Part 3
I had wanted to visit several beaches (Waimea, Ō’owopāla, Sunset Beach) and stop in at Ted's Bakery but Kira wasn't keen on that so instead, we headed south.
It was probably a good thing as the traffic going North was insane!
She asked what our next stop was and I said Laniakea Beach. She wasn't thrilled so I told her that if we drive by and I see turtles out, then we are 100% stopping.
I said "We are going to see TURTLES!!!" and she replied "I've seen turtles before."
I said "You haven't seen turtles on the beach in Hawaii before!" and told her she could wait in the car if she wanted to but I was going to see the turtles!
Well, as we drove past, I could see TONS of turtles so I told Rob to find a place to park. There is a nice big lot across the street but you can only enter and exit going northbound. We ended up turning into a residential area with gorgeous, expensive homes. The gate with the turtles on it in my last chapter is from one of those homes and where we ended up turning around. The traffic was crazy but we managed to cross over and head north and park in the lot.
She decided to come after all.
You can tell by the crowds where the turtles were. There were tons of them. While I don't love crowds, Kira has a really hard time with them so I stopped short of the crowds and we watched the turtles from there. There were dozens of them!
SO many of them! They would swim in the water and then come up on the reef, it was so amazing to watch them. We've seen turtles before, Rob and I saw them on the Big Island, on the black sand beach and all three of us have been to the Turtle Centre in Grand Cayman and held them but seeing them here on the beach was just an amazing experience that even Kira ended up enjoying.
We spent just enough time there to make me happy and not too long to make Kira antsy to leave.
Here's some pics that Rob took.
I asked them to hang back a second while I took a photo. I was hoping to get no people in it but this beach was just too busy.
I came close though.
Our next stop was the town of Hale'iwa. I had wanted to explore this little town and visit some of the most popular areas.
Our first stop was Matsumoto Shave Ice. Shave Ice is a very Hawaiian thing to do here and there are TONS of options. I have read that there were places that were better than Matsumoto's but this is THE place to get it, especially if you're on the North Shore. Kira had never had shave ice before so I figured she might as well get her first taste of it at the world famous Matsumoto's!
She went and sat down in the shade while Rob and I stood in the very long line.
It is located in a large courtyard with big trees that offer tons of shade thankfully. It was very hot out!
You can spot Kira in this pic.
They are very efficient here, I guess they have to be with so many people visiting. It was very cool to watch them make it.
Rob got one for himself and Kira and I shared one. I'm not a huge fan of these to be honest, so I pretty much let Kira pick the flavours.
Rob enjoyed his and finished it all. Kira and I couldn't even finish ours. It turned into soup quite quickly and we didn't love one of the flavours. Honestly, I have had better shave ice elsewhere but I am still glad we came here to try it.
We walked around a bit and spotted a very interesting Cybertruck. We had never seen one in person before and we all thought it looked ugly.
We ended up getting back into the Jeep and we drove over to another famous stop, Giovanni's Shrimp Truck.
The line was super long!!
Kira and Rob waited in the line while I scoped out the other trucks. We were all starving by now, but I don't like shrimp so I needed something else.
The other two trucks on the right had crepes and more shrimp, this was the only one that had anything I could eat.
I ended up getting the chicken tacos and they were just okay. I didn't eat the rice, beans or salad. I was going to eat the salad if they had dressing for it, which they did, but it was a communal bottle just sitting on the ledge, in the scorching sun. No thanks.
This was $20.
I found a table around the corner from all of the chaos thankfully and ate my tacos all the while, Rob and Kira were still in line.
About 15 minutes after I was done, they joined me with their shrimp.
Stay tuned for that.
My kind of temperature! 
I love the scenery and would love to visit many of them, I am just not a sit on the beach all day and do nothing kind of girl. 
we have photos of the water etc but no proof we actually swam 
I stopped buying them for her years ago, I think they are such a waste of money, especially at 17 years old but she is just a huge sucker for anything cute and fuzzy and she had her own money this trip. 
We bought t shirts and a Dole Whip too. Did you like it? It was my favourite but people found it tart.
