Tuesday dawns early (5am!!!) so we can make our shuttle pick-up for our history lesson. Today we visit the Arizona Memorial, the Battleship Missouri, Punchbowl National Cemetery and the Pacific Air Museum. This is the tour we booked through our Expedia LocalExpert. We were picked up at 6:25am by Jeff, a very friendly driver/tour guide. He entertained us with many stories of local Hawaiian history while we gathered up the rest of our group from other hotels.

The line was very long when we reached the Arizona Memorial and due to the heightened security we were not allowed to bring any type of bag into the visitors center, not even camera bags or purses (we actually saw one guy throw his camera bag in the trash, the security guard wondered if he was able to read as there were many signs and notices.) Here is the beginning of the line

and here is the end.

In between was about 1000 people. We were numbers 821 to 824 (aka Tour Group 5).

Here is one of the anchors from the Arizona. It weighs almost 10 tons and was thrown over 100 yards by the explosion which sank the ship.

On the day we visited, Jerome T. Hagen, Brigadier General, USMC, (Retired) was signing his books on the war in the Pacific. He autographed our copies and let us take this picture.

Before the ferry ride over to the memorial, we waited in line to see a short film about the attack on Pearl Harbor. It was introduced by one of the survivors of the attack. It was quite moving.

The memorial itself left me speechless. We were walking over the grave of 1177 men who are still entombed in the ship. Tough to come to grips with that.

I was surprised to see oil still seeping from the ship after more than 60 years. These are called the "Tears of the Arizona".

We found a sailor who died on the Arizona named R.C.Lange. Annette's dad was also named R.C.Lange. (Cue Twilight Zone theme)

On the Missouri we saw the deck where the Japanese signed the surrender papers. We also toured below decks and found the "vegetable preparation room" or "Spud Locker".

You really get a feel for the size of the ship when you look at the guns. They are really BIG! 16-inch and able to deliver a 2,700 lb. shell to a target 20 miles away at the rate of two rounds per minute. WOW!

Our next stop was at the Pacific Aviation Museum, located on Ford Island. Sorry, no pictures.

After that, we got a new driver named Maui, just like the island. He took us to the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific (aka Punchbowl National Cemetery). The cemetery is located in Punchbowl Crater (Pūowaina in Hawaiian), located just north of downtown Honolulu. In ancient times Punchbowl was used as a site for human sacrifices, and pū-o-waina means "hill of placing (human sacrifices)."

Monday started with Welcome/Orientation breakfast at the Hard Rock Cafe.

Expedia has teamed up with Local Experts (travel agents) who put together the most popular tours and activities at discounted rates. We booked an all day Pearl Harbor Tour and got a good rate.

When we got back it was off to the beach to do learn to surf. The rental stand near our hotel also teaches you how to surf. Parker, Peter and I signed up for lessons because you can't visit paradise without hitting the waves. Trevor, our instructor and also from Texas, was great! We spent the first 15 minutes of the lesson learning how to steer the board and how to go from lying down to standing up.

Once we had the basics down, it was time to hit the waves. I thought the hard part of surfing would be the whole catch the wave, stand up, keeping my balance without wiping out part. What I found out was that to get to the good wave you have to paddle out about 500 miles off shore! It was actually less than 1/4 of a mile and the water was only about 6 feet deep. But that was quite a workout for this computer geek.

However, all that work really paid off. Once we got to the waves and started the actual surfing part it was great! Both Trevor and our cameraman commented on how well I was able to get into the rhythm and get on my feet. I guess all those karate classes are improving my balance. Both Peter and I were able to get to our feet a couple of times. Parker was able to get to his knees but was a little afraid of being so far away from shore.

Here is proof that I was able to surf standing up.

This is Peter.

And here is Parker.

After an hour, we were ready to call it a day. Surfing is great but it is a lot of working to get out to where the waves are. The kids and I had sore muscles for the next two days.

Later that night we went to dinner. I had forgotten that Monday was St. Patrick's Day until we arrived at the restaurant. Everything was green, what a surprise! There was a guy making funny hats out of balloons and we each got one as you can see.

Not wanting to drink only green beer, we headed to the Pink Hotel (aka The Royal Hawaiian) for a Mai Tai.

They were very good (good = strong). Here is a picture...

And here is a video I found of one being made...

And with that, Monday draws to a close. Tomorrow we visit the Arizona Memorial.

Well, here we are trying to get to Hawaii. The trip started out easy enough until my wife, Annette, asked our boys (Peter, 14 and Parker, 11) if they had packed everything like swimming suits and sandles. The fact that they both said no was not too bad expect that we were already 15 minutes from home heading to the airport! So we turnaround andhead back home to rab a few last minute items.

The flight from DFW to PHX was uneventful except that US Airways had overbooked the flight (typical for airlines these days). Peter and Parker both brought homewor to do on the plane and they did get some of it completed.

We arrived in PHX and found that our connecting flight had been moved to a gate in the other terminal. This would have been a problem since we only had 55 minutes between flights but luckily for us the connecting flight had also been delayed for FOUR hours. Plenty of time to grab a bite, stretch our legs and type up this post.

Speaking of a small world....while dining at the exotic Pizza Hut Express in the PHX airport, I bump into Bill Wenger (WWenger) from Microsoft LCS. HE's an ADC who is also taking his family to Hawaii. He has somehow managed to book the same flights we have both ways. Must be something in the bottled water at work.

 So here we are waiting in the bueatiful PHX airport along with a couple of hundered other Oahu bound travelers as can be seen in the picture below. (Sorry for the qualit but it came from the phone.)

Hopefully the next post will be from Oahu!

Quote - PHX waiting area.

http://iv9n9w.blu.livefilestore.com/y1pFxqXubxHYiPIW5hYyj2vk1PTEQQYynep4bmTHveKkg_Ep9HfzLIh7_IvGwsZnnluY1_kOtMAY9zIcSwvS92pow

Quote Cool! I just sent this picture to my LiveSpace from my Windows Mobile Device.

http://iv9n9w.blu.livefilestore.com/y1pFxqXubxHYiMl4wFZ5eTlO6pwpJ553O9QRuDpB1G_1BeFIlbq4nlxWnmVFKQlf3rzILJCLUO0oL7CUIAAJi_fLQ

I just installed the Windows Live Writer Beta. Let's see if I can compose something here and get it posted to my LIve Space site.