Aloha Friday - Nuts and Chickens and Sausages?!

It has been forever since an Aloha Friday post and I'm so very sorry.  But as our time in Hawaii is quickly winding down, I wanted to make sure to share with you our oh so many adventures before we have to leave this beautiful island.

1.  Tropical Farms - Macademia Nut Farm Outlet & Farm Tour.  Although some consider this a tourist trap, I absolutely love the Mac Nut Farm.  They give out amazingly generous samples of EVERY. SINGLE. NUT, they are priced about the same as in town, and the farm tour is HANDS DOWN the most fun and best deal on the island.  Think of it as a farm tour meets mini luau meets scenic boat road.  LOVE LOVE LOVE and highly recommend it.

A view of the mac nut farm outlet from behind the store.

Check out this bus for the farm tour.  Ridiculous.  And the tour guide, amazingly freakin' awesome and hilarious!

The bus takes you to a gorgeous spot on the pond and Chief talks about Hawaiian plants, shows you how to make the headbands, does a fire show, and basically does a stand up comedy show while doing all of this.

Afterwards, we go on a lovely boat ride around this pond looking up to the Koaloa Mountains (where a ton of movies like Jurassic Park were filmed).

And afterwards, we tried our hand at cracking some mac nuts.  Fun!

2.  Pyramid Rock Beach.  We are so lucky that the military has some spectacular beaches open to us.  One of them is Pyramid Rock Beach on the Marine Corps Base in Kaneohe Bay.  We will be getting family photos here before leaving the island.  SO excited!

3.  Combat Boots on Ford Island.  In connection with the Fisher House Hero & Remembrance Run on Ford Island, thousands upon thousands of boots from fallen service members were lined around the old runway and eventually displayed together on the field.  It's a solemn reminder of the sacrifices that have been paid for this war.

4.  Foster's Botanical Garden. A really beautiful place with some massive Exceptional Trees.  We were particularly smitten the canon ball and sausage trees.  :)

Here's the cannon ball tree.

And the sausage tree.

A super rare plant called the Corpse Plant.  It smelled so bad!

And check out has massive this tree is!

5.  Ray's Kiawe Broiled Chicken.  This might be some of the best chicken I've ever had. DELICIOUS.  

And conveniently right across the street from Matsumotos.  So we obviously had to have some shave ice too.

6.  Ka'ena Point.  We tried hiking out to the point before but failed since we didn't have enough time.  For this attempt, we drove our car straight to the gate.  What a beautiful hike complete with a monk seal sighting!

I think that's it for now.  Still have a lot to catch up on but wanted to at least get the ball rolling!!  As always, mahalo for stopping by!