Obama golfs, visits zoo on last day in Hawaii

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Obama golfs, visits zoo on last day in Hawaii

KANEOHE BAY, Hawaii — President Barack Obama’s holiday vacation in Hawaii was filled with golfing, a luau with friends, and family excursions across the warm island of Oahu.

The 11-day getaway was supposed to be low-key and relaxing but was frequently interrupted by news of the attempted Christmas Day bombing of a Northwest Airlines flight as it prepared to land in Detroit.

Still, the president and his family seemed to make the most of their stay on the islands where Obama was born and graduated high school.

On Sunday, the last day of his vacation, Obama visited the Honolulu Zoo with his wife, two daughters and friends after it was closed to the public. He briefly stopped at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, or Punchbowl, to pay his respects to his maternal grandfather, Stanley Dunham, whose ashes are interred there.

At the zoo, reporters asked the Obamas if they were ready to return to Washington. They all responded, “No!”

Michelle Obama then joked, “Let’s stay. We’ll all stay. Are we all in? I’m trying to mount a coup.”

During the vacation, Obama played tennis with his wife and took his daughters to the movies, to a sea life park and to eat shaved ice, an island treat similar to a large snow cone. He golfed four times at three different courses on Windward Oahu, and worked out each morning at a gym at the Marine Corps base near his rented beachfront vacation home in Kailua.

Obama also stopped at the base’s Pyramid Rock Beach, which is popular among surfers and picnickers, and enjoyed the nature preserve at Hanauma Bay. He went out to dinner at Alan Wong’s in Honolulu and Lucy’s Grill n’ Bar in Kailua.

Supporters and protesters gathered and waved signs around the corner from Obama’s vacation house a few times during his visit. They included Native Hawaiians opposing federal legislation that would treat them similarly to American Indians, and a group of “disaffected Democrats” seeking stronger action on health care and the Middle East.

Obama couldn’t escape news of the outside world during his otherwise low-key Hawaii vacation.

He delivered statements and a radio address on the United States’ efforts to prevent breakdowns in security that allowed Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to board the Detroit-bound flight. He announced that an al-Qaida affiliate in Yemen ordered the Christmas Day plot.

Obama was scheduled to leave Oahu on Sunday night aboard Air Force One.