Of course,
after walking the market we needed lunch.
Chuck obliged by taking us to the Seven Palms Navy-Marine Golf Course
followed by a stop at the Harley Davidson Motorcycle Shop for the required souvenir
t-shirts. That evening, we were treated to
a reception by the members of Honolulu Elks Lodge #616. Located at the foot of Diamond Head on Waikiki
Beach, the Honolulu Lodge is a beautiful facility and we enjoyed their
hospitality very much. Of special note
were the “ER Sliders” named in honor of their Exalted Ruler Robert Kekuna,
Jr. Thanks, Bob!
Thursday started
with a tour of the Iolani Palace in downtown Honolulu. The official residence of
Hawaii’s monarchy, this National Historic Landmark was started in 1879 and was occupied
in 1882 by King Kalākaua and his family as well as his sister and successor,
Queen Lili‘uokalani. It is a beautiful
building and is the only Palace in the United States. After our tour, we went to the Honolulu Memorial and Punchbowl
National Cemetery where we placed a wreath at the Elks commemorative plaque. Thursday evening, we had a formal reception
and dinner for the Hawaii Elks at the Pearl City Elks Lodge #2669. They
presented Venita with a beautiful koa wood box engraved with honu (turtles) and
Tom a koa wood clock of the Hawaiian Islands.
They also presented Venita with a necklace and earrings representing the
plumeria flower.
Friday morning we
went to Ford Island for a tour of the Pacific Air Museum. We had a wonderful docent and spent several
hours wandering through the displays and the hangars that were part of the
history of the December 7th attack on Pearl Harbor.
After lunch at the Museum, we went to the
Submarine Memorial. This memorial is
dedicated to the 52 submarines and 3,700 submariners who were lost during
WWII. We placed a lei on the plaque
commemorating the loss of the U.S.S. Seawolf and then took a tour of the Bowfin,
one of the surviving submarines of WWII.
After our tour, we met the officers of the Kailua Elks Lodge #2230 for
appetizers and drinks at Schooner's Restaurant at the Marina. We enjoyed our time with these folks very
much and complimented them on all of the hard work they are doing to promote
Elkdom in their area. After leaving our
hosts, we boarded a launch and took a night tour of Pearl Harbor. This is a
special tour done during the holiday season to show off the lights on the
various ships in the harbor. As the
holiday music rang out over Pearl Harbor, we had an up close look at these
beautiful light displays.
Our visit to
Hawaii ended with lunch at a wonderful sushi restaurant, Ynagi’s courtesy of
DDGER Chuck. We could not have had a
more perfect ending to our time in this beautiful state. Thank you, Hawaii Elks, and aloha!
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