First and Second Day-
We left Green Valley and drove to downtown Tucson to catch a van shuttle to Phoenix. They allowed us to leave our car in their parking lot for free so made good sense as would have cost us around $90.00 to park at the airport and the shuttle just cost 80.00 round trip for both of us. We did have moment of worry when we got into a trafic jam five miles from airport and sat there for 20-30 min. Luckly we had taken an early shuttle and the traffic finnaly started moving and we go to the airport a good 1 1/2 hours before the plane left.
Since neither of us had any particular reason to stay in Honolulu very long and the only thing I really wanted to see was the Arizonia Memorial ,I had used the internet to find a hotel close to the main roads that had buses, so in the morning we could take a bus to the Memoral which is not more that a 20 min drive from the airport.
Was a very moving sight to take the shuttle boat out to the sunken ship and see the oil still coming up from the ship after all these years. They had a large plaque listing all the sailors and marines who had died and were still down in that ship. I was very suprised at how many of them had the same last names and since at the biggining of the war all the services allowed brothers,cousins ect to serve on the same ship I wondered if they were related.
We were through with the tour and walking through the museum in 2 hours. Would recommend the tour and museum for anyone the least bit interested in the beginning of WW2 According to the guides it normally takes about twice as long as we did it in because we were lucky to go on a slow day As our plane did not leave to the Big Island(Hawaii) for about 5 hours so we took a bus to Waikki beach which was interesting but so crowded with buildings,people ect we just stayed around for 1-2 hours then went back to hotel and got our luggage and went to airport.
Anyone who has time in the airport might try their main restrauent--had great fish and chips and drinks.
Our plane left on time and we arrived at Kona airport on the Big Island at dusk, rented a car and drove to our first B&B which was in the small town of Volcano which is the jumping off point for Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. Took us a couple of hours as a rain had sit in.
