Skip to main content

Diamond Head Lighthouse

This is one place that most people never get to tour. But because I'm special, I got to go.

Actually this is a case of just knowing the right people. Our friends who popped up to surprise us know the people who live by this lighthouse. It's in a gated area and in the yard of their house. You can see it from the road and the beach, but you can't get close to it or go in it unless you know the folks who live there.

Or know someone who knows the folks who live there.

We went with three of our favorite families. The Diamond Head Lighthouse is on the southern side of the island. You can read about it here if you are so inclined.


Before we even walked in to the lighthouse, we stood on the retainer wall to watch the whales. I have never seen them so active! They were leaping out of the water over and over. One lay on his side and whapped his flipper onto the water again and again. Another one kept slapping his tail down. It was an amazing display and now ranks up there in one of the top best days of my life.

We got to go inside the caretakers cottage which is now used as a guest house.

It is the cutest little house inside with a kitchen and bathroom. I'd love to stay there but will most likely never have the opportunity.


Then we headed inside the actual lighthouse. At the base there is a guest book for everyone to sign as they go in. We all signed it in case we are ever famous and they want to frame it and put it on the wall to show that we were once there. This particular framed page from the guest book shows the month of December in 1941. On the 7th someone wrote, "Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor". No one signed the guest book again until the 21st.

We climbed all the way to the top, up a spiral staircase. I was a nervous wreck while we were out on the ledge. That rail looked pretty flimsy. I stayed near the wall.



We even got to see the lens which was really cool. The view in both directions was amazing!


Mostly.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Queen Emma's Summer Palace

We recently visited Queen Emma's Summer Palace in Honolulu. If you are expecting a "palace", you will be disappointed. It's a nice house but not particularly palatial . If you think of it as Queen Emma's Summer Cottage, you'll enjoy it more because it will meet your expectations. Queen Emma was the wife of King Kamehameha IV. Their only child, Prince Albert, died at age four, and King Kamehameha IV died a year later. It's a sad story. The home was used by the royal family in the mid-1800's. Today it holds artifacts from that time period. Some of the furnishings and memorabilia actually belonged to Queen Emma. Unfortunately, no photography is allowed inside, so I didn't take any pictures. I did, however, find some images on the internet which I am copying here. Don't sue me, please. I did try to buy postcards in the gift shop, but they didn't have any. This photo is of the parlor. Queen Emma acquired this baby grand piano later ...

Cookie Map of Egypt

Katie is studying ancient Egyptian history right now and in the interest of making it more "hands-on" for her, we've joined a co-op at our church. We've been part of the co-op for a long time, but we've not done history with them until now. I was in charge of this week's craft project so I had all the kids make maps of ancient Egypt out of cookie dough. Katie and I made one at home for practice, then we made one again at co-op so the pictures look different as I used some photographs from each session. Each child started out with one full tube of sugar cookie dough. They pressed each one out into a 10x6 inch rectangle as if it were clay or play dough. We used toothpicks to outline where we wanted land formations to be. Then we outlined the Mediterranean Sea with a blue gel. And filled it in with blue icing. We used Twizzlers to outline the Red Sea. Although the Red Sea isn't actually red, there is a seasonal algae there which is red in color. I thought the...

Mammogram

I'm having my annual mammogram today. I always hear about how painful they are, but honestly, I've never thought they are that bad. Not the most comfortable, but not painful either. Every time I have a mammogram, I'm reminded of this story. It won the Erma Bombeck Writing Competition and I still get a kick out of it every time I read it. So I'm posting it here today for your reading pleasure: Erma Bombeck Writing Competition 1st place in Humor Category Winner Leigh Anne Jasheway of Eugene, Oregon "The First Time's Always the Worst" The first mammogram is the worst. Especially when the machine catches on fire. That's what happened to me. The technician, Gail, positioned me exactly as she wanted me (think a really complicated game of Twister - right hand on the blue, left shoulder on the yellow, right breast as far away as humanly possible from the rest of your body). Then she clamped the machine down so tight, I think my breast actually turned inside o...