Aloha ⇒
Sorry for the long gap between entries, but life has been busy! For the last 9 days, Christine & I have been in Hawaii for a "Beat The Winter Blues" vacation. "Don't the Dazzles normally go to exotic locations?" I hear you all asking. 'Tis true, 'tis true, we do. This time, however, we decided to go to an easily accessible, safe and friendly location to make our life easier.
We had never been to Hawai'i before, so the first step was to figure out which island to go to (there are 7 to choose from). I wanted to see the lava flow into the ocean and we both wanted something a little less touristy, so the obvious choice is The Big Island (Hawai'i). We were told that Hawai'i is ridiculously expensive so we wanted to find a way to do this trip reasonably. It turns out that I had almost enough Alaska miles to fly both of us there.
We arrived late on the 11th and found our condo, which turned out was just outside Kona. The first day involved food shopping and relaxing at the pool. We discovered how to get a good deals...sign up for a timeshare presentation. On the face of it, it seemed like it was too good to be true (and you know what they say about things that seem too good to be true), so we decided to think about while. In the evening, we figured there was no harm to going to the presentation, so we booked into see it the next morning.
We had never been to a time share presentation before, so we didn't know what to expect. Fairfield puts on a good show, but we didn't end up buying anything...not really our style of travelling. After the presentation we booked our now very cheap Circle tour for the following day. Then we drove south a little to find some good potato chips. See, we had this guide book that 10 years old that was good at listing things to see or do, but not very good at telling you how to get there. So we went south to try to find a Polynesian Market. Turns out that either we were completely in the wrong place or the market doesn't exist anymore. On the way there we ran into some famous potato chips and the Painted Church (three times actually!).
Our flight around the island was awesome! Well, except for the nausea. We saw two humpback whales (which look like slugs from above), some flowing lava and some great views of all the different terrains on Hawaii; hopefully our pictures turn out. After our stomachs settled down we took a short drive to the north to take a look at some unexplained petroglyphs around the Fairmont Resort.
Next up, Volcano National Park. We were hoping to walk out and see some flowing lava. We didn't really anticipate that the lave moves and that it might only be accessible via a very hard and hot 6 hour round-trip hike. Needless to say, it was way too hot for that hike, so we had to be satisfied seeing steam vents. Which, were very cool. On our way to the park, we stopped by the southernmost point in the US, the aptly named South Point. Nothing there, just something to check off our list. Also en route was a black sand beach, which I have never seen before, so that was neat.
On Sunday we drove to Eden a.k.a. Waipio Valley. On the way we stopped at Pololo Valley a.k.a. Almost Eden. Both of these valleys were unbelievably beautiful. I never would have guessed that Hawaii had such striking scenery. We didn't both hiking down into the valleys at it was very hot and very far (I know, I know, what wimps...but hey, it is OUR vacation). We finished the day at Akaka Falls, Hawai'i's tallest waterfalls at 442ft.
Unfortunately, the waves were too high to do any watersports. I had a great first-timers SCUBA class all set up, but they weren't going out. Instead I brought Christine to her very first golf course. She was great! We played 10 holes and she got better on every hole. The 7-iron is her best club and she managed to hit it about 100 yards straight as an arrow! I will have to watch our or else she will start beating me! We ended the day watching The Aviator, the latest Scorsese/DiCaprio movie. Review to follow, but it was great!!
Tuesday was a very, very, very lazy day. The first half has spent walking around and looking at the shops and the last half was spent lazing at the pool. Aaaaaahhhhhhhh.
On the 9th day of Hawai'i, my true love gave to me....one [uel=http://www.ilovewhales.com/home.html]whale watching tour[/url] and one lu'au. We saw many humpback whales, including a mother and her child. They are very graceful, very large creatures. Well worth seeing and one of the highlights of our trip. The lu'au, which is celebration of Hawai'ian history was also very fun. Food was decent, open bar, amazing dancing and spectacular scenery.
All in all, a wonderful trip. I would recommend the big island, but I would only recommend going for a week, unless you want to spend a lot of money on water sports.