Road to Hana

Our day started 1t 5:15am. Breakfast and packing for the day. We had to meet our driver, John, at 6am in front of the Condo. We ran a few minutes late but were soon loaded into his large SUV. We decided to use a driver/service vs driving on our own and hana4less.com got great reviews. We would do the road to Hana in reverse. Turned out to be a very correct decision!

Our first stop was a quiet Chinese Park.

We saw an interesting site where apparently locals push abandoned vehicles over the cliff to get them off the road. It was also a very interesting shore area.

Our first swim was Seven Sacred Pools. Chilly but more or less to our selves. Getting to the pools turned out to be the tough part of the adventure.

We saw some waterfalls on the way to our next swim stop. At at base of a 400' waterfall. Again it was a bit of a climb to get to the fall. Mary was the first one in, Amanda joined her, then John and Vince joined in.

Don't like to go to church often? Check out these actual service dates.

Being from St Louis we had to make a stop at Charles Lindberghs final resting place The grounds were beautiful and there was a HUGE Banyon tree!

We made a stop at a small Botanical Garden. The flowers and fragrances were incredible

Before lunch we stopped at 1 of 2 red sand beaches on the island.

Our lunch stop was a food truck. It was great food, chicken, pork, fish, homemade cookies. And right next to it was an incredible fruit stand. We got to try organic pineapple, Jack Fruit, Lycee, and Ice Cream flavored bananas. We bought some fruit to save for later, grabbed lunch and head to a park to enjoy it.

We stopped at Hana Lava tube. A HUGE tube that is self guided, reminded me a bit of Merimac Caverns back in MO. There was about 1/4 mile of tube open to the public. Apparently the land owners on each side of this site/entrance didn't want to open their part of the tube to the public. Still was very interesting. Kasey and Vince even snuck in time to GeoCache.

Our last chance to swim was a black sand beach. Mary was the only one brave enough to attempt a swim in the rough coast.

Our last snack stop was Have Way To Hana. Shave Ice and Banana Bread. John said this was the freshest bread on the road so we took his word for it. Not as good a Vince's back home but Shave Ice was awesome. The owner also had a collection of boar heads that they had hunted. Interesting thing to check out while relaxing.

Our last beach stop was awesome. One could stand and watch the waves crashing all day!

Our last stop of the day was at the base of a few Eucalyptus tress. They looked like they were a paint by numbers project!

All in all, it was a GREAT day. Over 200 miles, 21 stops, and 12 hours of adventure. HIGHLY recommend doing it in reverse and HIGHLY recommend John at http://hana4less.com!

With over 500 photos taken by three cameras it is tough to choose which to show. There are also movies but you will have to wait for a personal showing to see them.

Island hopping again

This morning we woke up, ate, and packed. Drove to the car rental, dropped the van off and shuttled to the airport. We had a layover in Honolulu then on to the Big Island. It was no problem getting the van again, in fact, we intentionally got the same model since we learned where all the buttons and knobs where to do various things.for the We drove over vast old lava flows to the hotel area. The Hilton has it's own private little plot of land. The place is HUGE. You can take a tram or a boat to the tower/wing from the open air lobby. We wandered the grounds checking out the pools, lazy rivers, and lagoon. They also have an area you can have a dolphin encounter and check out sharks. Amanda and John stayed back to swim while the rest of the gang walked to the local stores. We found a great grocery store and got some supplies for breakfast and snacks. We headed out to a local place called Cafe Pesto in the Harbor north of us. Awesome food! Found it via Yelp and was not disappointed. Beats any restaurant near the hotel. Photos to be added later...

Sea to Sky and back

We had a bit of time today before our first adventure to hit the local nearby beaches. There weren't a lot of crowds. Guess that might be because it is the middle of the week

We then headed to out tours: Helicopter rides of the islands. Theresa and Amanda took a closed door tour while Vince, Kasey, Mary and John took an open one. The open (or no door) flight could only hold 4 passengers. We took over 600 photos on the combined trips. There really is no way to express how incredible the views were.

Photos to add: 2088 2091 2094 2836 2122 2133 2150 2178 2238 2873 2241 2989 1050 1097 1149

After we took a quick self guided tour of a local coffee plantation. They have over 4 million coffee trees! We got to sample over a dozen types of coffees, tour the grounds to see plants an equipment, and finally watch an instructive video.

Of course we had to have our daily ice cream fix. Luckily Captain Cook landed in Hawaii right near Super Duper 2 ice cream. Got history and treats at the same time.

Finally we ended the day where we started - on the beaches. The surf was high and hitting shore hard. There were still people out on surf boards and using snorkels. The sunset was wonderful. Great way to end the last evening on this island.