Day 14- Around the Island

We left this morning for Hilo on the opposite side of the Big Island to go to the only Walgreens on the island so Larry could get a prescription refilled. To make a long story short, that didn't happen. So we drove by the air bnb that we will stay in this weekend and then had lunch at Hilo Burger, where the burgers were made fresh from Hawaiian beef. They were very good. Back to the trip across, we drove the " Saddle Road", the fastest road across the island and the only place in Hawaii where you can go 60mph. The road goes between two Volcanoes, Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea. There was a little snow on top of Mauna Kea and the temp dropped 20 degrees as we climbed 6000 ft. The drive was less than two hours, and the landscape had several dramatic changes, from lush, to scrubby and dry, to black lava fields, to very dry and then back to green and heavy growth as we got to rainy Hilo.
After lunch we got on the Hawaii Belt Rd heading to the north side of the island, driving along the road that Andrew will be running for the marathon on Sunday, but kept going until we got to the Waipio Valley Lookout, a stunning scenic overlook. There were also beautiful flowers right alongside the road where we parked the car. It was getting late, and we passed a quilt shop at 4:10, that had closed at 4.😕
So we headed east, hoping to get to a sunny warm beach before sunset. After 30-40 minutes driving in light rain, we got to what was probably a beautiful beach, if it wasn't raining. We turned south down the Kohala coast and stopped at Anaeho'omalu Beach. It was only a light rain that even stopped briefly, and we really wanted to get on a beach, so we did. As we got out of the car there was a fantastic full rainbow! The beach also was beautiful, even in the rain and we did a short stroll. Somewhere on that walk, I lost my (prescription) sunglasses so we stopped at Walmart to get a cheap pair to last until I get home and can get new rx ones.
Packing up tonight to head to the southern part of the island for a few nights before meeting up with Andrew and Dani for marathon weekend!Read more