Humuhumunukunukuapua'a

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I am definitely falling behind in my blogging, but I dont want to skip over Jen and my experiences on the Big Island of Hawaii because it was truly a brilliant time. The Big island is my current favorite out of all the places that I have been so far. I'm still hoping that jen fills in the blanks.

So when we arrived on the Big Island, under the heavy influence of jen, we decided to rent a convertible (good call). We drove all over the island so having a convertible was a definite bonus!

Lu'au -

Jeff had secretly purchased tickets for a Luau for my first night on the Big Island (apparently everyone knew about it except for me). So shortly after jen and I arrived at Rainbow Plantation we put on our hawaiian shirts, picked some flowers for the girls hair and happily headed to the Luau in town with visions of and "open bar" dancing through our heads. The Luau was a blast, and the food was great...thanks a lot jeff.

Sea Kayaking -

The next day we (nervously) loaded the sea kayaks from jeffs place onto the roof of the convertible and headed down to the beach (Whats the name of that place?). We had two large kayaks, beach towels, flippers, snorkel equipment, cameras, books, extra paddles, all sorts of crap...and we had to load that all onto our kayaks, drop the boat off a small cliff/dock, jump into the boat, and then paddle away, all with out tipping over...jen was a little nervous (keep in mind the waves are breaking into the cliff too), and the load lady that wiped out right in front of us did help easy her mind. But it all worked out. It seemed like anytime we where going to do anything that jen was a little nervous about so old fart would come over and warn us about one thing or another (this happened again later with a sea urchin warning).

Snorkeling with sea turtles (my bad camera skills) -

Fairly close to where Jeff and Amber are staying there is a great place to snorkel (near the Place of Refuge), and there are tons of sea turtles just cruising around in the water. It was really fun to swim with the turtles and we got tons of pictures.....well let me rephrase that, jen and amber got lots of pictures of me with the turtles but for some reason none of the pictures that I took of them with the turtles turned out...and they really busted my balls because of it!

Lava

We saw RED HOT MOLTEN LAVA. and it was really pretty amazing. We probably took about a million pictures and tried to throw about $10 worth of change into the lava to see if it would melt (and contrary to what jens dad said...it doesnt...well at least it didnt for us). The hike to the lava was pretty interesting...the ground was totally covered by black lava rock (some really interesting formations too) and if I where to imagine what hell might look like I would picture this place (well at least the sharp black rocks). You could see where the lava had run over old roads, and occasionally you would see a random road sign that had been partially covered by lava.

Hiking to green sand beach

My favorite day on the big island was the day that we hiked to the green sand beach. It was a pretty amazing hike right along the rock cliffs the boarded on the edge of the ocean. The contrast between the blue water, black rocks, and green vegitation was visually breath taking.

I am out of time now..jen will add some more, and I will give you guys and update on FIJI soon!!

The state fish:

One translation says that the name means (loosely) a fish put together in pieces like a jigsaw puzzle, with a face like a pig. Another translation: the name, humuhumunukunukuapua'a literally means "Fish who comes out of the water and sounds like a pig"

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Comments

[anonymous]

not a single picture?
You go to Hawaii and didn't include one single picture with that entry? Can't wait to hear about Fiji, I hear that the bugs are HUGE there. Chris and I are off to San Juan, St. Thomas, Dominica, Barbados and Aruba in 8 weeks, we can't wait! I'm ready to get out of the cold midwest because I have bronchitis (again). We love ya Schwalmie!! ....Keri Roberts - Keri Roberts

[Jennie]

pictures
Apparantly you missed the last blog. There are pictures on there from Hawaii.

[Jennie]

Big Island
Chris, you basically summed it up great. Jeff and Amber were the best hosts and they showed us a great time... making the big Island my favorite Island. (Thanks so much if you guys get to read Chris' blog) the hot lava, and swimming with the turtles are memories I will never forget! ~jen