Dole Factory and admiring the streets of Oahu

A visit to Hawaii just doesn't seem complete without a stop at the Dole Plantation. Of course the first thing we did was jump in line for a "dole whip" (pineapple ice cream cone). It was delicious.

We walked thru the gardens and saw many different types of pineapples growing. 

I've heard of the colorful Rainbow Eucalyptus Tree, 

but this was the first time we've seen one in real life. The kids were so in love!

We enjoyed learning about the process of growing pineapples. They plant around 28,000 pineapple plants per acre. They cut off the top of a pineapple, just like you do before eating, and plant the top in the ground by hand. Each plant produces three pineapples. The first at 18 months, second at 32 months and last at 45 months.

Someone was kind enough to give us free tickets to enter the pineapple maze, so the kids and I went thru using a map to navigate to the different stations where you'd do a pencil rubbing of a metal picture.

Driving around Oahu is just fascinating seeing all of the green mountains rising up to the sky. 

 Here's a few photos I took while just driving around.

One day we stopped at a remote controlled airplane lot to watch people fly. I took a walk around to see if I could find any interesting birds and was amused to see this cat sitting in a tree. When I went closer to investigate, I found a whole colony of cats living right here. Most were hiding, but I saw about 10 different ones hanging around. 

Another day we drove past a truck that had 2 large pigs tied to the hood of his truck. 

I guess he'd been out hunting. Quite a strange sight for us.