We ended last night with some china food – and sorry to say but that was just a boring place with ok food and a waitress that didn’t want any tips.

We had a nice breakfast – as all Hampton Inn seem to have – and even brought breakfast bags (filled with fruit, water, cupcake and a cereal bar) – and took off in a nice and sunny weather.

The roads are long and boring, but the scenery is quite nice. We’ve driven fast some funny roadsigns and some a sign that said you can’t text and drive. Funny thing is – you can talk on the phone while driving and you don’t even need a handsfree – there are a lot of funny driving styles with the phone on the shoulder… can’t quite understand that one (but then again – this is America and I guess we’re not suppose to understand everything here).

We finally ended in Cheyenne and our hotel which looked very nice, until we got to our room – it wasn’t cleaned. Back to the reception – getting a new room. The door between the rooms could not be locked, so  back again to the reception – it finally worked out. The hotel (not even worth naming) is old and could use some remodeling. We ended the evening with some really good pizza in our hotel room Tomorrow it’s off to Omaha and our friends!

Our last day in Hawaii ended in our plane being cancelled and we had to get a flight to LA and from there to SF where we eventually picked up a rental car – not the car we had ordered, but a larger and more expensive one – a GMC Yukon. At 1130 pm (2330 norsk tid) we were finally in Truckee – so we missed out on all the scenery (landskap – ting å se på), but we were happy be have made the long ride in the dark evening Hampton Inn in Truckee is such a lovely place so I’d suggest that if you’re around and need a place to stay – go there! Love the breakfast – and you even get free breakfast bags (they’re in the recetion) to take with you!

The pictures shows our trip from Truckee to Salt Lake City. It’s mostly scenery – so have a look – google the signs I’ve taken picture of and enjoy the 362 pics They’re not edited in any way – don’t have the time until I come home, so there are quite a few of the same, but just browse through whatever you want

We’ve had a nice time here, but all good things must come to an end. We had an ok breakfast at a nearby place this morning – it was food – nothing more. Then we walked around buying a bit of this and that for friends and family - posting the last cards.

You’re now allowed to feed the birds, but we just love the doves (cute and small – and the cardinals) – so we bought some bread and had a nice afternoon in the park feeding the birds.

Kim picked us up and took us to a Japanese steakhouse – where we had a lovely family style dinner – ppl. we didn’t know were also seated around the table – you can have a look at the pics below

2 years ago today we got married on Portlock Beach here on Oahu where we are now –  at 5 pm in the afternoon – just as the sun was setting. If you weren’t there – you can read about it here (all in Norwegian).

We had a slow and relaxing morning. I went in to “town” and did some shopping while JO relaxed in the Kapiolani park outside our hotel.

Kim picked us up for dinner – taking us to Helena’s  for some real Hawaiian food.

Lomi lomi salmon – the bowl with the red tomat and salmon salad.

Poi (the bowl with the purple stuff in) is made from mashing up the core of the taro plant. It doesn’t really taste much in itself, but Kim told us that she added the Lomi lomi salmon – and some chili sauce which gave it a bit more flavor.

Kalua pork - it’s actually pork who is slowly cooked.

Luau chicken - chicken cooked with taro leaves. Taro is often substituted with spinach. It’s all cooked with coconut milk into a mild dish! (really yummy, though it’s looks like green sh*t)

Laulau – (the dish in the top right corner) – is usually pork – and here it was pork and fish – wrapped in taro leaves (and then wrapped in some other leaves) and cooked in an imo – underground oven.

Haupia is a Hawaiian jello-like dessert made of coconut. You can eat it like we did – just as it is, or you can use it in cakes.

This was a really yummy dinner. I didn’t like the poi, but JO really liked it. I think we should open a restaurant in Oslo with such simple dishes!

I had no idea I had the panoramic function on my phone, so we had to try it out

This is from the park outside our hotel. Our hotel to the left – Honolulu in the middle of the picture.

This is from the scenic walk from Waikiki to our hotel.

We had planned to have breakfast at Bogart’s, but the place was too full and we were told it was a 25 min wait, so we walked on. Trying Eggs’n things – the queue didn’t move for 10+ mins (and it must have been 15 ppl in front of us) – time had past 1015 so we thought we could just wait till Cheesecake Factory opened. While waiting we walked around the International Marketplace (or the Tourist Trap… ). We had a nice brunch – didn’t eat it all, so got a doggy bag (which is now in the fridge in our hotel room).

We decided to bit a bit of laundry – so spent the next hour at our hotel getting some clean clothes.

Kim picked us up at 5 pm taking us to an Indian restaurant – Cafe Maharani. We had some yummy food and Kim got to take home the leftovers! Lucky her! She was also so kind as to stop by Safeway’s so we could buy some fruit and something to drink.

No more plans for tomorrow – we’re relaxing and walking and window shop – might actully buy something as well So far the shopping has been mostly work-out clothes and some sneakers. And yeah – 4 tops from the Banana Republic store.

Since we had two days in a row that were both quite buzy, we decided to sleep in today – had a fruit breakfast in bed (pineapple, melon and grapes) – read my book – watched the morning news and then jumped in the shower heading for lunch at Cheesecake Factory.

Elaine was at work so she got “a little piece of Norway” – which means she got a big bar of Norwegian milk chocolate (sorry Nicole and Donavan – one less chocolate bar for you). She was so happy and I think she wanted to taste it right away, but hid it and worked on.

After lunch we just walked around town – browsing the shops – bought a little something here and there and then went back to the hotel and relaxed for the rest of the day. Tomorrow we don’t have any plans except for dinner with Kim

Instead of the usual pics – here are some pics of car signs.

Today we went to the Big Island – the one a lot of ppl. call Hawaii. We landed at the Kona Airport – a small airport where you have to walk down the stairs from the plane – old and cosy. We then (after a few “where are we going”) picked up our rental car (of course the lady talked us in to upgrading it) – a Ford Explorer. For Kim this was a bus, but she’s a great driver and took us safely across the island.

Our first stop for the day was breakfast at Lava Java at Kailua-Kona. The food was ok, but the best was the chai tea ice latte that JO eventually got! I could drink it all day! Not too sweet – not too spicey, just – perfect! The place had live music – great view and cute sparrows that was right on top of you when you left your table or dropped some food

We then drove on the Kona side of the island. If you’ve ever been to the Canary Island, Lanzarote, you’d recognize the scenery. Ppl. also found white stones and wrote their names or small notes on the black lava stones. I found it messy – like litter so I wouldn’t stop and do that. From the Kona side we turned towards the Hilo side – which is so green – almost like a jungle! In Hilo we had lunch and slow service – they didn’t at all deserve the tip we gave them – I blame them for almost losing our flight.

Kim then took us to the Akaka Falls – so pretty – lush with leaves and flowers and of course a waterfall – and we had some rain which is common in Hilo.

From Hilo we drove to see the lava flow, but we were told that there was nothing to see as the lava had made a crust – even at night there was nothing. The fun thing though was that when Kim stepped up to take a picture her alarm went off on her phone – she had set the alarm to “time to go to the airport – it’s a 2.5 hr ride from here”, but the alarm was one of those old-time sounds, so ppl around us were worried that they sounded the alarm for another lava outbreak! We all got a good laugh!

Well – the alarm went off and we had to head for the airport. It was a long and boring ride – and it turned out to be a bit longer than expected as ppl. drove slowly – we managed to fill gas, return the car, ask the driver to wait for us so he could take us to the airport – the into the line asking the security guy if we had enough time – which he told us we had. Well – by the time we were all throughy the security – with my shoes in my hand (and managed to run to the toilet and then to the queue) there were only a few ppl. left boarding the plane. So – if you’re in Hilo – plan for a bit more time

Thanks again Kim for driving us around in your “bus” – the island is now one of the “been there done that” – and if I was asked to go back I’d say no. I found it too quiet and a bit boring. Yeah, Oahu might be a bit more touristy, but you can chose to go away from Waikiki and get silence – on the Big Island – it was quiet all over except for the place we had breakfast. I guess we’ll visit Maui next time we’re here

Saturday morning – and Kim picked us up to go to the farmers market – a place we visited last time we were here. Lots of ppl. – good food, drinks, flowers etc. We walked around for a bit – taking it all in. Jan Ove and I ended up buying the Kalua pork on a taro bun (the taro makes it purple and super soft!) – Kim had some food thing from “The pig and the lady” – who took forever to make (not very smart when you’re on a farmers market and you want to buy and go). Full of food I had to buy some fresh pineapple – I think I could live on that stuff! I also bought some honey for the “old folks” at home – something sweet for the cold winters (post continues after the pictures)

We drove on to Hanauma Bay – a place we didn’t visit the last time we were here. There are things I like about the states, but there’s one thing I really don’t like – and that is that you have to pay to visit or use what I would call a public place. To get to the beach or use it – you’d have to pay a fee – you can’t drive down to the beach and leave your stuff and then park – no, you then take a train down or just carry all your stuff. I would call this a public place and such places should be free! (there – I said it!)

After Hanauma Bay we stopped at the light house. Well – you can’t see it, but we thought about taking the hike to get there, but we ended up just taking pics of the sea. JO saw a seal – so did the ppl. besides up, but Kim and I think it was only a trick (post continues after the pics)

From Hanauma Bay Kim took us to her fav. beach (which I can’t remember the name of). It was so quiet and nice – quite few ppl and the the sand was so fine I had to collect some. We then took Kim to a place that JO had read about that was in a place called the Fiji Market – which actually are just some tents I think. The “restaurant” was an old indian woman making yummy food in the corner of a store! We had some spicey, hot lamb curry – it was really good, but I’m not used to having the lamb on the bone, but it was stilly really good! We had rothi on the side – there was no nan. As the woman said “we call nan for rothi” – well – it’s not the same, but it was good enough!

On the way home we stopped at Kim’s fav house – it was really beautiful and I can see why she loves it (she’s moving to California with her husband (he already left and started his work there) – I bet they could build a house like this there).

After a long day of driving – taking pics we went to our hotel and decided that we’d go to the Big Island the next day. Kim was nice and called Hawaiian Airlines since the webpage was a “a bit down”, but the woman on the other line was probably in India and didn’t really give us a good deal – so we ended up using the web page as far as getting the flights ($86 per person one way) – and then rent a car from a different agency. I bet we’ll come back with some more nice pics

Here are the last pics of the day – thanks for following us

We started with another breakfast at Lulu’s. It started raining as we were walking from our hotel, so we were at Lulu’s in no time – just a bit wet from the rain The breakfast was so so. The best thing was the little sparrow that was so thirsty that it jumped onto JO’s glass of water and enjoyed the icey water

Since the breakfast was just so-so, we stopped by Yogurtland and had some icecream yogurt. It was soo yummy, but of course I forgot that Kim had given me a $20 gift certificate for Yogurtland – good thing we still have over a week left here

We’ve never been real touristy here since we’ve had Kim and Rob and their friend Ron taking such good care of us, so we bought tickets for the Aloha Bus and jumped on. We got off at the Ala Moana Shopping center – had a walk – checked out a few stores and I ended up buying some tops at the Banana Republic. We then jumped on the bus again – taking us back to Waikiki where we changed to a different line taking us around Diamond Head (you know – the dead crater). The guide on the bus gold us we should go to Walmart and buy the typical tourist stuff like Kona coffee and macademia nuts – so, back in Waikiki we changed back to the other bus and went back to Ala Moana – and two blocks up – et voila – Walmart!

We didn’t really buy much. I had a look for Wrangler jeans for my dad, but either the americans are larger or everyone else also use his size

Back in Waikiki for the X-ed time we decidede to have dinner at the Cheesecake factory before going all the way back to our hotel. We had another nice dinner and Elaine stopped by our table (we didn’t think she worked and therefore didn’t ask for her) – she’s such a fun person. The walk back to the hotel was long as we were tired from all the sun.

We had a nice and relaxed (and early) evening as Kim is picking us up in the morning – taking us on yet another tour around the island

Today’s picture are mainly from the bus and the Ala Moana shopping center – and of course – the sunset and Friday night fireworks over Waikiki.