The 40th Anniversary Trip, Part IV - Hawaii (Honolulu and Maui)

I have decided that this will be my last extensive write up on our Hawaiian vacation.  After all, how much do people REALLY want to hear about somebody else's vacation?  So, here are just some assorted thoughts and tales about our visit to the Aloha State.

********

Hawaii really is a beautiful place. Mountains and flowers and scenic views of the ocean.  Best view of all may have been the one from our hotel room in Maui.

********

Honolulu was crazy.  It's a big city, lots of people, lots of noise, crowded.  Of course, in Honolulu, we got to visit Pearl Harbor, which I wrote about earlier, and it was the highlight of the trip.  

We also took a "Sunset Cocktail Cruise" on a catamaran off of Waikiki Beach that was really a lot of fun.

Piloted by these guys...

And upon which I met a wonderful Hawaiian friend...

*******

Maui, on the other hand, was much more relaxing.  We really enjoyed our days relaxing at poolside in our hotel...

We went whale watching...

and snorkeling...

And, of course, we went to a luau...

********

We really ate well.  Including the refreshing snack of shave ice...

and lots of other really great meals, the best of which was probably at this place...

********

Another highlight was meeting and talking a lot of interesting people from all over the place....Minnesota, South Dakota, Washington state, New York, Canada and Australia...I even ran into a woman I used to work with at Highmark!

********

Okay, I'm going to stop here.  We are happy to tell you anything you want to know about our trip, but at this point, I'm going to stop foisting it on you all, but just ask if you do want to hear more, and we'll do it, as they say, off line.  It's far away, expensive, and the trip home was grueling (13 and 1/2 hours on airplanes; we woke up on Tuesday morning in Hawaii and went to bed on Wednesday night in Pittsburgh), but it was well worth it.  

We couldn't think of a better thing we could have done to celebrate our 40th Anniversary.

Aloha and mahalo for listening.

The 40th Anniversary Trip, Part III - AT&T Park

A part of the San Francisco portion of our recent trip was devoted to taking the guided tour of the home of the San Francisco Giants, AT&T Park.

Whenever rankings of major league baseball parks are complied and published, you usually see AT&T Park and PNC Park listed at the top of these lists.  Now being a Pittsburgher and a Pirates fan, I will probably never concede that any place is better than PNC Park, but I have to be honest with you, AT&T Park is really nice, and I can see how this place finds its way to the top of many lists.  

You begin your tour from the Giants clubhouse store, work your way through various lounge areas and concourses, and take an elevator to the top level, whereupon you are directed to your first glimpse of the actual playing field, which is the picture you see at the top of this post.  It is called the "view level", and the view is spectacular, although it was enshrouded in fog the day we were there.  

Even from that top deck view, you get the sense that you are really close to the field, so the intimacy that is such a great part of the charm of PNC Park also exists in AT&T Park.

As you can see, we were ready for some action:

Of course, it would have been nice to actually see a ball game that day, but it was January, after all, and on the tour, we did see more of the Park than we would have if we were there on a game day.  Oh, and you can see by the cap I am wearing that I did spend some money in that Clubhouse Store before the tour began.

Here are some of the highlights:

The outside walls of the ball park feature plaques of a Giants "Wall of Fame".  I took pictures of these three Pirates nemeses of my youth:

For what it is worth, there is a plaque on this Wall for Bobby Bonds, but no such plaque for Barry Bonds, yet.

Inside what would be the equivalent of PNC's Lexus Club, you find these really beautiful  baseball murals.  The murals are huge, and these photos do not do them justice.

Throughout the Park, the Giants pay tribute to their history, including their roots in New York, but it is dominated, as you would expect, by one man.  Both on the outside, 

and the inside.

The tour takes you into the clubhouses and, on this day, the visitor's dugout, where I got the chance to channel my inner Clint Hurdle.

And I was also able to get some pictures of me with Giants heroes past

and present.

I am most grateful to Marilyn for forcing the issue of a tour of the ball park.  How many wives would do such a thing?  However, we both really enjoyed the two hours that we spent there. It was a worthwhile touristy thing to do, even in our limited time in the city.

San Francisco is really a terrific town, and I have detailed the rest of our visit in a post a few days ago.  A great town to visit, and one I would love to see again some time, and maybe on that next visit, the Giants will actually be playing a game that night.

The 40th Anniversary Trip, Part II - Pearl Harbor

One of the highlights of our trip to Hawaii, if not THE highlight, was a visit to this most important place in American history, Pearl Harbor.

I don't think that I need to recount WHY this place is so important, nor detail the events of December 7, 1941.  I can tell you that I can think of no other place that we have ever visited where the sense of history so enveloped us.

One striking thing to both of us was Pearl Harbor itself is relatively small, and one can only imagine what it must have been like on that Sunday morning all those years ago.

Your visit to the USS Arizona Memorial begins with a movie that lasts 15-20 minutes and recounts the events of December 7, 1941.  If you can watch that movie and not be moved to tears, then I am not so sure that you are a person that I want to know.  You then board a small Navy launch and are taken to the Arizona Memorial.

This scene at one end of the Memorial is completely overwhelming:

You also learn that those who served on the Arizona and survived (there are nine survivors still alive) have chosen to be cremated and have their ashes interred with their shipmates aboard the sunken ship.

And, of course, the ship is visible below the water and oil continues to leak from the Arizona to this day.

Aside from, perhaps, Arlington National Cemetery, the USS Arizona Memorial is the most solemn place I have ever visited.

********

Also anchored at Pearl Harbor is the retired Navy battleship, USS Missouri.

For those who may not know, it was on the deck of the Missouri that the formal Surrender  Instrument that ended World War II was signed in September 2, 1945.

The highlight of a tour of the Missouri is to stand on the Surrender Deck where these ceremonies took place.  We had an amazing tour guide that day, and her narrative of the events of that day was an amazing thing to hear.  Spellbinding.

As I said, the sense of history was overwhelming.

The USS Missouri, by the way, continued to serve during the Korean War and was retired by the Navy in 1955.  It was then recommissioned in 1986 - at a cost of over $400 million - and continued to serve the Navy, and it saw its final battle action during the first Gulf War in 1990.   It was decommissioned for good, and moved to Pearl Harbor in 1992.  It is maintained today by a private, non-profit group, the USS Missouri Memorial Association.

No words that I can write, no pictures that I can take, can possibly capture what we felt during our visit to this remarkable place.

The 40th Anniversary Trip, Part I - San Francisco

When we decided last summer that we would celebrate our 40th wedding anniversary by going to Hawaii, it was a no brainer that we would begin our trip by making a stop in San Francisco.  We had visited this city on two previous occasions and loved it, but it had been thirty years since we were there.

Our hotel was located just a block away from the famed Fisherman's Wharf.

The Wharf was not as I had remembered it.  A great place to see, to be sure, but much of it has become inundated with touristy-type of junk places, t-shirt shops, cheap souvenirs, stuff like that, but there are still some fabulous places to eat.  At the suggestion of friend Jerry Frissora, on our first night there we ate at this place,

It is right on the Wharf, right by some grungy docks and boat areas, but our meal there was probably the best one we had during our entire trip.  The cioppino, for example,

served with fresh hot sourdough garlic bread was not to be believed.  So, thank you Jerry!

We rode public transportation (a $2.25 far got you a transfer that you could use for the entire day!) on the full day that we were there.  Went to the North Beach district and ate lunch at this neat place...

We sat at a small table on the sidewalk in front of the place.  Made us feel like part of Tony Soprano's crew sitting in front of Satriale's!

We also took the bus to the top of Telegraph Hill, and visited this place, Coit Tower, which you have no doubt seen on dozens of TV shows and movies filmed in San Francisco.

Coit Tower was built in the early 1930's to be a landmark for the City, and on the inside, there were several wall murals that were painted by local California artists as a method of providing employment through FDR's Works Progress Administration.  The paintings were fabulous.  Here is a sample, a photo that in no way gives these murals justice:

A trip to the top of Coit Tower provides some spectacular views of the City.

Dinner on our second night was also on the Wharf,

and featured clam chowder served in a bread bowl.

Here's a great story from our time in San Francisco.  I stopped at the concierge desk for some advice and spoke with a lovely young woman named Jennifer Speigel.  During our conversation, it comes out that while Jennifer has lived in SF for over fifteen years, she is actually from Pittsburgh.  Where in Pittsburgh, I ask, and she says, are you ready for this, Squirrel Hill!  Did you go to Allderdice, I ask, no, she says, I went to Oakland Catholic, whereupon I tell her that I went to Central.  At this point, given our respective ages, I wanted to use my old friend Chuck Spatafore's great line "Oh my God, I think I dated your mother!", but I didn't. 

Just goes to show that you can never get to far away from Pittsburgh no matter where you are (and I have a similar story to tell about an encounter later in the trip while in Maui).

The stop over in San Francisco was great.  We had a wonderful visit, and it was a wise way to begin our trip.

One part of our San Francisco trip that I haven't mentioned was a guided tour that we took of this place:

That part of the story, however, deserves its own separate Grandstander post.