A shot back into the van, for fun T decided to wear his sheriff outfit.
M with her hair braided.
Here are some random (non-postcard quality) pictures through Honolulu and along the way to give you an idea of what it looks like.
Then on to the Hawai'i Kai. It is a very rocky coast with lava cliffs.
At this point we started having car trouble. (The next thing to replace is the radiator. It has a slow leak, but we keep water stocked in the car because of this and I topped it off before leaving.) I didn't expect this and I thought we had the radiator under control. We coasted into a scenic overlook parking lot; we gave some time for everything to cool off and settle so I could check on the water and oil, so I snapped some pictures while we were waiting.
You can also see some other islands from here. Here is a picture towards Maui and Moloka'i; they are faint in the distance.
Also, further out and a little more to the south you can see the big island of Hawai'i! In the shot below I zoomed in. I know it is faint but it is there on the horizon. The peak is Mauna Kea, 13,796 ft, the 15th highest peak on earth. However, it appear to be lower than Maui because it is farther away, 175 miles or 0.7% of the earth circumference. I suspect this is why this area on Oahu is called Hawai'i Kai. In my beginning understanding of Hawaiian, kai means salt water, sea, ocean. So this is the Hawai'i (big island) Sea of Oahu.
Also, T got out of the van with his outfit and hammed it up a bit.
That is "sting" written on the side of the shotgun. It is a reference to a sword named sting in "The Hobbit". By the way, he sawed off the nerf gun himself, which resulted in the foam darts shooting much further than before.
When I looked under the hood I realized I had made a mistake. I was distracted when adding water before we left (I was holding F in one arm, talking to T, adding the water with the other) and forgot to fasten the cap to the radiator securely, so the water had boiled and vented out. No more holding the baby and carrying on unrelated conversations while working on the car. By now the engine had cooled and we added water, so we went back part of the way but it started making a strange sound it hadn't made before. So we pulled off the road to let it cool and check it again. We took the opportunity to grab some Chinese fast food for lunch. We hadn't eaten out as a family in a long time and it doesn't help fix the van if we get upset and don't enjoy ourselves a little whenever possible. (Like living in the moment in Ivan Franko's A Parable of Life, see also The Mahabharata 11:5, which the poem is based on.)
Then our luck started turning a little more for the worse. The first sign was our fortune cookies. They were both empty. V took the kids window shopping while I checked the oil, it was fine but a little low, so I walked to a gas station and bought some oil to bring it up a bit. I messed with the connection hoses on the radiator. There was a place where the connection was loose and corroded, and that steam vented out of slowly when the engine is hot. Usually I keep duct tape in the car but we had taken it out to use in one of our projects and left it at home... I fastened everything as well as possible.
Then, while going to get V and the kids my camera fell out of its case onto the ground. This has never happened with me before, and a camera should not be dropped like that. I checked it and it seemed fine with just a scuff on the outside of the lens body. Apparently the clip that holds the camera in the case wasn't secured all the way.
We walked around a costco a bit "window" shopping then it was time to head back. I got back out on the road and we went for a few miles then the engine started making noise again and heating up. I pulled off to the side of the road and checked again. It was venting steam and the water reservoir was down again.
At this point a police truck pulls up behind us with lights going. I tell him we are having radiator trouble and ask if he has any duct tape. He doesn't but firmly tells us to get off the interstate. I explained that we don't know the area around here and he says to pull off at the next exit and U-turn. I top it off with more of our water and he escorts us with lights going. We pull off and he pulls across the opposing lane to block traffic while we turn. There is a shell station and a chevron ahead. I get in the lane for the chevron but then he pulls up beside us and says to go to the shell station because it is a service station and the chevron is just a filling station. This is a problem because I have boycotted shell for 16 years since the execution of Ken Saro-Wiwa. (There are only a few companies I boycott and/or do not buy stock in, Shell, Caterpillar (see here and here), Dell (here), and the country of Israel (here)--some people make fun of me for this, but I decide where I spend and invest my money.) However, I have a cop with lights going telling me to go to the Shell station, so I resolve not to spend any money. I pull in and the police go away.
It happens that there is a free water dispenser so V gets started filling up. I go to the service guys and ask for some duct tape. At first they seem to ignore me, so I go back to the van, but then a few minutes later one of the guys brings me some duct tape. We have the water topped off again, double check all the caps and connections, and head off, without spending a penny at shell! We made it back home this time without having to stop again.
As soon as I have enough money, I'm going to get the corroded connections to the radiator fixed up.
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Update: I am a bit confused over place names. Now it seems that Hawai'i Kai is a development to the west of the easternmost coast area. I have heard this point referred to as "Lanai Lookout."
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Update: I was really confused; actually my source was wrong. The islands visible in the distance are from left to right; Molokai, Maui (behind Molokai) and Lanai (separated off to the right, now it makes sense this is "Lanai Lookout"). The Big Island is not visible.
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