A Jurassic Day

Kualoa Ranch today! This place is windward side, a ranch, a tour site and popular for filming big films. We got over there early-ish this morning, luckily a 6:30 wake up call this time, for a ranch tour. We got on a nice, no-window bus despite the rain (t’was only a drizzle) and started heading out through the ranch.

 

Some popular things filmed there include 50 First Dates, Jurassic Park, Lost, Pearl Harbor, Godzilla, You Me & Dupree, Jurassic World and waaay more, and we saw sites there from all of them and more. Attractions included an old sugar mill there that only ran for 8 years (the ground was too wet & salty), an old military bunker, a tunnel that supposedly connected the east and west sides of the island, the fallen log from Jurassic Park that just happened to be on-ranch during filming and a bunch more. The Jurassic World scene where the boys are roaming across the valley in the Gyrosphere is something we saw, so the empty valley pic below is indeed something cool.

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We had lunch at the ranch (yummy Kualua pork) then drove up to the North Shore for the 19th annual Haleiwa Arts Festival, which was amazing and made me feel so at home. I’ve been telling Feff on the phone how much I miss and want summer fairs like there are all over CT at this time, just because it’s a fun and familiar past time with such neat-o stuff. I was doubting if they existed outside of New England, but alas, there we were! It was a pretty big outdoor spread, not as huge as the Oyster Fest or anything but still pretty sizable! I ended up getting some fantastic cards from one woman and these gorgeous hair clips from another vendor. I ended up talking with sooo many cool artisans, I didn’t even get through more than half of the booths before we met up with Isa’s parents (after wandering solo) and they declared a final 15 minutes ’til leaving. Really lazy and really fun. There was also a crazy-dyed poodle there.

Pit stop at the Dole Plantation on the way home! I’ve been waiting for this for so long, yeah!!!! We got these pineapple cups (souvenir, hell to the yeah) with pineapple juice and pineapple whip and it was hella tasty. Mhmmm, definitely find yourself one of those copycat recipes and try it out.

Tonight I wanted to recreate the joy I had last night, plus I wanted to make something new plus I wanted something fun to bring to the potluck at Doug’s tomorrow. So I ventured into making kuro goma purin, which looks and tastes promising! I can’t wait to have it tomorrow, and to see what we end up having for potluck. ‘Til then!

 

P.S. Check out yesterday’s (late) post, fully updated, here!