Sunday

Sunday morning Ryan woke me up at 4:45 (of course that’s really 9:45 CST) and was ready for me to be awake and sit on the porch with him. So we got up, cleaned up and watched the turtles off our balcony until 6:10 (breakfast came with our hotel reservation, but they didn’t start serving until 6:30).One thing about Hawaii’s sunrise’s and sunset’s that Ryan pointed out…as soon as the sun goes down, it’s dark, as soon as the sun comes up, it’s bright. It’s like someone turns on a light switch up in the heavens! We went downstairs and found Rita and Larry were up too! All of us were really ready to eat. What a huge breakfast it was. Eggs, rice, pancakes, hashbrowns, bacon, all sorts of pastries, toast, cereals, oatmeal, yogurt, milk, guava juice, orange juice, all sorts of fruit, hot teas and of course Kona coffee. My favorite item on the breakfast bar…the coconut syrup. Oh my. It was wonderful! Tasted like candy! Afterward Larry and Rita headed off to find their heliport. They took a helicopter ride around the island. Ryan and I decided we would head up to the North Western tip of the island to look around. We put on our bathing suits, grabbed our guide book and took off. We moseyed up the highway. Lava fields line the highway along the west coast of the Island. People take coral and spell things out on it.Kinda like when you are little and you make words and designs with macaroni on a piece of construction paper…but on a much larger scale.All sorts of happy birthdays, I love XYZ or ABC + 123 = love forever. Some of them were dated…the jones’ 2008. Basically environmentally safe graffiti. We stopped first at a scenic outlook. Vast expanses of nothing but black fields of lava. Some of the flows were darker than others, which helped you to tell the difference in the year of the flow, the different kind of lava it was etc. Some had grasses popping up here and there and others were completely barren.

Then, when the field would hit the ocean, spots of green popped up…palm trees and various tropical plants. Then the beautiful water…started out turquoise fading to a deep, dark beautiful blue. While at the scenic point, we decided it was time for a bathroom break. Closest place we could see according to our guidebook was about half a mile back to a place called Kiholo Bay.

It was down an unmarked one lane lava gravel road, with little cut outs in case you needed to pass someone. Took about ten minutes to get down to the beach from the main highway, and our impala held up rather nicely. We arrived and walked out on our first truly black sand beach. It was gorgeous. The rocks were rather large, but once you got close to the water, the large rocks turned to a nice black sand. It’s odd to look at a black sand beach for the first time. The water is crystal clear, but all the sand underneath it is black…plays tricks on the mind. We played in the water a bit then headed to find the bathrooms our map said were there. That’s the funny thing about maps in books…these particular bathrooms were closed for renovation, and looked to have been closed for quite a while. There were two port-o-potties…Ryan and I in unison opened the doors, then immediately decided we could wait. On our way back to the highway we saw a car coming toward us on the gravel road. Ryan pulled off in a turnoff and waited. As the rather large Hawaiian dude passed, he gave Ryan the Mahalo. Ryan flipped out he was so excited. His first genuine Mahalo! Only 8:30 and already shaping up to be a very fun day. We drove past the heliport Larry and Rita had taken off from and we are pretty sure they flew right over the top of us on their way out. Guess we’ll see when we look at the DVD of their flight. Our next stop was going to be Mauna Kea Beach, but their 40 parking spots were already full. We headed further up along the highway instead of turning back. Next stop Mahukuna Beach. Not so much of a beach at all, but an old sugar harbor.

Apparently has fantastic snorkeling when the waters are calm, but because of the south swell, we opted to just take a few pictures. Even the locals weren’t getting in. We kept heading north, pulling off here and there to look around and see what road ended where. About mile 19, the landscape started to change from desert, to more and more green. By mile marker 22, we were in full on rainforest. It was incredible! Such a quick change of climate. The highway itself ended at the Pololu Lookout and Beach.

The parking lot is pretty high up on a cliff and you had to hike down to the beach below. We put our water shoes and headed down. Took about half an hour under spider webs, spiders, and brush.

Well groomed trail, but you are in the jungle, so what do you expect. The trail ends at the bottom of a beautiful valley. Brackish ponds are about, a tire swing, a large wood plank swing, a rope swing, lots of rocks, lots of trees. Then you walk out to the water. It was worth the hike down. You are surrounded by towering cliffs and deep blue ocean.

It was the most beautiful place I have ever seen in my life. Beautiful black sand to boot. And we had the entire beach to ourselves…well, almost…three college kids camping in the woods we saw once, but then they went off scampering about and we didn’t see them again. We played in the water a bit, took lots of pictures and tried to savor the moment before heading back up. We had told Larry and Rita we would meet them for lunch after their helicopter ride…which means we needed to start heading back toward their heliport. Goodbye beautiful beach…proud to have gotten to see you in person…

Only took us about fifteen minutes to get back up the trail. We saw about thirty people headed down all asking “how much further?”. We were glad we went when we did. Both of us were pouring with sweat and quite winded by the time we got to the top. Some may ask “why didn’t you stop and take a break”…uh…you didn’t see all the spider webs overhead or you would’ve been reluctant to stop too!

On our way to meet L&R, we drove back through the Kohala Mountains instead of staying along the coastline.

Kohala Mountains used to be an active volcano 60,000 years ago and according to the guidebook (like all other volcanoes) it may come back to life for one final eruption before it is completely dead. To me, they just don’t know what it is going to do, so they just say that. Anyways, the Kohala Mountains looked nothing like the desert or the rain forest. More like a combination of Ireland and East Texas. Large Cook’s Pine trees (which looked like a palm/fir tree mix to me), huge open green fields, lots of cows grazing…later we would realize we were driving through parts of the Parker Ranch. The summit of the road was at about 4,000 feet…which is incredible to have gone from sea level up to 4000 feet in a matter of twenty minutes, then back down to sea level again. We met up with L&R on the side of the road, where there just so happened to be a little outdoor fruit/plant stand.

Tons of orchids and fresh fruits. Ryan bought a fresh pineapple and avocado, and off we went to find a place for lunch. Stopped along the road at a place I can’t remember the name of (shame on me, I know). Three burgers and an order of fish and chips later, we all felt much better. Actually one of the best burgers I’ve ever had. Which says a lot because I didn’t get my pickles on it like I normally do. Below is a picture of a cool flame tree outside the restaurant...

We all decided to stop at Hapuna Beach on our way back to the hotel. Hapuna has been named the best beach in the nation by the travel channel, ranked by Conde Nast, and we wanted to see if it lived up to it’s hype. By the looks of the parking lot, it definitely was the most crowded beach we’d been to. We hiked down under giant mimosa, banyan, and palm trees to a nice shaded covered picnic table.

Larry and Rita watched our stuff and Ryan and I walked the rest of the way down to the beach. It was unreal. Lots of people, but didn’t seem crowded. Wonderful white sand, no rocks, nice smooth waves to play in, and water that was crystal clear. As it got deeper, you could see the whole range of colors of blue…from turquoise to navy. So you ask, did Hapuna live up to the hype…a resounding YES! We played in the water a bit and tested out our snorkeling goggles for about thirty minutes, then headed back to the cars.

About a forty five minute drive back to the hotel, it was nice to sit and rest. We made a pit stop at Walmart to pick up a few odds and ins. Toothpaste, sand buckets, floats, laundry soap, etc. Rita was wearing a necklace she got on their trip to Hawaii back in 1982. A local followed her in the parking lot and wanted to know where she got it. Apparently they don’t make those kind of necklaces anymore! The family was fitting right in with the locals…granted, me carrying around my camera snapping pictures of everything probably made me stand out like a sore thumb. Back at the Outrigger Keahou, we unloaded the cars, watched the sea turtles out our room window and cleaned up. We all met back downstairs, had a light dinner at the hotel’s restaurant and visited while watching the sun go down. Ryan and I each tried a “Lava Flow” which was a pina colada with strawberry daiquiri stripes down the side. Pretty tasty. Tasted more like a smoothie than a drink. All of us were exhausted after such an eventful day so we headed to bed pretty early. Plus, Krystal, Howard and the kids were arriving the next day and we wanted to be rested. Again, I wrote a couple of postcards and updated my journal. This journal entry wasn’t as lengthy as the previous night’s. So much to fit in, and I was tired. Both of us fell asleep as soon as our heads hit our pillows.