Hawaii 2023

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Hawaii Blog 2023

On Wednesday the 30^th we were up before the birds (3:00 am) to drive to Columbus for an excellent Southwest connection through Las Vegas. It is amazingly bleak and brown as you fly near Las Vegas! We had Row 14 exit row seats – great leg room and empty middle seat, lucky us.

When we arrived David had arranged a surprise welcome party with lovely leis and a kukui nut bracelet. Happy late 52^nd anniversary to us!

Our car rental – expensive – is a small car (couldn’t get both large suitcases in the trunk, tho’ we didn’t try very hard) but sporty – a Ford Mustang. Good exercise getting in and out too.

The AirBnB is only 10 mins from the Kailua-Kona airport, and is just like the back half of a double garage. Nice sized bedroom with queen bed, huge closet (with hanging cubes for our only “drawers,”, 2 side tables, and a table-for-two with 2 chairs – that’s more for this computer work than eating. Outside is a cute café table with chairs in a delightful garden. No a/c but a fan, and as we are up about 900’ above sea-level, it’s fine most of the time. Nice deep bathtub. And a washer drier and kitchen in the “walkway” outside our lockable bedroom.

Evidently the owner came to HI for an Ironman competition and bought the house for future retirement.

First things first – off to Costco, where we bought 2 days’ worth of poke bowl, grapes, milk, etc. The only samples were – unbelievably – BEETS, much to David’s disgust. We brought enough basics like rice, oatmeal, protein bars, raisins, peanuts, etc.

We hadn’t napped more than minutes on the plane so we were exhausted but managed to stay awake until 9 (here, which was 3 am bodytime!)

August 31 Thursday:

No surprise, we were up with the birds and decided to drive Up Up Up the mountain (not one of the volcanos, but a pretty big mountain nonetheness that holds quite a few residential areas and older “villages” north of Kailua-Kona. When we were here before, our AirBnB was higher, more like 1500’. Silly us, we didn’t remember how high the road took us, and dressed in shorts – yikes, it was in the 50s! We saw Khalij pheasants galore, a Jungle fowl (we think, no decent photo), and the other birds I’ve labeled under As. What wonderful plants are higher up – hydrangeas, huge New Guinea impatiens, and the sweet-smelling yellow plants I wonder if are a type of ginger. By the way, another plant photo is from just outside the AirBnB – a hibiscus. Plus what looks like cotton on it. What a coincidence that I just read a book that mentioned that the cotton plant is a relative of hibiscus. And this is the first time in my entire life I saw the cotton.

Back to get our snorkeling gear, we drove the 45 mins to “Two Step,” for snorkeling, parked in the local man’s lot for $5, and had a wonderful (but chilly) 2 hours in the water because it was overcast. For those of you who get tired of fish, I’ve listed them all under Cs. The Miscellaneous plants and accommodations and foods are under Bs.

The snorkeling was excellent, although there were some spots where it looked oily to me, but which cleared when David dove under. So we concluded that it was the result of fresh water entering the bay. As expected, the variety and number of fish was huge, and we spotted TWO NEW EELS in a churned up area, which they love, and one new fish. My bet is 10 new fish, which may be a challenge.

After snorkeling we did something we RARELY do, and which was on MY list for this two-week visit – and that was to just sit and dry off and relax. The host provides 2 of those short chairs – which took us at least 10 minutes to figure out how to close them up when we finished. Okay, I’ll admit, we had to challenge a family sitting nearby if they knew the secret.

It was fun having a lunch of crackers and hummus, watching how some people entered the water NOT at the recommended two-step entrance, which is difficult enough. In fact, spoke with a young man who showed us the cuts on his knee from foolish entry. Cute little tide pools with sand where small children played. It is never crowded but one does usually wait in a short line to get in and out. Wearing our flipper shoes we avoid sea urchins, but it’s still slippery, and I was happy to accept a handup.

Drove the slow route along the coast to town, stopping at Kona Kay’s to buy some goodies (she was so nice we gave her 2 of our His Coin coins as a thank you) and then found the Gecko Girls snowcone shop again, where we sat, still a little chilly, getting brainfreeze while overlooking the lovely coast..

Home to download photos and take a much-needed nap until it was dark. Time for poke bowls part deux, this time with rice to cut the heat. They sure were tender pieces of ahi tuna though. It takes forever to download and cull these photos, so soon it’s time for our couple dialogue, duolingo, and hit the hay! Vacation is exhausting.

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