Pearl Harbor Tour
December 19, 2017
Before we left on the trip, Sherman and I got on the phone and made our reservations on line for a tour of Pearl Harbor on the free Tuesday. He later called the company to confirm, and they said they would set our separate reservations up so that the three of us would be on the same tour bus. We were picked up at our respective hotels. The tour began with a drive in the Punchbowl Crater area and through the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.
We had time to visit the museums before we saw the orientation video and boarded the ship out to the USS Arizona Memorial.
The memorial is over and at a right angle to the ship.
The USS Bowfin submarine can be toured. It and the nearby park are a memorial to those who died in the 52 subs lost during the war.
Our tour ended with a guided tour of the USS Missouri, the last battleship built.
She is best rememberd as the site of the signing of the Japanese surrender in Tokyo Bay.
She went on to serve in the Korean War, and following recommissioning, the Gulf War.
On the highway back, we passed the naval hospital where the children of my cousin Wanda's son Matthew were born.
It is the pink building seen below:
We had a drive back through downtown Honolulu. I later visited the area and took pictures then.
We decided to have dinner together that evening near Sherman and Nancy's hotel, so I got out of the tour bus with them. We went to a shopping center that has restaurants on the top floor, and after reading menus, decided on the early bird specials at a nice pizza place. The building was attractive, and there were beautiful flowers.
From that level we had a view of the hotel across the street where we would be staying during the tournament.
I still had two more nights to go at my condo, so I walked back there on the other end of Waikiki. It was just eight blocks away, as I recall.