Wait a minute, are we in Las Vegas or Oahu? Sounds like we had a wild night last night and continued the party today? But no, it was all about the hike.

Today Mike needed a recovery hike after his race yesterday. The plan called for a short hike, with views and fairly easy.  Well we found just the hike, Pu’u Ma’eli’eli Trail in Kaneohe, right across from Valley of the Temples.

Of course, first things first, breakfast of french toast sticks.  When we travel, we prefer to eat breakfast at our rental, of course at times it comes with some obstacles we need to overcome, such as having the right kind of pans and bowls.  We figure it out and make do with what we have, laughing along the way.

After that we packed up our gear, loaded the car with our supplies and our donor’s thank you boxes.  First stop was the post office to mail out the packages (Monica Jo and Mark, if you are reading this, yours aren’t sent yet).

Then off to park in a shopping mall complex to walk to the trailhead.  Stunning views of the Ko’olau range as we walked to the trailhead. This trail had some steep sections, with little windows out to see the views.  If it wasn’t dry this trail would be a mud fest in wet weather.  We lucked out today with a dry trail.

At times Mike had to do the limbo to get under branches on our way to the trail’s end.  Lucky for me performing the limbo was limited, this is the time it helps to be short.

We reached the end of the trail and took in the views up top of the pillboxes, WWII bunkers built all around the island.  It was a bit hazy out, but still the views were stunning.

The hike was almost 3 miles with a little over 500 feet elevation gain, it took us about an hour and half, including stops to ohhhh and ahhhh.

After the hike we headed down to He’eia Kea Pier to look up to where we hiked and were hoping to eat lunch at He’eia Kea Pier General Store, where we ate at 5 years ago, a few times.  Sadly it was closed today, so we had to devise a new plan. Hmmmmm we had chips to use at Honolulu Beerworks for free beer, well that sounds good.

We went back via the LikeLike Highway, the Ko’olau Range is majestic.

First we had to make another cookie stop at Honolulu Cookie Company on Sand Island.  We needed more cookies to ship home!

Then we went to cash in our chips at the brewery.  We really did have to go to the brewery because on Saturday they released a Pilsner, one of Mike’s favorite types of beers.  As we entered the brewery, one of the bar staff remembered Mike had his race yesterday and came over to chat with him about it. Yup we are starting to be recognized, just in time to leave.  I was wearing our local brewery, Hanging Hills’ Pilsner tee shirt, so it seemed only fitting I have my picture taken with the Pali Pils beer! After a great lunch, we decided we would need one more return trip to the brewery, so we didn’t cash in our chips, yet.

By this time we were exhausted and needed to do laundry, so back to the house we went.

We put together a quick dinner of Costco quinoa salad and chicken, cleaned up and headed out for the sunset. Once again a huge cloud blocked the actual sinking of the sun, but we did get some nice photos and enjoyed our viewing spot.

So we took a gamble today, that our legs would be up to good uphill hike and the path would be dry. It was worth the gamble and along the way we had a fun day!