Our 50th on our 25th in the 50th
We have been documenting our travels by motorcycle for the last few years and before this trip we'd ridden to 49 States and almost all of Canada. The only place we haven't been in Canada is the province of Nunavut. Look it up and you'll understand why we haven't gone there. You basically can't get there on two wheels unless you ride a dirt bike over hundreds of miles of horribly maintained gravel roads and carry a lot of extra gasoline. No thanks!
We planned this year's trip, in part, to complete our goal of riding a motorcycle in all 50 States. Since we couldn't ride there (there's no bridge to Hawai'i yet), we decided to rent a motorcycle for one day to complete our mission. This report could be summed up in a pretty short paragraph; something like, 'rented a bike and rode a couple of highways around the Island of O'ahu for a few hours'. WooHoo!!
Instead, this report will cover an awful lot of the non-riding adventures we had in Hawai'i in addition to providing some more details about the day we rode a motorcycle in our 50th State.
All the nice round numbers in the title of this report, 'Our 50th on our 25th in the 50th', refer to 1) we rode a motorcycle two-up in our 50th State of the 50 United States, 2) we did it at the beginning of our 25th anniversary year together, and 3) we visited the 50th State to join the United States: Hawai'i. Hard to believe but it was in October, 25 years ago that we met, courted, and then married each other about 8 months later; and it's just a fortunate coincidence that it all lined up the way it did.
By the way, you will see the word Hawai'i in this report spelled with the apostrophe because, while it is acceptable to spell it with or without the apostrophe, in the native language it is spelled with an 'okina which is a slightly different character than an apostrophe, but similar enough to use effectively. The Hawaiian alphabet consists of 13 letters; five vowels, seven consonants and the 'okina. Most of the other islands also make use of the 'okina: Moloka'i, Lana'i, Kaho'olawe O'ahu, Kaua'i and Ni'ihau. Of all the major islands, only Maui doesn't have one. The correct pronounciation for Hawai'i is like ha-vai-i. The native language is pretty interesting, but that's enough of a language lesson for now.
Also, there's occasionally some confusion because Hawai'i can mean either the entire group of islands which makes up the State of Hawai'i or it can refer to the official name of the largest island in the State. The big island of Hawai'i is often referred to as 'The Big Island' to help differentiate it.
All the pictures in the write up sections will show show a comment or description when you hover the cursor over them. They can all also be 'clicked' to pop up a larger copy of the picture. Click the button above labeled "O'ahu" to begin reliving the adventure with us.