For our Saturday morning activity, we traveled to the western side of the island over to the town of Nanakuli. There we hiked up to the “Pink Pillbox”. It being one of the military outposts installed after the attack on Pearl Harbor. It’s pink because it has been painted that way by hikers in the years since.
To get started, we parked our car along the road beside a neighborhood. Then we started ascending the dry and dusty mountainside. We hadn’t gone far before I decided to hike back to our car to retrieve our hiking poles. Meanwhile Beth and the girls paused for a bit in the shade. By the time I got back to where they were, they’d continued on. When I caught up to them, we decided to let Beth, Ella, and Lydia continue on while Paige and I followed at a slower pace.
It was slow going. The mid morning sun was getting hot, and the trail was dusty. I’d never kicked up so much dust hiking before.
Hiking isn’t Paige’s forte. However, I was hopeful to reach the top, so I kept our pace slow as to not discourage her. We took several breaks in the shade. After perhaps thirty to forty minutes on our own, we spotted Beth, Ella, and Lydia on their way back down.
Beth said she’d made it to the crest of the ridge, but she hadn’t continued up to the pillbox. This was because Lydia was getting tired, and Ella wanted to accommodate her. That left it up to Paige and me to actually make it all the way up. I asked Paige if she wanted to continue as she seemed pretty tired. I was resigned to not reaching our goal, but to my surprise, Paige was motivated to go farther than her sisters. So we continued on, and it wasn’t much longer until we made it.
Up on the ridge, there were actually three pillboxes with the middle one being the pink one. We explored the first two. Then we sat down outside the pink one to enjoy the vista. Finally we made our way back down to the car. I got a text from Beth when Paige and I were about five to ten minutes from the road saying they’d finished.
On the way back home, we stopped to go to the bathroom at a beach park just down the road. The bathrooms and the park were extremely “sus” (i.e. suspect) in their appearance. There were some homeless encampments a little ways down the road, and the bathrooms were in a extreme state of neglect. In fact, when I started to go into the men’s restroom, I heard someone inside, and it sounded like they were breaking something. I figured I could wait until we went home, and I immediately positioned myself outside the ladies restroom in case Beth and the girls required my help. Beth said there was a piece of paper taped to the mirror with a threat. She and the girls made it out of there as quick as they could.
Back at our place, we spent the afternoon taking showers and relaxing. For dinner we walked down the Barefoot Beach Cafe. Situated in a beach park right next to the ocean, the restaurant features a walk up counter where you order, and then you grab a seat at one of their outdoor tables. There was a local musician playing and singing some Hawaiian melodies. They got our food ready quickly, and everyone loved their meals.
During dinner, the girls and I paused to get their picture in front of the sunset. We also checked out a banyan tree in the park as we walked home.
