Today we spent the day going to Volcano with Danny, Kanoe and little Nevaeh. What a sweetheart she is! We went to pick them up at 8:30 but found that our little convertible was too small for the five of us so we decided to use two cars.
We drove down the Kona coast to beautiful sunshine. We first went down by Captain Cook to a bay called Kealakekua Bay
and Danny, Kanoe and I jumped in. The entry was a little hairy but the water was great. Bright blues all around! The area around this place was full of little coffee farms and nut farms. Beautiful countryside!
Just a few miles to the painted church and checked out that out for a bit. Very small with an altar that reminded me of St. Bonifice in Uniontown. The whole church was made of wood and is painted on the inside with all sorts of murals, etc. The grounds, view and cemetery - all amazing.
South Point: which is a stunning point through pasture looking out at the vast Pacific Ocean. It is actually the southern most tip of the United States of America. The blues in the water were vibrant. There is a 40 foot cliff off the end of the US that I just had to jump off. Didn't take much nerve to do it as I was more worried about the ladder coming back up than I was the jump itself. So, I jumped. It was fun. I swam around just a bit at the bottom and then up the ladder which did in fact kill my feet (thin metal bars) and gave me a nice arm workout. Was so fun though!
We then went to Punalu'u Bake Shop for lunch. Had some very yummy pork with rice and mac salad. The Hawaiian sweetbreads were very good.
We then drove to a black sand beach and snapped a few pics - looked for turtles and found none.
Finally - on to Volcano! We had spent 7 hours exploring already and hadn't made our final destination yet! Island Time! We drove up the mountain and into Volcanoes National Park to beautiful sunshine.
Then once we finally got to the top and the crater entrance - we hit rain. We spent a few minutes at the visitor's center getting maps and figuring out what we wanted to to. We drove along the crater rim to the Jagger Museum which overlooks the crater of Mt. Haleakala. Way bigger and more spectacular than I expected. We could see the steam rising from the molten lava bubbling in the cone. Very Cool! We listened to a brief presentation on lava rock, how the islands were formed, etc. Quite interesting. After that we drove along the crater to some steam vents to feel the heat coming out of the volcano and then to a giant lava tube in the middle of the fern trees that we were able to walk through.
Off to Hilo in the rain for dinner at a little hole in the wall noodle house that Kanoe and her family used to eat at during volleyball tournaments. We had saimin which is like ramen noodles. The broth was yummy after being up at the volcano and getting a little wet and chilled.
Carrie and I drove the saddle road back to Kona with the top down and testing the performance of the convertible mustang we rented. I think I topped 100MPH twice. So fun! The stars were amazing and we had the road to ourselves. What a blast.
Back to Kona at 10:45 and in bed. Tired from an active and great day!
No comments:
Post a Comment