Every now and then, I like to do a day drive to other parts of Oahu, primarily to keep in touch with what's happening and changing "out there," but also to re-establish a "bigger world perspective" on life - something to keep it real and clear my mind.
Yesterday, I spent maybe four hours in all driving around the circular northern route, stopping in Haleiwa to have lunch at Jameson's by the Sea - a restaurant I've been to several times (read about Jameson's in my "A Place for My Taste" blog, the address is in My Other Blogs" in the right column).
It's been a couple of years since I did the North Shore drive. I skipped doing it in 2008 because of the gas prices, but now that they've dropped to a more normal (?) level, off I went on the excursion.
My preliminary plan was to have lunch at Steamer's, a seafood place in Haleiwa, but when I got there, Steamer's was nowhere to be found. Unfortunately it seems, the restaurant bit the dust sometime in the past two and a half years. Too bad, I wanted to do a review in my restaurant blog.
An aside: Restaurants are dropping like flies in Hawaii as the tourism is 'way down and the economy stumbles about from day to day.
I toted little "Pinchy" the heart-throb clasper monkey and photographed him at various locations. His adventures are posted in his own blog (again, see "My Other Blogs"). It's funny how no one pays attention to this weird guy holding up a furry toy monkey in his hand while taking pictures. I guess in the world today, I'm the least-weirdest thing they've seen in Hawaii.
It was eye-opening and an education to notice at least a dozen white-shrimp stands along the highway where you could get them either caught fresh from the shrimp and prawn farms behind the stands, or steamed in garlic as a snack. I didn't stop at any.
However, I did pull off the road at several fruit stands along the way, hoping to find a Kahuku watermelon to bring home, but they're not in season. Instead, I settled for a cool and juicy ripe Hayden mango at one stand that they peeled and sliced for me.
Traffic-wise, it was fast-going to until I tried to get off the freeway. They were doing some roadwork at Schofield and everybody had to merge into one lane as the freeway ended. Since nearly everybody turned into Schofield Barracks, the road opened up again, then slowed to a crawl once I got into Haleiwa town. After lunch, eading out to Kahuku and the windward side was a breeze, then I came back over the Likelike Highway to the jammed Honolulu-bound H-1 Freeway.
Next time, I'll head around the other side of the island and return through East Honolulu.
2 comments:
Seeing the big waves at the North Shore is on my life list! How were they yesterday?
Sounds like Pinchy has a pretty sweet gig. :)
They were pretty small, Becca. I wanted to get out of the car and watch, but I couldn't find a parking space. So 20 minutes later, I gave up and moved on.
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