Apparently I forgot to actually press publish on this one on Sunday. Whoops. Better late than never!
Off to unpacking and laundry.
Right back where we started
Not over yet!
At the airport ready to head home, but apparently vacation isn’t over yet, Bevin needed her Portland breakfast sandwich and a coffee!
Where we have room to PUT these things, considering yesterday’s caloric input. Bamboo Sushi has, hands down, the best burger in Portland. Also great sushi. And then there was Dot Sugar.
Back on the exercise bike ASAP when we get home I think. But for now, once more unto the skies dear friends, once more!
35
Been up for going on 36 hours now, minus about 3 hours of napping according to my watch. Just…. Another… 45 minutes… Until… Sleep….
Not all of us made it though.
Time zones and red-eye flights suck. But we should be back on schedule by tomorrow.
The scenic route
One thing that’s striking about flying over St. Helens after Kilauea is how small St. Helens seems. An odd feeling!
I wonder if we’ll survive today without naps.
Airborn nap plan
Turns out our entire exit row is going to Portland, and is other families that have been split up due to the tender ministrations of Alaska. So we’ve formed a passengers collective and reorganized ourselves appropriately. Victory!
The best way to airport
The closer you get the the plane, and the more airplane sounds you get, the better it is.
Time to spend 6 hours trying to sleep squeezed in between two strangers. Got exit row at least!
A series of huts
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.
The King’s Road
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.
Jurassic Hike
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.
NightSight, palm edition…
Cameras these days man…
Big dipper and palm.
The same view, now that the sun is up:
What shall we do today… Hmmm…