Contrary to our usual winter time routine, we decide to take a jaunt to Hawaii in late January / early February for some relaxing and gazing at the ocean time. And when I say "Hawaii", I mean Hawaii the island otherwise known as the big island and not Hawaii the state or the Hawaiian islands. And, yes, we are only visiting Hawaii and not any of the other islands. This trip is for relaxation and not for sightseeing. Hence, this blog is not only six weeks late, it has been condensed into a single blog entry. I'm not sure how much of "here we are again looking at the ocean" you can take.
We decide upon this trip in mid-December so it is rather late to get airline reservations and our air itinerary isn't the most ideal. We fly from Minneapolis into Kona but have to change planes in Los Angeles. This makes our arrival at Kona late in the evening. After waiting and waiting for our luggage, grabbing a rental car and finding our hotel, we finally change into Hawaiian attire, sit on our balcony, have a glass of wine and decompress. Lovely.
Yes, our hotel room at the Waikoloa Village Hilton in Kona has an ocean view ... somewhere out there. But now it is quite dark. But we can hear the surf. We know that it is there ... somewhere. And sure enough, the sun rises in the morning and there it is, the Pacific Ocean.
From our balcony we have a bird's eye view of the dolphins, and the dolphin trainers, in the lagoon. We are not quite sure how to feel about dolphins being trapped and cared for instead of being free in the ocean. Well, I guess that sums it up.
On our first full day in Hawaii, we are determined to do nothing but relax and watch the ocean. See trip objective above. We rent a cabana facing the ocean and really do nothing other than relax, drink wine and watch the ocean. I warned you this was going to be exciting.
That is it. The whole day. It was a wonderful day. Mission accomplished.
But in the evening, we dine ocean-side at the Kamuela Provision Company
and watch the sunset.
Get used to the sunsets. They happen a lot here.
And our second day brings ... relaxing and watching the ocean, this time from Buddha Point.
An afternoon wouldn't be complete without an appropriate beverage.
We decide to get adventuresome and go zip-lining. This entails an hour and a half (each way) drive to Umauma Falls. Luckily, we find a refreshment spot along the way.
We arrive at the falls and take a couple of photo-ops
but, alas, zip-lining is canceled after only one 400 foot zip because of high wind. They didn't explain why it was safe to do one zip but not all of the others.
On the way back we stop for vittles at Fish & Hog in Waimea.
Of course, we have to try the lilikoi cheesecake.
We make it back to the hotel in time for another sunset.
Today we tour a Kona coffee farm
and head part way up Mauna Kea to stargaze through a telescope. It is getting dark.
Clouds partially obscure the sky but we are rewarded with many views including the second brightest object in the sky, the moon. This shot was taken with an iPhone through the telescope.
Today we move to a VRBO condo because we wanted to be ocean front for a few days and we weren't guaranteed that at the Hilton. This condo at Magic Sands about five miles south of Kailua-Kona is right on the water. When reading the reviews, one lady complained that the surf was so loud that she couldn't sleep. We didn't read any farther. We booked immediately.
And, yes, we have another sunset
followed by the blue hour.
Freed from our wonderful and free and boring breakfast at the Hilton, we dine al fresco at Magic Sands Grill
where the French toast is a little mind boggling.
This is Super Bowl Sunday and, again, we relax and watch the ocean
and watch some of the football game. The surf is so loud that we have to use close captioning on the television in order to "hear" it. We should have listened to that lady reviewer (just kidding!).
We use the half time break to head into town for dinner, including an appropriate beverage, at the Kona Inn.
The next day is volcano day. I understand that there is much less to see there since the devastation from the 2018 eruption. However, I was last there forty-five years ago and I want to see it again and try to visualize what has changed.
On the way, we stop at the Coffee Shack for breakfast. This place is so busy that cars line up ON the highway to wait for a spot in the very limited parking area.
The volcano has changed a lot.
We first view the steam vents
and then the Kilauea caldera which collapsed following the 2018 eruption
endangering the Volcano House hotel and restaurant
and indefinitely closing the Jaeger Research Institute now perched precariously close to the crater's edge.
We do have lunch at the still open Volcano House restaurant.
Next up is Punalu'u black sand beach where we relax and watch the ocean. Sound familiar? There are a lot more people here than there were forty-five years ago.
There is time for one last sunset.
Our flight from Kona leaves about 10pm. We need to check out of the condo by 11am. I opt to leave Hawaiian clothes on during the day and then change to mainland clothes at Starbucks just before heading to the airport. Thanks to the TRTL pillow from Meredith, I get an astounding three and a half hours sleep on the five hour red eye flight from Kona to Los Angeles. Arriving in LA at 5am, we still have another 3.5 hour flight to Minneapolis.
The trip's objective, relax and watch the ocean, was met.
