Pearl Harbor

We had a great trip to Hawaii with Mom and Dad. We met up with them in the Atlanta airport, and soon boarded the plane for a ten hour flight to Honolulu. I was a bit nervous about taking such a long flight with a nine month old. But Mr. T did great. He is not the best of travelers in the car, but I think the plane was easier because he wasn't confined to a carseat. We could pass him around and play with him, so he really didn't complain much at all. All of the kids did well, really. Of course it helped that we were on a large plane with a little extra leg and elbow room. Plus the children loved the fact that every seat had its own screen with free movies and games to play on demand. Most of us agreed that the ten hours passed faster than expected.

There were birds in the Honolulu airport. Open air walkways and courtyards let in the refreshing breeze. The weather was gorgeous in my estimation. So I was surprised when a Hawaiin resident complained about it being cold and blustery. Nothing like the winter we left back on the mainland! There were a couple of extra windy days while we were there, but all in all the weather was just delightful.

The jet lag left me beat the first night. But I woke up before 5am the next morning and couldn't get back to sleep! Very uncharacteristic for me. So we had breakfast and drove back down to Honolulu to see Pearl Harbor. The boys and I had been studying WW II, so we had been looking forward to this visit for months. We watched a really good film, then got on the ferry which took us over to visit the USS Arizona Memorial. Parts of the sunken battleship are still visible near the surface of the water. It was moving to see the names of the more than 1100 servicemen who died--many entombed inside the sunken Arizona. I was also touched that several of the survivors felt such loyatly to their shipmates, that they have chosen the Arizona as their final resting place decades later.

We took a tour of the USS Missouri. This battleship was still under construction on Dec. 7, 1941 when Pearl Harbor was attacked. But years later, leaders and emissaries gathered on the deck of the Missouri to sign the treaty ending WWII. We enjoyed wandering the decks of this huge battleship. We also visited the Aviation Museum.