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Published: January 12th 2012
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Our Vacation House
The house we rented on the Big Island had all kinds of beautiful flowers, plus an orange tree. We shared the space with geckos and a marmot, both of which kept my sister wary to go on the lanai (porch). October 5—Imagine me! On my way to Hawaii! When I started my travels and my journal three years ago, my goal was to see all 48 original states. I never dreamed I would be able to see Hawaii. My sister and her husband, helped make it possible. I had a 14 hour flight from Dallas, counting the layovers in Denver and Los Angeles. I got to Honolulu in late afternoon—their time, but still had another hour flight to Hilo, (Big Island) Hawaii. Joy and Dan picked me up there and we went to supper while waiting for Betty, a family friend to get in from Kentucky. We all then drove to the vacation house on the southern coast of the island. Since the drive was in the dark, there was not much sightseeing—but that was okay. After the long flight Betty and I were tired, yet excited. After getting to the house we visited a bit longer, then crashed!
October 6—We didn't go far on our first day of our Hawaiian adventure. But, then, we didn't need to. The house was in a development located by some tide pools on an old lava flow. We walked around admiring all the
Bouganvillias
Don't know if I spelled it right, but these had double and triple blossoms and were gorgeous. They were located in the yard of the house across the street. houses in the development, the landscaping and the gorgeous abundance of tropical flowers in bloom. All the houses in this area are built on old lava flows and have used lava rocks for fences and landscaping. Some of them have tidal pool basins in their yards. The water in these basins varies with the ebb and flow of the tides. Every yard has a variety of flowers, tall Norfolk Island Pines, mandrakes, palm trees, tulip trees and coconut trees. We had to be careful as we walked because sometimes a coconut would fall from a tree. Betty narrowly missed being hit by one!
After walking a bit, we came to the tide pools along the shore line and walked out to sit and watch the waves and the people. This is one of the favorite areas on the island to snorkel. The water is very clear and, when the tide is in, deep enough to go down a bit. I tried to snap some pictures of some of the colorful fish in the pools, but the reflections on the water kept them from coming out well. We stayed awhile, but it was hot in the sun. (I was hot
Tidal Pools
One of the favorite spots for snorkelling--the tidal pools in our development. most of the time in Hawaii—the temperatures were in the high 80's in day and only about 10 to 15 degrees cooler at night.) None of us had much energy, so we just took it easy. We walked back a different way and saw more flora and fauna.
October 7—Today we were ready to do some exploring. We took the rented car and went back to Hilo, then up the coast on the north side of the island. Just outside of Hilo we visited the Rainbow Falls and the Boiling Pots State Park on the Wailoa River. The Hawaiian language sounds musical when spoken, but is hard to get the mouth around! This river is one of the easier names—it is pronounced “Wah-e-low-ah”. Did you try it? Now you speak Hawaiian!
I took several pictures of the falls, but there was no rainbow because the skies were cloudy with no sun. We discovered it rains every day on the north side of this island, but not necessarily always all day. Anyway, I decided to climb some wooden steps to the top overlooking the falls It was quite a climb and I was out of breath when I got
Joy and Betty
Sis and friend ejoying the tidal pool area. to the top. There, however, I found a huge, gigantic, tremendous, banyan tree. Did I say it was large? Big? I got a picture, but with no human standing by it, readers can't get a good comparison! However, a little description might help. Look at the lowest horizontal branch on the right hand side of tree. Imagine a person standing under that branch. With his arms stretched above his head, he would not be able to reach that limb. His torso would be just a bit bigger around than the vertical branch/trunk next to him. I have seen banyan trees in south Florida, but nothing like the ones in Hawaii!!! If you are not familiar with banyan trees, they grow in tropical climates. Their roots come down from the branches and bury themselves in the ground besides the main part of the tree. This one had hundreds of branches ranging from about ¼ inch to several feet around.
The Boiling Pots State Park is located a short distance up river from the falls. The pots are depressions in the lava rock in the river. When the river is low, they have water, some of which is deep enough to
Hawaiian Shoreline
This area was near the tidal pools in our development area. bath/swim in. When the river is high and flowing well, the water rolls in and out of the depressions so fast the water appears to be boiling. The water is never hot enough to actually boil. This time of year they are pretty tame.
We continued on up the coast, laughing as we tried to pronounce some of the town names: Papaikou, Pepekeo, Honomu, Laupahoehoe, etc. We stopped for lunch at Honomu and visited a couple of stores which had breathtaking art, photos and material in colorful Hawaiian prints. Even the store fronts were colorful. One was painted purple. I was in seventh heaven! I also saw yellow hibiscus flowers. I don't remember seeing that color of hibiscus before.
We continued to drive further up the coast to visit a vanilla factory. I did not know or realize before this trip that vanilla comes from the bean of an orchid plant. This factory grows their own orchids and grinds the beans to make the vanilla. They had some coffee brewed, vanilla, naturally, and we had some of that with some vanilla ice cream. We bought some vanilla seasoning, vanilla soap and a few other things vanilla. On their
White Plumeria
Also known in some countries as frangani. These white flowers grew in our yard. I would pick some everyday so we could have fresh flowers in the house. back patio they had red anthurium growing, along with hibiscus and cabbage roses. I will show pictures of the anthurium flower in a later chapter. The factory was an interesting place.
On the way back to our house we stopped at the Macadamia Nut Factory. Hawaii is famous for their macadamia, but oddly enough, these nuts were not native to the islands to begin with. The trees were imported from Australia. Betty and I took the factory tour to see how the outer shells were broken to get to the nuts and how they were processed, roasted and flavored. Then, of course, we went “nuts”. We had lots of good snacks when we got home!!! I discovered I really like macadamia nuts!!
October 8: Today we decided to explored one of the oldest areas in Hawaii. Highway 173 runs for about 10 miles along the south-east coast of the Big Island. Some of the first settlers who came to Hawaii from the South Pacific settled this area. One of the earliest churches of the island and one of the most famous black sand beaches was along here. Unfortunately a 2003 eruption of the volcano Kilauea sent a huge
Waves on Lava
One of many pics I took of the waves coming ashore. I loved the different colors of the water. lava flow down to the coast and buried much of this area, including the older village of Kalapana. What is left of the highway is beautiful, however, with a lot of places to view the ocean, the waves and lava cliffs. There were huge trees overhanging the many-curved road as well as wild orchids growing along side of it. It took us several hours to drive the 10 miles and back. We called it the 100-mile-ten-mile highway!
There are two state parks along this highway, both on beaches. Since it was a holiday weekend (Columbus Day) the parks were very crowded. We stayed long enough to look around and for me to take some pictures before moving on. I snapped many, many pictures of the waves coming in. I also found one of some of the “warm springs” bathing holes there are along this route. The springs come from the heated volcanic interior of the area.
I took so many photos and I want to share as many as I can. It is hard to select just a few from the hundreds! I was enchanted by the beautiful water and the waves splashing up on the lava rocks!
Vacation Home
Another one of the pretty vacation homes just down the street from where we were renting. Naturally, I had to take a picture of almost every flower I saw! Bless the person who invented the digital camera! (Have I said that before?) Be sure to scroll down past the ads to see all the pictures. And stay tuned---more to come later.
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Anita Marler
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These are beautiful pictures. I have never been to Hawaii but always wanted to go. So nice you had company to enjoy it with.