SO ready for a vacation in paradise!
my award vacation in Hawaii happened in March! finally!! we only waited 13 months from the day I won the award as World's Best Colleague for the 1st Quarter of 2021.
Janet and I flew from San Jose to Kona. when we landed we stopped for lunch in a Thai restaurant, and then had our pictures taken with these feathered friends.
on day two we hoped to visit the Anna Ranch, home of Hawaii's First Lady of Ranching, but they were closed for a private event.
we continued down the highway and found a heau historical site. this one is known for the sharks in its reef.
we eventually ended up back at home and decided to eat dinner and drink mai tais at Don the Beachcombers. what a terrific sunset!!
we would try Mai Tais at every restaurant on both islands throughout the trip!
on day three we scheduled a day-long tour that took us around the entire island! the first stop was coffee tasting, where we also saw this adorable critter. our guide was cute too!
the second stop was at the bottom of the island and the southernmost bakery in the US, known for it's malasadas.
right down the road we stopped at the black sand beach and saw the green sea turtles.
we continued around the island toward the volcano to Volcano Winery, where we went on a tour and then tasted several wines. after all, someone else was doing the driving!
Joyce and I went through the Thurston Lava Tube when we were on Kona in 2007, but this time Janet toured the tube while I sat and rested.
and then, we got to the real star of the tour, the volcano! our tour wasn't long enough to go to the side where you see the real activity, but this was pretty thrilling anyway.
the final stop was at the Rainbow Falls. apparently a few days before a nude man was found in the falls, and it took some time for authorities to round him up. luckily he didn't make an appearance this day.
on day four we did something I've want to do for a long time ... we got to swim with dolphins!
we headed back up to the Waimea area and ate (and drank) a late lunch at the Fish and Hog restaurant. besides the Mai Tai, Janet also had this colorful beverage called a Torpedo.
on day five we took a quick tour of downtown historic Kona on Segways! I've ridden them before, but this was the first time for Janet, who took to it with no problem. we passed a palace, a church, a peaceful reef, and then we raced down a long stretch of grass like we were on the home stretch of Churchill Downs. our guide was quite knowledgeable and even knew a few things that Janet - who has travelled to Hawaii many times - didn't know.
the bartender at the Fish and Hog told us we needed to visit the Pa'u Museum if we had time while we were here. we finally got to see the horses and horsewomen in history.
Janet had been alerted on one of her apps that the volcano had started fountaining earlier in the morning. it had been passive for several months, so it seemed to start being active just for us! so we headed over to the Hilo side of the island, back to Volcanos National Forest.
a view of the edge that had dropped several feet after the lava pool emptied out and the earth above it settled into the void
when the earth settled, this observation point lost lots of real estate too, and became unsafe for visitors. this picture was shot through a chain link fence
we stayed for dinner at the restaurant, trying even more new colorful beverages, until night fell and we could go back and see the lava's glow
we left the timeshare without plans to be out this late, so we weren't dressed for the cold or the mild rain that started falling. but it was thrilling to see the glow and be this close to the lava.
day six, we woke early to catch a tour boat around the island to go snorkeling, a first for me. the weather was a little cloudy but the water was perfect for seeing the under-sea creatures in the secluded cove where we docked.
back in Kona, we got dinner early enough to watch the sunset at Huggo's.
on day seven, our last full day on the Big Island, we got to sleep in a little. we were supposed to go parasailing in the afternoon, but the wind and chop had both picked up, and the captain told us it wasn't safe to go out. we rebooked for tomorrow morning early, before our flight.
we had seen the sign early in the week, advertising Friday and Saturday night Prime Rib Buffet at the King Kamehameha. Luckily we got a reservation for Friday, the early buffet, since we were flying at dinnertime on Saturday. Janet got crab legs, and we both enjoyed the really tasty prime. we were serenaded during part of our dinner experience by some locals singing wonderful traditional music. it was a nice way to wrap up the week.
our day eight parasailing adventure was perfect! we went out with seven other passengers and most of them had parasailed before. this was, again, my first time experiencing this activity.
we woke up early on day nine, and got coffee at the coffee bar inside the local grocery store. they were having supply chain and refrigeration issues, so we couldn't get the supplies we wanted for the timeshare. we didn't have any activities planned so we just drove around the north shore area, rested up, then had a late lunch / early dinner at the legendary Tahiti Nui.
we had a flight over Kauai booked on day ten, so we drove back down to the airport side of the island. we had enough time to stop by the location where Janet had placed Mama's ashes a few years earlier, the movie location for John Wayne's Donovan's Reef, a movie Joyce watched many times growing up.
it was nice to meet the owner of the small airline, who had been so helpful on my many phone calls arranging our flight. we wanted to take their bi-plane flight, but their pilot had moved to Alaska during the pandemic where he could get work, and no one else had the flight hours in the plane. our pilot was wonderful, and tailored our flight to see everything we wanted to see, and was even very conscious about how I felt throughout the flight. none of us wanted me getting air-sick!
we diverted away from the normal flight path - Nate had to request an okay for the diversion - and he flew us down the coast, and over the former Coco Palms hotel, famous location in the Elvis movie Blue Hawaii. after many contentious, litigious years, they have finally started work to remove the hurricane-damaged buildings from the property.
we stopped for coffee and snacks before our next adventure.
we scheduled an adventure and dinner cruise along the southern shore. our captain and crew were a lot of fun and very knowledgeable. while the tour was supposed to take only four hours, it ended up lasting more than five hours because we saw so many dolphins and breaching whales!
day eleven was a rainy day, but our activity had prepared for it, and we had a lovely time touring a property where cacao grew, and got to participate in chocolate tasting!
this is where chocolate originates!
it was still raining, and our evening activity was on the southern coast, so we decided to have lunch on the lanai at the restaurant of a former sugar plantation. we drove down the famous tree tunnel to get to our next destination.
the rain finally lifted and our garden tour and dinner with fire and hula dancing was perfect.
day twelve was one of rest and recovery. we woke late and had brunch at a local coffee shop where I tried my very first avocado toast! in the afternoon, we took advantage of having food trucks on property, and had pizza for dinner!
the two vehicles we traveled upon
the rain was heavy, so our train attendants provided us rain ponchos for our ride in the open air cars
and just like that, the rain cleared
lots of livestock live on the property, none of which become a food source
we stopped for a short time to feed the animals
the lanai where we did all our rum tasting
when we returned from our train ride, it was only a few minutes before we were again riding the property, this time in our all terrain vehicle.
ahhh, finally, the rum tasting!
this path they call #bananaslap because they try really hard to have the banana leaves caress the truck's participants
these hogs knew they would get fed; our guide and driver threw corn tortillas like frisbees into the herd
peaberry flowers cause this drink to turn purple when lemon or lime is added
I wanted to go to a tiki bar while I was on the islands. we found one nearby, and were able to get a reservation! here we are in the Tiki Iniki restaurant, named after the hurricane.
on our last full day, we planned an adventure tour on the south shore, around old plantation grounds, riding on ATVs, yet another new activity for me!
Janet feeds a colorful Muscovy duck
Janet took the second spot behind our guide, and I followed her. I watched where she drove through the mud, and usually went the other way around the giant mud puddles, caused by recent rains.
many movies have been made in the areas we were viewing
showing off our mud splashes
I put some of this mud on my ATV
Janet got a really nice coating of mud from her drive. they provided an area for us to rinse off, and we had also brought towels to sit on in the rental car.
and just like that, the adventure was over and we headed back home from the beach!
I had learned from previous long vacations to schedule days off after a trip, so I had a few more days for recovery after we returned. my theatre friend Barbara asked me to join her in San Francisco on my last vacation day to see a play, Fefu and Her Friends. I stayed overnight with her in her timeshare, and went to work in the headquarters building the next day.
I stayed overnight in the bay area again so that I could visit with my friend Chaz who was performing in the courtyard of Santana Row. It was great to see him again, and to enjoy live music outdoors in very pleasant weather!
