We woke up a bit late this morning, relying on our bodies to tell us when we were fully rested. We woke and got ready just in time to catch breakfast at a different restaurant in the hotel. This one was on the pool deck and it had a nice little breakfast special which was pretty tasty. We asked the activities desk about a rental car and they directed us to Thrifty just a few blocks up the road. We packed up the stuff we wanted and walked over. We wanted a cheapo car and they offered us a Sebring convertible for only $5 more. We had wanted to do the Jeep thing, but too many things we read advised against it as they are too easy to break into. We didn't want to have to be so careful about what we choose to bring along. Amy drove. She was looking for Giovanni's famous shrimp shack in Kahuku. We made our way to the other side of the island and found it a few hours later. The drive was beautiful. We took Hwy 63 under the mountain and then 830 and 83 along the coast. Lots of little towns, and surfers out in the water.

We got to the world famous Giovanni's original white shrimp truck. What a dump. NO surprise, as the pictures of the place and articles she had found prior to the trip did not boast of an upscale atmosphere. The place is renowned for its shrimp scampi. It was indeed very good, but it wasn't really scampi. It was more like just peel-and-eat shrimp soaked in garlic. Normally, if shrimp is served in some kind of sauce, making it a dish one would eat with a utensil, the shells are removed, possibly leaving only the tail remaining for aesthetics. But these shrimp had the entire shell left on and were a real mess to eat. Pretty tasty, but just not worth the hassle. In addition, the seating consists of a handful of picnic tables covered with ants and large flies. Bugs can be an unfortunate consequence of eating outside, but it was a shame here and made an already difficult meal now something to try to hurry through. WE FINALLY FOUND OUR FIRST FLYING PESTS ON OAHU and they were in the form of large aggressive flies. It was easier to go eat in the car and put up with the smell for the rest of the rental than try and fight off the flies. A few of them ganged up and tried to fly off with one of Amy's shrimp. Eventually we gave up and threw the rest of the food in the trash. Ok, we went there, we tried it. Don't bother.

The rest of the trip around Oahu was very pretty but uneventful. Oo's and ah's all day long at the pretty scenery. We drove around the Naval Base at Pearl Harbor and continued on to our hotel. After a brief stop at the hotel we were off again. Amy had seen an advertisement for live jazz at the Ohana East hotel lounge (Charlie's Cellar or something like that). We parked in the hotel parking garage and took a look. The cellar was, well, a cellar. When we showed up the band wasn't playing but the place had no floor space and was all carpeted. Amy looked at the sheet music and noticed some standards but we decided that overall this wasn't what we wanted.

We walked to the corner and got a local paper. There was some blues band playing at a nearby bar called Kelley O'Neil's. "James Ronstadt and the Shuffle Kings" - sounded like a band name with potential. It happened to be just a block or two from where we were supposed to drop off the rental car, so we went ahead and returned it then.

We forgot to mention the whole rental car issue. The Thrifty rental office is right at the entrance to a parking garage. They sent us to the tenth floor (top of the parking garage) to get our car. There were a few guys sitting on chairs just outside a tiny tiny office. That wasn't too unusual, but returning it was. The parking garage looked like a ghost town until we got to the top floor. There we saw a bunch of cars with their headlights on being washed (in the dark) by a couple of kids in their twenties. The whole scene just looked like some underground swapping of stolen cars.

We walked to the bar and got ourselves some food. We had nearly an hour to kill until the band started. Once the band started we found the music to be very danceable - blues, jump blues, rocking blues, etc. Not much of a dance floor but at least it wasn't carpeted. We had a great time dancing between the tables until we were tired. A brief walk back to the hotel and we were out for the night.