Friday & Saturday -- home again

We had an uneventful (thankfully) flight home on Thursday night/Friday. On-time both from Kona-Kailua and from SF. It was a long night, though and we were uncomfortably squished from 8:50 Hawaii time to 4:45 a.m. SF time. So, we didn't get much sleep.
We still have photos to share and that should come next.

Next adventure -- getting a new furnace, re-working the gas fireplace, putting in wood floors. oy. I don't think I'll blog about that.

Thursday - one last day!

We have one last day, leaving tonight at 8:50.
So, we're going to hang out here until noon, then do some exploring in the afternoon, find some place for dinner and then head to the airport (about 9 miles)
We just watched the morning golf maintenance routine, with course guy creating a new hole on the green and taking the core from that hole and filling in yesterday's. Then he changed the color of the flag. Oh, so that's how they do it.
The neighborhood kitty wandered by to meow at us. The morning outrigger canoe parade just passed the rocks just offshore. No cruiselines in the bay this morning.
I'm thinking we should just take a 30 min. video of this view and then watch it when life gets stressful.
Guess it's time to start organizing for packing, a short walk and ONE last stop at the pool.

Wed. 4/27 - enjoying the fish and spinner dolphins

We got up at 6 a.m. today so we could get to our take-off spot for snorkeling by 7:15Adventures in Paradise does two snorkel/kayak tours - one at 7 a.m. to Cook's Monument and one after dark to watch the manta rays.
Today it was just a couple from Vancouver Canada and us with our guide.
We bought a disposable waterproof camera and I HOPE we got something. I'm not sure I ever got the camera quite figured out.
The paddle was about 1+ miles across a very calm bay. We lucked out-- both on the way to the bay and on the way back, we saw spinner dolphins, swimming in groups and leaping out of the water, spinning. (yes, hence the name.)
Once to the bay, we were able to pull out, walk down a short trail to the monument, then sit on the wall above the water and -- what would the verb be -- plop in the water with mask. The water was so calm it was easy to just float on the surface with assistance from fins and life vests. We saw trumpet fish, parrot fish, sea urchins, tons of different kinds of coral and other fish I'll have to look up later.
We got there early and had the place almost to ourselves, but by the time we left, the zodiacs (15 or so people), big boats (100+). and random kayakers who didn't know what they were doing started to arrive.
Our guide was great at gently educating them about "dos and don'ts" and why. (Don't drag your kayak over the rocks. Little pieces of plastic scrape off and the fish eat them.) One of the random kayakers didn't listen to her advice about staying away from some rocks and ended up with some sea urchin stings, which she then tended to. I guess some people have to learn the hard way.
It was an amazing morning!
We had a lazy afternoon after all that sun. (oops. Missed the ankles with the sunblock. darn. Well, that's my little dolphin souvenir.)
After dinner of "using as much leftovers as possible" we walked back up to the shopping center (.5 mi uphill) to have an evening treat -- one last shave ice. We're thinking a shave ice stand at the Ems game or Saturday market might be a money maker.
The evening rate started a little as we walked back, but them turned into a real downpour. It's rained about three nights here, but then in the a.m. it's gone.

Tues 4/26 - Learned about the hukilau!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hukilau
As we were wandering through the Place of Refuge (National Historic Site) I was thinking (insert music here) "Oh we're going to a huklau" and wondering, "What's a hukilau?" Thanks to the cell phone tour now I know! A hukilau is a way of fishing where the village would take a rope with ti leaves hanging down and "corral" the fish. Then they could go through what they caught and keep what they needed and throw the rest back. Who knew? Very eco-friendly.
The Place of Refuge was where, basically, if you had been naughty (broke a kapu rule) the punishment was burning, spearing, strangling. Well, if you could get to the Place of Refuge before they caught you, you could do a cleansing ceremony and be forgiven. This Place of Refuge is the last one remaining in Hawaii. They did a nice job with small trail markers and the cell phone tour with narrative. At one stop, a Native Hawaiian was working on a canoe, refurbishing it. The completed one was beautiful wood and more than 200 years old. He was scraping off the weathered part using a rock adze. Hopefully, we have a few pictures.
Place of Refuge was our second stop this morning. We drove south to check out Adventures in Paradise where we're going tomorrow morning for our kayaking and snorkeling trip and wanted to know where we were going today so we weren't looking tomorrow. Found it and had a nice talk with one of the guys there.
They suggested the bay and Place of Refuge, which I had read about in "the book" but didn't realize we were that close.
Then we drove back up the coast and stopped for a special local treat, but I won't tell what it is until I get home. :-]
Then it was time for a stop at Safeway for dinner fixins. I had to have local fish at least once and found it at Safeway without a trek to find a fish market, so it was ono for dinner (YUM), 90-second Safeway Select rice packets (we discovered here that are really good side dishes) and a veggie. (Pictures to come) Safeway also has special local desserts, so I tried babingka, a Portugese coconut cake. (may have missed on the spelling there.) John went with the Pepperidge Farm Milano.
Afternoon included the pool, a John-led snorkeling lesson for me in the pool, reading and then a drive up to a cloud rainforest. There was supposed to be a hike up there, but we couldn't find it. Even so, the roadside ferns and fern-trees. (I think these are ohi, but not sure) were worth the drive up to about 5000 feet.
Then, back to the condo for dinner and getting read for tomorrow.
I bet there's a basketball game on, because the next door neighbors, who may live here close to yearround are whooping it up. Last night, I think they were watching Dancing with the Stars. (They added commentary.) I don't think they know about using their inside voices.

Monday 4/25 - Walking and a Trolley adventure

Today was a "no driving" day. We stopped at the concierge desk to get a shuttle schedule. The plan: Walk All'i drive into Kailua Kona (about 5 miles) right along the water and past a series of beach parks, houses and condos. Nothing like walking to really see the area. Most of the way was breezy but by the time we got into town, I had the "red face" look. A lemonade, English muffin and glass of water and I was read to go again.
The main street along a bay has a low sea wall on one side of the road and shops along the other. John bought a hat and the clerk's daughter is a CPA in Springfield.
A BIG Princess Cruise ship is in port and filled the main street with many Australians. Kailua Pier (where Ironman swim ends) was center of activity where vans picked them up for trips to Ross Dress for Less, Wal-mart and K-mart. Waiting for the trolley, we sat on a wall with an Australian woman who told us the cruise was a 35 day trip to Hawaii, Samoa, Tonga and Tahiti. She didn't have much good to say abou Samoa, Tonga and Tahiti (dirty, she said). "Tahiti-- sounds exotic, doesn't it?" She said the best part of Tahiti is the view of the island as the ship leaves. Definitely a character. Not sure why she was on a cruise to locations she didn't like.
Those poor Australians were lined up for about three or four blocks with their shopping bags to take the launches (50ish at a time) back to the ship. They said the LONG line was getting into U.S. through Homeland Security at their first Hawaaian port. Sorry, Australians. We could think of several ways they could have speeded that up.
We got on the trolley back and had a scenic ride through the rest of the route and back to the shopping center (for $1). We had a nice talk on the trolley with a couple from Portland. We were laughing about Astoria as a destination resort and cruise ships. They go there for the regatta every year with friends and we gave them some Astoria travel advice. (They didn't know about Home Bakery?)
Then back here to the condo and more plotting for Tues-Thurs. I just committed (mastercard) to a kayak/snorkel trip to Capt Cook Monument for Wed. I've kayaked before, but the snorkeling will be new for me. John had hoped to surf, but I'm not sure that's going to happen this trip.
Now I'm caught up on blogging!
We had dinner by Chef John at the condo and I cleaned up and we still had time for an evening swim. This place has three pools - one is adults only and is open until 10. We had it to ourselves and then two sisters and their husbands arrived. Turns out they are from Portland and Salem so we shared stories. They are here with Gma and Gpa for two weeks. (Afterwards, Gma and Gpa stay another two weeks - likely to recover.) The kids are girl, 2, and boy, 18 mos, and are so excited to be with each other that the sleep and eat cycle is all off.
They said Gma and Gpa basically want kid time so they took off yesterday on their own for a meal in town that involved some bar-hopping. Their place fronts the golf course, too, so we shared stories about what we'd seen on the evening paseo. (The guy riding across the fairway on a bicycle was the weirdest.) While in the pool and spa, it started raining HARD. Warm rain was fun, tho, so we waited to see if it would let up a little (didn't) and then gave up and went back to listen to the rain at the condo.

Sunday - A day at the volcano

Thinking strategically (or trying to) we decided that an Easter Sunday drive to the volcano would be a good bet to avoid crowds - and we were right.
We left the condo at 7:45 and knew it was going to be a long/slow drive. Most of the highway is 35 mph and it's kind of like 1 or 101, without many passing lanes. Good part is there weren't many cars to pass. I read aloud (asking first) from the guidebook to give a mile by mile narrative -- pausing at the hairy parts of the road.
The road goes through small towns attempting to be touristy - think Wheeler OR with small kona coffee and macadamia nut "farms" along the way.
At the town farthest south, we saw "Southern Most Bar in the United States" -- but we didn't stop. A road veers off there to the southern most tip of the island, but we were focused on volcano destination so we passed.
The guidebooks said to stop off at the visitor center first. That pesky sulfur diozide closes parts of the park and they have the scoop on what's safe.
Nice NPS volunteers patiently took group by group and gave suggestions for the visit. The rim drive for Kilauea was closed becuse of the gas and it was raining at the visitor center so we took the Chain of Craters road down the flank to the ocean and the end of the road. It used to be a loop, but a fairly recent lava flow (I'll look up the date) covered the road and wiped out about homes and a subdivision. One guy is left and has to cross the pahoehoe & aa (geology talk and good for crossword puzzles) to get to his home. We hiked the .5 ish from the barrier to the end of the road and took Tower of Pisa type photos for later comic relief. A short trail leads to a view of a sea arch. Posters at the shelter reassuringly show how whole hunks (like BIG hunks) of this fall off into the ocean occasionally. There was an emergency phone there, but if the land was falling off I'm not so sure what good the phone does.
Then we drove back up the road to a petroglyph trail, .7 miles across pahoehoe (uneven trail, but at leas it was flat) to a place where there are 23,000 petroglyphs. Some of them are single holes, made by families for their babies' umbilical cords. Others were holes with circles around the holes. There were a few clearly human forms, a bug, a turtle. The weather close to the crater (4000 feet) was clearing by then so we drove back up the road to Kilauea Iki - a crater formed in 1959 when Kileaua blew (again). Geologists knew an eruption was coming and they expected it in the big crater, but instead, it blew out of kilauea iki, a forested crater and filled it 400 feet full of lava that sloshed around and left a bathrtub ring. We had lunch in the parking lot and then laced up the walking shoes for a 4-mile hike 400 around the crater rim through tropical (classicly tropical) rainforest and 400 feet down the crater wall and back up.
From the top, you can see the tiny ant hikers crossing the crater. In spots, a few vents puffed a little smoke and at one side you can see the hole where the lava blew out. (called Pu'u Pua'i) Think a little Crater Lake, but without the water. We hiked along with 2 couples from Spokane for a while and agreed that parts of the hike were very Cascades like, but with different plants.
The hike comes out at a trail head for a lava tube (oh, and a full parking lot by that time). We have hiked in lava tubes and seen steam vents before so we passed on those two and went on to the Kilauea overlook. Another "wow" sight.
http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/hvo/cams/KIcam/
This is where the Goddess Pele lives. The museum has a jumpsuit and boots that were worn by a geologist who was walking around in Kileaua when it was oozing/bubbling in 1985. He took a wrong step and fell through the crust, spending a few months in the hospital. Thigh down the suit was in shreds.
Note to geologists: watch where you step.
The NPS and USGS haven't figured out how to turn the lava on and off, so we didn't get to see any today... except in videos.
We turned around from there and headed home, returning to our condo by 5ish and an evening of reading (and listening to the next door neighbor's party) and plotting the next days' adventure.
We are also enjoying radio stations - one "All Native All the Time" plays a combo of Hawaiian rap, Hawaiian country, Hawaiian reggae - oh, and Hawaiian Christian. Not much of a play list even with all those. We started recognizing the songs on Day 2. Lyrics were generally "Everything is gonna beeeee all right. Everything is gonna beeeee all right...." So, the message was good anyway.
On the way home yesterday, we found a station that was IN Hawaiian with much more "authentic" (sounding anyway) music.

Sat, April 23 - Wailua & north

It's Monday mornng, low clouds and 70s. We're thinking after a long day of driving Sunday, we'll take a walk (5 miles) into Kona today and take the trolley back, then have an afternoon of reading, poolside. So, we're not in any hurry this morning so I'll catch up on two days of adventures.
Saturday, we referred to our hiking guidebook (which we think was written by a wimp, but oh well) and drove north past where we drove the day before up over the top of the north side to Wailua, which is a cowboy town but we didn't see any cowboys. Then on to Waipia Bay. I'll have to double check the book on spelling, but that's close. The drive looks a lot like northern California and the temperature went from 80+ alog the coast down to 60ish up in the mountains. I'm starting to get my volcanoes straight so I think I can say that we saw Mauna Loa (the one with the observatories, but maybe that's Mauna Kea - again. need the guidebook!) We were going for a hike that makes Snake Hill or Pisgah (for Calif or OR friends) look like the flats. We got an early start as usual, so when we got to the "trail" head we were only the second or third car. We parked, right next to a friendly goat eating "weeds" and booted up.
If you have a 4WD or you want to pay $55 round-trip, you can drive down. No on both counts for us, so we started the zig zag trek down a one-lane road from the cliffs down into a valley that looked alot like the Mai Chau Valley in VietNam. People apparently actually live down here with no electricity or cell phones and tend taro fields and... who knows what else. Lots of birds, which sometimes you can actually see, but most of the time just hear. I was glad that the road was for the most part dry because it was slick in spots. If Biggest Loser or the Wellness Program at work want a good quad workout, I'd recommend this one. Yipes. Once at the bottom, the "trail" (more a rutted road and I mean RUTS) leads to a grove of (I'm guessing) iron wood trees. The Hawaaian royalty loved this spot and had homes here even if they lived back at Kona. The area is also a burial ground and signs mark it "No Camping". A river/stream cuts through the valley with high cliffs/hills on each side. Legend is that a giant warrior wanted to show how powerful he was, so he couged the valley out with a stick. Looking north (hmm. might have been east at that point) the mountain looked like Neah Kah Nie.
The guide book says people here aren't very friendly, but we didn't get that feel. It did appear to be more locals than tourists. The van with the $55 round-trip people DID look like tourists who never would have made it down and back on their own steam.
We took in the beautiful valley, beach, river and watched the families get their little set-ups for the day and then headed back up. Lunch was in the car and that's always a good incentive.
The hike back up was mostly shady, breezy and warm, but not blistering hot. I'll go back and add distances and elevatios here.
We decided to take pictures on the way up -- my strategy for getting my breath and hiked switchback to switchback and pole to pole. If anyone on the way down, chuckled a little, we could say "Just wait"
Back at the top we used the Garmin to find the nearest park and it didn't fail us. We found a city with a softball fie.d and picnic bench and enjoyed our wraps with ham and cheese.
To get the most of our drive since we weren't going to come back this way, next stop was a state nature reserve which had a short hike through rainforest. (.7) Taking that hike gave a good feel for what the rainforest was like away from manicured paths. We recognized sword fern (or what looked like sword fern). Everything else looked like something NW but not quite - bracken fern type, maidenhair fern-like plus HUGE ferns with fiddleheads the size of saucers. I took a lot of pictures, but I'm not sure the scale is going to be obvious.
After the preserve, we drove back the way we came (not much choice) and through a little rain. Janice H. (aka Janice Who Cuts My Hair) recommended a cafe in Wailua for its excellent coconut pie, so we found it (thanks, Garmin and guidebook) to find Huli Sue's. They have one kind of pie per day and our luck it was, of course, banana cream, so as a non-banana person, I saved a bunch of calories there.
Back at the condo, we cooked up burgers, salad and baked beans for dinner and started the plan for Sunday -- the Volcano!

Friday, April 22 - north, to the heaiu

Repeat info from the e-mail update. In the first 24 hours we saw Casey Martin on the flight to SFO (golfer), taxied by Air Force I at SFO (pilot said that's probably as close as we'll ever get) then in Kona, saw a cardinal (and head many more, saw our first mongooses at the shopping center (pests) and learned that David Douglas (of tree fame) died on Hawaii when he fell into a pit that was supposed to catch wild cows. (He survived the fall, but unfortunately so did the bull that fell in before him.)
Today we drove as far north as we could to Hawi. The road crosses lava fields marked on our map with (flow of 1801) notes. Apparently, when someone dies or maybe to honor them, it's traditional to write their name in white coral in amongst the black rocks of the flows. Many RIP notes.
We stopped at the heaiu (national historic site) where King Kamehameha III built a heaiu to his god, the god of war. Of course he had decided it was his destiny to fight all the other islands and bring them under him to bring peace. (hmm.) Anyway, a line of "volunteers" carried rocks 20 miles to build an amazing structure that was his compound. That's where the royal family lived, too, in a bay below the heiau. Stopping there was a "Do you want to turn?" SURE! decision. They have an 800 phone # to call with your cell phone (free) and then enter the trail markers to hear about that spot. Very cool idea I'm already wondering whether that would work for campus tours. We bought a hiking book at the gift shop to help on make some decisions.
We kept to the low road on this drive and stayed in the 80+ degrees. It's a little humid, but not that bad.
We drove all the way to Hawi where the original King Kamehameha stands (2nd one is at the judiciary bldg in Honolulu -- the one you see on Hawaii 5-0. Funny story about why there are two.
It was early in the day so we didn't stop for AMAZING ice cream. hmm might have to go back.
We were back at the condo for lunch and a nap. Then we walked to Kamehameha IIIs birthplace, a marker by a small nearby bay that looks like it took a hit from the 2010 tsunami, but we haven't talked to any locals about that.
Checked the clock to see if I could catch C, C and Mom on their way to the coast to wish mom a Happy Good Friday Earth Day Birthday. Success. They were having dinner, looking at the ocean and were on their way to the beach house.
We decided we'll challenge ourselves to get wet everyday. The condo area has 3 pools, including an "adult" pool and we were the only ones in the water before dinner. Good time to do that for zero sun burn risk. (We stopped at a nice beach on our way north, but swimming wasn' the goal at that point.)
John made teriyaki chicken, veggies and rice for dinner and we spent the evening reading about possible adventures. We were watched on the lanai by a gray and white kitty who stood below, meowed and tried to look pitiful.
Also entertaining, the family above us (2 boys, 3 girls, gma, gpa, and 4 parents.) Someone gave the boys ukeleles -- oh joy. It may be that this is gma and gpas condo and the kids aren't actually staying here. Apparently, it's ok to run around on the golf course early and late because there were lots of folks doing that, including the boys "Uncle Fred! Uncle Fred! We'll race and you time us, OK?"
There's a big earth day ocean/land festival today in Kona so I think we're going to check that out and then go up in the mountains for a little hiking.
We want to go to Kilauea -- about 90 miles away, so that will be an early day. We also want to kayak to Capt Cook Monument and will research that today, too, to plan ahead.
More Kona coffee and then time to get dressed for today's adventures.

Kona - April 2011

The sun is coming up behind us, over the top of the mountains. Kayakers are paddling by. Ocaean seems fairly calm with intermittent wave crashing over the top of the rocks at the edge of the golf course very close to our lanai.
John is out running somewhere and I have my Kona coffee on the lanai. (Hawaii talk there.)
Here's a catch-up blog post.
We left at 4:45 from Honeywood for the airport and went EUG to SFO with no problem. Once in SFO and all loaded on the plane, it seemed that our pilot had car trouble and wasn't at the airport yet. (Guess that's better than the mechanic having car trouble.)Left about 45 minutes late and started the 5 hr flight to Hawaii. Of couse, the 3-gen family with two boys (3 & maybe 7) were right behind us and they perfected the art of seat-kicking. Big brother redeemed himself by reading to little brother. (Brady and Conrad) and he did the best job of keeping brother busy.
It's weird to land in Kona in jeans and a sweatshirt to 80+ degrees. I bet we all looked obviously winterized.
Through tag-team and strategically seating ourselves in the shuttle, I was first at the rental counter and we got our Toyota Rogue (same color as the Taurus) and began the drive to our condo. We're pretty close, actually, so with good directions, only one wrong turn and one phone all to managers' office, we found our place.
We have 1 bedroom, good size livingroom, lanai, two bathrooms. I'm guessing the living room couch folds out. We're on the ground floor so there is some tap-dancing on our heads, but I think I'd rather have that than climbing 3 flights of steps. I don't know if we could have a better view. Golfer watching (we're next to a tee) plus he ocean right there. Much better location and a bigger space than on Kauai. The decor is 70s with lots of cocoa brown and sea foam carpet, but who cares about that. There's also a deck off the bedroom with a view of the parking area, so we likely won't use that much.
The first night we drove through town, which looks like Seaside OR with lots of little gift shops, restaurants, equipment rental places. Then settled on birthday dinner a Drydales II in the nearest shopping center. I had a nice piece of ono (delicious Hawaiian fish. I hope it's not endangered or anything.)
We have found our Safeway and Long's Drugs and stocked up on food plus the stuff we forgot.
(Two outrigger canoes are going by right now)
Food prices are crazy and gas is around $4.60/gal. We also know where Costco is -- cheapest place on island to fill up.
The condo has an insulated cooler so we can pack lunches to take on adventures.