I thought I left these in Maine....

After another good day at Sandy Beach, I look over to the Northeast and see a small mountain to hike before we head home. I've seen the trail from the road before and figured it would be a quick mile up and down before we drive the long trek home. The Ka'Iwi trail was straight up, and shortly we stumbled upon large patches of prickly pear cacti. How weird? Neither of us would have guessed that we would see cactus in Hawaii. While hiking to the top, we read some signs about whale sightings right off this point, which immediately started getting us really excited for winter to get here. Right after reading the whale signs I look out into the ocean and see the island of Molokai! I knew that it was only about 125 miles away, but I didn't think I'd see it from here. Awesome... Anyways, almost to the top, we look down along the ridge and see the headlight (lighthouse) that I had read about, the Makapu'u Headlight. It was tiny and odd compared to all the ones I had seen on the NE Coast in Maine and Massachusetts, but nonetheless, a lighthouse in Hawaii. We took some pictures and went a little further to the top to see the coast of Waimanalo and Bellows Beach. On our way down, the view to the south was beautiful. We could see Koko Head and Koko Crater, which is where Hanauma Bay is nestled. We also saw a nice golf course, archery field, and Diamond Head off in the distance. It was definitely a nice 2-mile hike to finish up a day of lying on the beach.