Thursday

Thursday morning Ryan, Howard and I had decided to meet early in the morning to snorkel before breakfast. When our wake up call arrived which went “Alooooooha. A all’I mai.” Which is not the proper spelling, but it’s what it sounded like…and it sounded so nice and pretty and jovial when we were already awake before our bodies had adjusted to the time difference…but now, when we had adjusted…that call came sooooo early! We called Howard to tell him we were running late…no answer. So we hustled downstairs and found him waiting for us. We all went out and had a blast! Howard saw a spiny lobster and even an eel! No way would I want to see an eel while snorkeling! I saw a Nemo fish and the Blue Cornet fish which were the only two on my laminated guide I hadn’t seen! After an hour or so, I was tired and swam back to shore. Howard and Ryan slowly drifted in. When I got to where we had left our towels, I was surprised to find all our stuff except a room key and the guys’ shirts gone! I shouted to them asking if they moved our stuff. Both shook their heads. Then a lifeguard that had just gotten to the beach approached me apologizing. He said he thought that someone had left them from the night before since it was so early! While we all had been sluggish to get out of bed, we were also very happy we did! We gave all our things a final rinse in the shower by the pool then headed up to change. Krystal had found a place called “U Top It” that made all kinds of pancrepes that we were very anxious to try for breakfast. It was in a little shopping center not far from the hotel. The menu looked awesome…so many decisions!!! Krystal and Kayla got sweet crepes while Ryan, Howard and I went with more breakfast hearty choices. All were very tasty! Too bad we hadn’t discovered this the day before! After breakfast we went back to the hotel to pack up the cars. Talk about a tight fit. I carried down my bags, then immediately left the area leaving Howard and Ryan to figure out how everything would fit. We looked at the turtles one last time.

We got in our cars and headed south! First stop, Greenwell Farms. It is a coffee farm that was mentioned in our Big Island Travel Guide so we pulled over. Talk about a neat place! The outdoor kiosk would have fit on our back porch. They sold all the different coffees that they roasted (and they were roasting some that morning…you could smell it!) as well as a few odds and ins. Next to the outdoor shop were several orange trees, a pineapple growing, and a coffee tree.

One of the workers let us know a tour was about to start of the farm if we would like to go. We all said no, then just kept staring at him. He went over and got a Jackson Chameleon out of one of the orange trees. Even let Kayla and Wesley hold him. He said a whole family lives in the tree! Too cool! So neat looking too.

Then he walked us over to the coffee tree and started telling us all about the farm, how many trees there were, how all their beans have to be picked by hand-picked because they ripen at different times, the difference between peaberry coffee and just your regular kona coffee, how the coffee plant is part of the gardenia family, and all sorts of good info. They even sold green coffee beans there that you could take home and roast yourself. Howard bought a bag. The gentleman told him to go buy a popcorn popper and roast them in there…wow! Genius! I am personally really anxious to hear how that turns out! The worker also let us know that up in the main house, they make sweet bread and it would be ready in a couple hours if we’d like to stop and get some. No, two hours is a bit too long to wait. All of us were browsing around and I found Ryan and I each shirts to buy. Krystal found an avocado tree! Such a neat little place to stop. We all piled back into the cars and headed down the twisting road. We read about a beach in our book called Pebble Beach that sounded pretty neat so we looked extremely hard for the turnoff. We knew the mile markers it was supposed to be between, but missed it the first go around. We had a couple of members in the party feeling a bit carsick so we made a loop looking for the turnoff for the beach. Wow…talk about hard to find and EXTREMELY steep. We lost 1,000 feet really really quickly. It was worth it once at the bottom though. Pebble Beach was well, full of pebbles…and had an incredible sound to it. Very similar to the sounds of Cabo. We all had our leis with us. It is a saying in Hawaii that if you throw your lei into the ocean, you’ll come back to Hawaii. So we all chose to throw our leis in here at Pebble Beach. Goodbye beautiful orchids.

The guidebook also told us that if you took a short hike to the right of Pebble Beach, you would find a little cove that had green sand.
(I'm standing in the cove here...)
Now in Hawaii there is a whole beach made of green sand…it is also a 45 minute hike to and from or a 4wd road. So when we read we might get to see green sand, we were all ecstatic! Ryan, Howard and I made the trip over to see if it would be worth having the whole family walk it. And it was. A nice little cove where a few beginnings of sea caves had begun. In those sea caves, green sand mixed with the black sand!

Too cool! The green sand is from the stone olivine which is in the ground on Hawaii. As the waves breakdown the lava and olivine, it forms the sand, and thus green sand beach! We took quite a few pictures in the rocky cove…doubt many people in the world have ever made it to that little place on earth. It felt special :) As we walked back, we noticed that all of the black rocks we’d walked on to get to the green sand had olivine all in them! It looked like the sugar crystals you put on top of sugar cookies…but green. It was gorgeous. We gave our Alohas to the beach then got back in the cars. As we approached the southern tip of the island, things got a little spooky. Vast expanses of lava flows. Very barren, no coral graffiti, hardly any plant life, just barren. We stopped at a scenic point and looked about quickly. From here you could see the road to the southern most tip of the island…and a wind farm. We had a couple of hungry tummies, so we didn’t turn to go down the road to the tip though. Trees grew sideways the wind was so strong. Just amazing. Larry had happened upon the name of a bakery while looking at a website before we went to Hawaii called Punaluu Bakery. Touting itself as the southern most bakery in the US, and with two car fulls of bakery critics, it seemed to be the most logical place for us to eat. What a magnificent place to stop.

Attached to the bakery/restaurant was a gift shop and a little botanical garden to browse in. It was here Krystal and I bought matching Plumeria Blossom perfumes, but more importantly had our first malasadas. Wow…think doughnut or beignet made with Hawaiian sweet bread. Wow. The plain sugar was my favorite…only after I had my burger though :o) While our food was getting ready we browsed around the gardens…and my camera ran out of batteries. Tall beautiful palm trees and all sorts of plants. Yep, we had crossed from the barren west side of the island onto the eastern wet side of the island. We saw lots of our favorite birds too. Neat little red headed, black backed, gray chested birds. We loaded back into our cars then started the climb up to Kilauea. We got to stay in the Volcano House which is on the edge of the Kilauea caldera. Cool people like Mark Twain and Franklin Roosevelt had stayed there. We drove into a foggy mess. We were all somewhat disappointed, wishing we had a better view. We unloaded our bags into our rooms and I rinsed off. Ryan had headed down to look around (the walls were full of photographs, history, volcano information) and browse the gift shops. I joined him. FINALLY! I found Christmas ornaments! I’d looked at several places in Kona and never found one I liked! Immediately bought two as well as an Israel Kamakawiwo`ole cd. Then I headed into the great room. In it was a fire that has burning for over 120 years. It smelled like it in there too. Take the smell of your favorite campfire and triple it. Then we loaded back in the cars and headed down the volcano to eat and then to hike out to see the lava. All of had rain jackets, but not all had hoods. All wore closed toe shoes except Ryan. We ate at a “steakhouse” in a little town at the bottom of the volcano. Krystal and I both had never been to a steakhouse that seemed so much like…uh, well…not one. No one was very hungry so we ate light and hit the road. It would rain really hard for a few minutes, then let up, off and on, off and on. Finally as we got closer and closer to where you could go see the lava, it started to lighten up. The road came to a dead end and had a sign posted about park times, all sorts of cautions etc. Our impalas pressed on…over new lava fields…down a one lane, one way makeshift road. Kayla and I had been brushing up on our Hawaiian phrases and quizzing one another when out the window, oh my gosh…you could see the lava coming down the side of the mountain! Whoa. You may have seen it on tv, but until you’ve sat at the foot of a mountain and watched it coming down, you never get how truly amazing it is. Cars that seemed to be “stalled sat every once a while randomly in a field…until you realized…wait, it isn’t stalled, it’s abandoned because the lava came and took it. And the same went with houses! You could see where old parking lots to “go see the lava” used to be…with lava flows on them now. You feel completely humbled. We finally arrived and realized the rest of the world got there before we did. You even had to back into your parking space, which we could only assume was in case a quick evacuation needed to take place. We got out of the cars and headed down the path. Of course it started to rain. Poor Howard carried Wesley the long hike down over the slippery, treacherous lava surface. Cracks all over, random drop offs, and did I mention it had gotten dark suddenly? Great. Lots of flashlights headed back toward us…I kept wanting to stop someone to ask “excuse me, how much further.” I bet it easily took us forty five minutes to hike down there. When you got to the bottom, it was worth it. Where the lava hit the ocean a huge plume of steam was constantly rising. And with it dark out, you could see it exploding as it hit the water. Utterly amazing. It has quit raining by the time we got down there. We all sat down and just watched. You could see the lava flowing from the top of this hill down into the ocean. We were witnessing the birth of brand new land. We sat and stared for probably an hour.

HH,KK and the kids headed up a bit earlier than we did. I didn’t mention that when you looked straight up, between the clouds, the stars were unbelievable. Hundreds upon hundreds. I cried a little. Truly the most incredible sight I have ever seen. “Clouds make rain, ocean makes land, earth breathes fire and lava makes land. Now that took a mighty hand and a wild imagination (WW).” We slowly hiked our way back up with Larry and Rita stopping every once in a while stopping to look and watch it some more. When we got back to the cars, both kids were asleep. We quietly headed back to the hotel. Car ride home was filled with ooohhhs and aahhhs of amazement of what we’d just witnessed…how blessed we were. And all of us were cold and wet too. Ryan and I both took hot showers to warm up when we got back to the Volcano House. As I laid on probably the most uncomfortable bed I have ever been on, I fell asleep…absolutely forgetting I even had a journal.