It’s B-Rod’s birthday today! We’ve done well at being interesting places for our birthdays! On the agenda for today is a bunch of beach time (. . . . . please weather work out . . . it was downright frigid last night!) to unwind as we’ve had an action packed few days, and then out for supper with the fam.
We got back to Captain Cook and my aunt and uncle’s house in time for dinner last night. The past couple of days have been driving around and exploring the island. Road trippin’ is something both B-Rod and I enjoy, so it was a good couple of days. Besides the first night when we were driving around at 9:00 at night looking for a place to stay and drove down the wrong way on a one way road, we didn’t really run into any problems and in fact seemed to have really good luck. Our timing seemed to work out along the way in that we would pull up to a tourist site when few people were around and we’d pull out just as the tour buses began to show up. We’ve pretty much been around and seen all of the island, but as for seeing everything . . . . that would take a very long time as there are so many amazing places to see and places I would love to go back to in order to explore further.
A couple of the highlights included the Akaka Falls (the 2nd highest falls in the US), Waipi’o Bay (which is a valley that looks EXACTLY like the piece of land that was being fought over in the movie “The Descendants” with George Clooney), a helicopter ride over the volcano (another first and new experience for B-Rod and I) and driving up to the Mauna Kea Observatory (B-Rod’s way of slowly introducing me back to the Canadian winter climate).
Hope you like pics, as there are lots of them today!
HILO:
We spent one of our days exploring the city of Hilo (on the other side of the island). It’s the 2nd biggest city in Hawaii.
I was able to buy ‘bud bud’ – a Filipino thing – at the market here. Yeah!! I could also get ‘halo halo’ at a few places. It helps to remind me of the Philippines a bit which I am really missing!
I found it a bit interesting that the Tsunami Museum is right on the water. Another bout of good timing, it rained while we were there, so we completely missed it.
We both got our palms read by this guy on the street. It was actually pretty accurate. Says B-Rod is going to be doing a bunch of traveling from now on, and he’s a bit stubborn – sounds about right to me!
STOPS ALONG THE ROAD:
Lots of warnings for . . . . .
. . . . . paved paths, and some with . . . .
. . . . handrails
We stopped at as many tourist sites as we could find.
This place was cool with the crashing waves. B-Rod wanted to get up close and personal and got soaked while doing so.
Thought this would be a good spot to do some yoga, so that I still qualify for the yoga streak challenge . . . .
. . . . . until I was almost swept away by this wave. By some miracle I just got a few drops on me. It was the next wave that would have gotten me, but I was long gone by then.
It was cool to stop and explore and just walk around the lava fields.
We were able to stop and catch the sunset one night. This is pretty much what it would look like from my Aunt and Uncle’s house – a view they have gotten to enjoy for about 35 years . . . . LUCKY!!
AKAKA FALLS
A free falling water fall that goes down 442 feet (134 meter)
B-Rod often volunteers to take pictures for people – he takes this task VERY seriously!
WAIPI’O BAY
This is one of Hawaii’s last undeveloped valleys. It was utterly breathtaking. Pictures do not do it justice. I could have stayed here for hours just sitting and looking at the view.
HELICOPTER RIDE
There are a few times we have thought about taking a helicopter tour, cheaped out and decided against it, and then regretted it later. This one involved having the doors off, and as B-Rod’s birthday was coming up and we were both helicopter virgins anxious to try a flight we decided to go for it. It was amazing and totally worth it. The ride was fun, B-Rod and Pete (our pilot) traded shop talk (of course), and we got to see a lot of cool stuff we wouldn’t have otherwise seen. There was a couple from Michigan in the back, but you would never have known it. They didn’t seem too fond of headset communication. Definitely two thumbs up.
UP TO MAUNA KEA OBSERVATORY
This is an observatory on the summit of Mauna Kea (4,200 meters high) It was FRIGID!! We figured it would probably be cold when we stopped at the information centre and everyone was geared up in their snow pants, down jackets and toques. All we had was our shorts and light sweaters, but we thought . . . . . dela frijoles – let’s do this!! Getting me ready to return to winter at home I guess.
I got out, took a quick look, posed for this picture and was pretty much back in the car. I’m not used to these temperatures (and don’t particularly like them!)
Happy Birthday B-Rod! Get hammed and Delafrijoles!!