Pearl Harbor and dinner with the cousins
This was our last full day in Hawaii. We make the long flight back to Indy tomorrow. We decided to spend our last day here viewing an important place in US history: Pearl Harbor. We made the half hour drive to Pearl Harbor and parked in a very crowed lot. Seems that most of the tourists here make this visit. Although it's still an active US military installation, there are several areas here that tourists can visit. We decided to concentrate on two areas: the USS Arizona Memorial and the great battleship, Missouri. For the Arizona, we had to wait a good 1.5 hours before viewing the historical film about the attack by the Japanese on December 7th, 1941. Following viewing this excellent account, we boarded a small boat and made the short sail to visit the USS Arizona Memorial. The memorial itself is built directly over the sunken hull of the Arizona where 1177 crewman met sudden death on that fateful morning. It's still a grim reminder seeing that hull underwater beneath us on how horrible war can be. From the memorial, we could see our next spot to visit, the USS Missouri. After taking the boat back to shore, we boarded a bus for a short ride to Ford Island where we enjoyed a 1 hr personalized tour by our guide, Ron. Interestingly, Ron is a transplanted Hoosier who served in the military in Hawaii and just decided to stay here for the past 30 or so years. Ron described to us the enormity of this last active battleship for the US Navy. He showed us the 16 inch guns and explained their fire power and range of 23 miles. He told us how it became the favorite ship of President Truman, how it served during the Korean and first Persian Gulf war and perhaps most importantly, how it served as the site for the formal surrender of the Japanese at the end or WWII. We spent most of the day in Pearl Harbor and then drove back to Waikiki. We enjoyed our last visit and dinner with Alyssa and Nathan at Ryan's Grill. Joining us for this special night was our niece, Stephanie Rohde who was also visiting Oahu at this time.
That's it for our blog of Hawaii. I'll be posting more photos of our trip when we get back to "the mainland".
Plaque marks the spot of Pearl Harbor
Phil at Pearl Harbor
Approaching the USS Arizona Memorial by boat
Patty viewing the sunken hull underneath the memorial
Marble wall of memorial at the far end 
USS Missouri seen from Arizona Memorial
16 inch guns of the USS Missouri
Plaque marks the spot of the Japanese surrender
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