Intentionally Unexpected
It really is…
We’re waiting for about 40 minutes because the Alaska desk isn’t open until 7ish. “closer to when the plane arrives”. That’s new.
Baggage has to go through FDA screening before boarding, and apparently our carryons will have to as well.
This is done to ensure nobody is smuggling fruit. They want to keep the bent fruits for themselves.
We packed up our stuff this morning, and are killing time wandering Kona and surrounding area.
We went on a tour of the summer house of the Hawaiian royalty that was built when they started trying to emulate the outside world…
Stopped at a small national park that has a short trail out to “the King’s road”, a straight road the first king built across the island. In case you can’t tell, that road goes straight through this lava field, all the way to the horizon. It’s really quite a thing to see, it’s amazing to imagine how much work it must’ve been to construct. Something I’d like to read more about.
Gonna get some dinner, head to the airport, and engage in single combat with Alaska airlines. Should be fun.
Yesterday, our last full day on the island, we drove around the north side to see the sights, go to a waterfall hike, and visit the other big town of Hilo.t
The hike was fantastic. Very jungly. I’m not going to post the full set of pictures because there are just too many, I’ll upload them later in a better way.
After the hike we went into Hilo, walked around, checked out the farmer’s market, and completely undid Matt with lunch.
Got home and scrounge up some food and watched the sunset. We went down into the queen’s bath, I’ll have pictures of that later when I get them from Matt, I didn’t dare take my phone near water in case I had to dive in to save Bevin.
Cameras these days man…
Big dipper and palm.
The same view, now that the sun is up:
What shall we do today… Hmmm…
Yesterday we wandered around Kona, and then went to a Luau! So much delicious pork.
Kona is nice. It’s a fairly small place, but lots of fun little shops, and some great views. There was a high surf advisory, so it was really fun to watch some actual big waves come crashing in.
Going to put the images behind the Continue Reading link, so click on through for pork!
Continue reading The PorkeningContinuing on pastmthe Desolation Trail and the older Caldera, we hike on another mile to the current eruption viewing zone. Fortunately the “eruption viewing” wasn’t actually the outhouses, but lay beyond.
Unfortunately it’s cloudy. Also the volcano is fairly quite currently, which may or may not be fortunate, depending on how you feel.
Once again, click Continue Reading to see the pictures!
Continue reading CalderificYesterday was volcano day!
The volcano is about 2 hours away. The trip takes you through a number of different biomes. It’s really interesting to see how different the various parts of the island are.
I’m going to put the rest of the post behind a click here because it’s very image heavy. So go ahead and click Continue Reading below to see all the pretty pictures…
Continue reading Into the blasted wasteland
We also took a trip to the farmer’s market this morning to get more fruits, and ended up with a number of jams, jellies, and drinking things.
Papaya. So much papaya. Bevin is making her very own papaya jam, which is not shown here as it boils happily.
We read the wind and the sky
When the sun is high
Yesterday was our catamaran day! The “no wiki” (no hurry), is a 50′ long, 30′ catamaran, with an 80′ mast. Captain Kirk (yes!) and his assistant Rob took us out for nice cruise to look at the island, and do some snorkeling in a couple different spots.
The shoreline of the big island is amazing. Rocky lava caves up close, and a view of just how big this mountain really is. There were a couple of cool spots they took us to specifically.
One was called “the grotto”. The surf was high enough that we couldn’t get in as far as the other little tour boat, so the pictures don’t really show it but there’s an entrance to a lava tube in there. The tube approenhly goes back about a mile. The roof used to cover most of the grotto as well apparently.
We also saw a formation called “the red hill” which is an old Caldera that has a collapsed lava tube which makes a face which was thought to be that of the war god.
We did some snorkeling near here which was pretty amazing. Big lava rocks about 10 feet under the surface, covered with coral. Not necessarily the brightly colored coral you think of from TV, but LOTS of it, and fish swimming around everywhere. Rob, our lifeguard and guide, dove down and through and underwater lava arch which was about 30 feet down.
Here’s a couple of pictures from around the beat
There was really only one downside to this whole adventure: I’m not supposed to be this color.
That’s what comes of like 10 minutes of sun exposure between getting out of the water and re-applying sunscreen… Even with my hat. Reflection is dangerous, and the sun is a death laser.
We didn’t take Hei Hei on the boat, it seemed cruel. Matt’s poor abused legs really don’t need this sort of attention though…
Really fun day. I’m a bit sad we don’t have pictures of underwater to share, but I’m happy to be a person who enjoys doing the thing without having a camera strapped to my face constantly. 😎
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