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CA and HAWAII 2020

February - March 2020
A 29-day adventure by Our Great Adventures Read more
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  • TravelerCA and HAWAII 2020
    1
    Day 11

    Day 11 south of Kailua-Kona

    March 6, 2020 in the United States ⋅ ⛅ 72 °F

    Today we drive south from the resort, past the Little Blue Church, which is a popular spot for photographs and weddings. It was cute but I didn't see what the big deal was. Then we stopped by Fair Wind Cruises so Larry could pick up the cap he left on the snorkeling boat. It was fun to walk on the pier with the boats gone, the water was so clear and we could see a lot of fish without snorkeling.
    Then we headed up the volcano of Mauna Loa, found another quilt shop and a cute little group of antique, boutique and thrift shops and wandered through them, but didn't find anything. Later I learned from my cousin Shelley that my aunt Dorothy had worked at Kimura fabrics for many years! We passed a street BBQ place selling chicken and ribs and got a combo platter with some of each. It was a generous prion that s enough for us to share. The chicken was so good! We sat in the car to eat as it was raining. After our lunch we visited Greenwell Coffee Farm and did a tour, learning how coffee is grown, picked by hand, and processed. It was so interesting but made me feel guilty about how labor intensive each cup of coffee really is. They also let us have unlimited samples of their 100% Kona coffees. We did get some to bring home. It rained off and on during the tour but we had umbrellas. One more cool site for today was St. Benedict's Catholic Church, also known as the Painted Church. The inside had paintings all over the inside, they were beautiful and interesting. I will add a second post with extra pics because this version of Find Penguins only lets me add 6 pictures per entry.
    Then the highlight of the day was visiting my cousin Shelley and her husband Paul. They had fixed a wonderful dinner for us and showed us their gardens and unique home that they had built. Shelley also gave us a tour of her studio where she does her palm sheath art, such an interesting medium, and her works were beautiful. We had such a nice time with them, I had not seen Shelley since the late 1960s when we were teenagers. It was much cooler in the higher elevation where they live, in the 60s, and as we drove back down to the coast and our resort, the temp went up over ten degrees. Tomorrow we are driving north!    Read more

  • TravelerCA and HAWAII 2020
    Day 12

    Day 12 Kailua-Kona

    March 7, 2020 in the United States ⋅ ☁️ 72 °F

    Lazy vacation day, got a late start and went to lunch at On The Rocks, on the beach, with our toes in the sand. Had fish tacos and Larry had their "famous" Mai Tai. Then we walked through Kona on Ali'i Drive, a mile to the pier and a mile back. More wandering in shops and people watching. By then it was happy hour at our lunch spot so we stopped in again and Larry had a drink called a Hawaiian Rainbow that was pretty and good, I didn't get a picture until he had already drank some. A quick run to Walmart for cream and sodas and then back to the resort for the evening. We are enjoying the relaxed pace of staying somewhere for a whole week, not being in a hurry to cram in a lot of sights and activities. I haven't mentioned how gorgeous this resort is. The landscaping is lush with hibiscus, bougainvillea and of course Palm trees. The paths around the condos wind around and it is just a nice place to stroll around. There are two swimming pools, Larry got in the hot tub one night, but we aren't really into pool swimming. We do still need to get to a beach or two!Read more

  • TravelerCA and HAWAII 2020
    Day 13

    Day 13 Kailua-Kona

    March 8, 2020 in the United States ⋅ ⛅ 70 °F

    It's Sunday, so we go to church! I had asked some people for a recommendation and twice I was told Living Stones church. Checked the website, looked good so off we went. It was a mile from our resort, and is oceanfront. The building is smallish, so they had tents and chairs set up outside with video screens to accommodate everyone. It is a large church with two campuses and four services at one and two at the other. We got there in time to sit inside, but outside can't be too bad with the ocean right next to you. We enjoyed the worship and message, people were friendly. After church we walked about half a mile down the road to another marketplace with lots of souvenir shops and a couple of food trucks, had lunch(brisket, smoked Mac & cheese, Cole slaw with macadamia nuts and corn bread) and then walked back to the car and went back to the resort.
    This evening we had another "must do" tourist experience in Hawaii- a luau! It was outside, next to a beach-seems like everything is next to the beach here! They served Mai Tais and other drinks, and had live Hawaiian music. Then a conch shell was blown and King Kamehameha and his queen and court were rowed in from the ocean and the processed from the boat to the luau stage and were presented. There were a number of activities as we waited for the dinner to begin. Hula lesson, lawn bowling, Hawaiian checkers, temporary tattoos and then they pulled the whole roasted pig out of its roasting pit and shredded it for our dinner. The food was good and besides the pork there was teriyaki beef, marinated fish, Kona coffee chicken, poke tuna and lots of sides. The couple across the table from us was from Eastern PA, and there was a guy with an Orioles Hawaiian shirt on! It really is a small world! Larry fits right in with all his Hawaiian shirts, wishes he'd brought more and will probably pick up a couple here too. After the meal, there was a great show of island dances, examples from Hawaii, New Zealand, Samoa, Tahiti. There was hulas and the grand finale was a guy twirling fire knives, he was really good. It was a three hour experience and we really enjoyed it!    Read more

  • TravelerCA and HAWAII 2020
    Day 14

    Day 14- Around the Island

    March 9, 2020 in the United States ⋅ ⛅ 70 °F

    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

  • TravelerCA and HAWAII 2020
    Day 14

    Day 14- more pictures

    March 9, 2020 in the United States ⋅ ⛅ 68 °F

    Interesting things we have learned about Hawaii :
    The hawaiian alphabet only uses 12 letters--a, e i, o, u, h, k, l, m, n, p, w
    Hawaii is the farthest place from everything!
    The Big Island has 10 of the 15 climate zones in the world.Read more

  • TravelerCA and HAWAII 2020
    1
    Day 15

    Day 15- Leaving Kona

    March 10, 2020 in the United States ⋅ ⛅ 66 °F

    We checked out of our Kona resort, but grabbed a quick geocache right in front of the resort before leaving and turning south. We stopped by Shelley and Paul's place, less than 20 min down the road, to drop off a couple of things she had lined us. It was wonderful to see their gardens in the sunlight, with pineapples, bananas, medicinal Marijuana(!) and spend a little more time with them. Then we headed to Pu'uhonua o Honaunau, or Place of Refuge, a national historic park. It had some thatched structures and a great wall of lava rock that was up to 12 ft tall and at least as wide. After doing the walk around the historic part, we also walked accustomed the lava beach in the park to a large tide pool and saw lots of beautiful tropical fish, without having to snorkel. Then walked to the picnic grounds and had a picnic lunch and enjoyed the beach. It was all lava rock, and a bit of a challenge to walk on, but the water was warm and the was also a great tide pool there. After a few hours there we headed on down the road toward our next destination. But first we got hungry so stopped at a local bar and grill for dinner - fish tacos again for Larry and seafood chowder for me. We both shared and had a good meal. Finally arrived at my cousin Karen's house (Shelley's older sister) where we are staying at her air bnb rental for the next three nights. It is an older house with a large living and dining room. Her gorgeous big house is on the same property. We had a nice visit on the deck with Karen and her husband Cliff before heading to bed.Read more

  • TravelerCA and HAWAII 2020
    Day 16

    DY 16- Na'ahelu

    March 11, 2020 in the United States ⋅ ☀️ 70 °F

    Cousin Karen wanted to be a tour guide for us this morning. She picked a bunch of ti leaves for a project later. First stop was Punalu'u Bake Shop, amazing sweet breads and maladadas(Portuguese donuts) 🥯🥯😋😋. Will probably stop the again. Then we went to a farmers market/craft vendors in her town, it was nice and Karen knew most of the folks. We sat with a friend of hers while she taught me how to make a rope Lei out of the ti leaves picked earlier. Pretty neat craft, I liked how it turned out. Then we went a few more miles down the road to the famous black sand beach called Punalu'u, where green sea turtles are often on the beach lying in the sun. The black sand is really tiny beads of lava, it's really interesting. While no turtles were on the beach, we saw a lot of them swimming not far offshore. Pretty disappointing as we see turtle symbols everywhere and have yet to see a live turtle. Back to the air bnb for lunch. We relaxed a bit and wandered around Karen's beautiful tropical gardens. We decided to check back at the turtle beach but tide was coming in, waves were hight and no turtles on the beach, just swimming and popping up their heads to breathe. So we found a couple of geocaches nearby before heading to a local Cafe for supper. Hope we can see the turtles before we leave here.Read more

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