Blogs from Hawaii, United States, North America - page 2

My alarm beeped at 3am and I hit snooze and closed my eyes again. Another day starting before 4am. Surprisingly, Kamie didn’t protest about today’s six hour flight so I suppose he was only silently hating me now. Ha We checked our bags and breezed through TSA Pre-check (thank you Lord for this wonderful option). I will say, at Springfield TSA Precheck and LA TSA Precheck, both times, Kamie was pulled aside. He looks like a drug lord but no big o’ bags of money to be found. We both grabbed some Starbucks for breakfast (this specific location in the airport was completely SOLD OUT of the iced pumpkin chai latte). It was cold in the airport and Kamie was cold on the plane yesterday too but he chose to not bring his jacket even after ... read more

Tour Day 7, Cruise Day 7, Hilo Hi – Hilo's Waterfalls & Gardens Tour (6 Hours) – The Hilo Walk of Fame is comprised of a series of banyan trees planted by celebrities. You'll drive through this leafy labyrinth en route to Liliuokalani Gardens. The latter is the most extensive ornamental Japanese garden outside of Japan. View one of Hawaii's most important statues of King Kamehameha -- the man who unified the islands into a kingdom. Enjoy expert commentary from your guide as you pass through the town of Hilo to Wailuku State Park. This is where you will find picturesque Rainbow Falls. Continue to the majestic Akaka State Park, where two gorgeous waterfalls tumble into an eroded gorge. The first is the 100-foot Kahuna Falls, and the second is the towering Akaka Falls, which plummets ... read more

Well, all good things have to come to an end. All bad things do too, but we won’t worry about that. Today was a magnificent THREE hour snorkel at Two-step, which really has such a wide-ranging variety of environments that even today we picked up two NEW FISH. Plus, with our new Scuba Fish Hawaii app, we’ve been realizing that some taken in the past need renaming. So we are concluding that we have found 20 new fish. (and because we found the parrots this afternoon, 10 new birds). After that 3 hours, we had a lovely hour chatting to friend Pam again, and a new friend who also was traveling alone. We all enjoyed the ice creams sold on the corner, and had a few rambutans for lunch. We “saved” a few families from killing ... read more

Well, evidently David doesn’t like me to have all the excitement with being bitten by a triggerfish. The day started well – we attended the 8:30 service at New Hope again, and the music and prayers and sermon were all wonderful, and we were warmly welcomed as before. We’d taken our swim suits, knowing that the winds always rise by the afternoon so we wanted to get in asap. Drove north about 45 mins from the church, changed in the restrooms, hauled our stuff the ¾ mile across the hot lava trail, and found that the winds were so high there were white caps in the bay! Oh poo. We contemplated what to do, and decided that we should at least enjoy a very early lunch by sharing one of those tender-as-butter calamari steaks as it ... read more

Friday? Yep. After our hearty breakfast of bacon-flavored Spam and eggs we got to the beach inside the Mauna Lani fancy hotel area, where we had to ask for a pass – 3 more spaces only. It was PERFECT – hardly any waves, and excellent visibility. We saw a WHITE TIPPED REEF SHARK (moves too fast for photo). And a rare (though we see them all the time in Aruba) Flying Gunard. What a wonderful way to spend 2 hours. We saw a man coming in with a bag full of golf balls so just for fun we went searching for one – and found it! I sat out for about 20 minutes with an interesting man named Steve from Rochester NY, who says he runs a national TV show on hunting. We’ll have to “hunt” ... read more