Back at the top, ready to hike back...a long, long, hike

Diana Beers :)

Looking up to the Green Sands Beach sign, where we first looked down upon the green sand

The waves crashing into the rocks

Best not venture out too far...

The backdrop shows our area of descent onto Green Sands Beach

Come on in, the water is fine!

Everywhere we go, there they are

Made it down. It is absolutely gorgeous here!

Green Sands Beach -- still far below...

Well, here we are. Now how do we get down there?! (It is such a long, hot, tiring hike, we recommend taking a 4-wheel drive vehicle -- not by foot.)
6:45am, Saturday, July 02, 2005

Well it is our last day on the island. We decided to get up early one more time. Today we are going to hike into the Green Sand Beach. We made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for the trip. We also took fat free pringles, trail mix and granola bars. We had frozen 4 bottles of water and 2 bottles of Propel to put in our backpacks.

The hike is over 2 ¼ miles one way. The trail is very rocky and uneven. It was very hot with a strong wind in our faces all the way in. We stopped many times to take pictures and video since the trail follows the ocean’s coastline all the way to the Green Sand Beach. You will probably get sick of all the pictures and video we will have to show all of you.

Steven and I both had backpacks. I carried in the towels, sunscreen, maps, bottle of water, camera and video camera. Steven carried in our lunch, the rest of the waters and our water shoes.

It took us approximately an hour and a half to hike in. It took that long because of all the stops we made to take pictures and video. Besides we had to stop for rest and drinks of water.

We finally came to the top of the ridge that looked down into the bay where the beach was. As you can see from the pictures it is a long way yet to get down to the green sand beach. We continued around the top of the ridge to the area that we could climb down to the beach. Going down Steven and I both slip on the sand in the rocks and slid on our butts for a bit before being able to continue the descent to the beach.

What a beautiful sight!!!! The sand is really green and shiny. Steven still thinks that it was brown, but oh well it really was GREEN.

Also, the books and brochures say no vehicles beyond the gate. Well that is a farce. There were so many 4 X 4 vehicles back there. I wish we had known. Maybe we could have rented one and had more time at the beach to play.

We took more pictures and video. There was some young adults there too. The two boys were locals and the girl was from Mississippi. The girl took our picture with the bay in the background. The surf was very strong and it was not recommended swimming unless you were an exceptional swimmer of which I am not. After playing in the sand and the water for a while we sat on our towels and ate lunch.

After lunch we basked in the sun for a while and watched some little crabs on the sand. Those little things are quick. They were fun to watch. We took some video and picture of the crabs too. We didn’t want to miss anything.

We finally decided it was time to head back. We packed up all our stuff including our trash and started climbing out from the beach. Once on top we started our hike back to the car. We met quite a few people on their way in to the Green Sand Beach as we were heading out. All the information we read said to go in the morning. By this time it was after 1:00pm and they were just heading in. The surf was coming in and I am not sure they would have been able to go down to the beach at all. That would be a wasted walk. We gave a couple and their family our extra water since we were 5 more minutes from the car and they were just heading in.

Steven and I both had headaches by the time we returned to the car. I am sure it was from the heat and the wind. All in all it was well worth the trip. We are both very tired and a bit sore, but had another awesome memory to bring home.

We got back to the condo approximately 2:45pm. We unloaded the car then I jumped in the shower. Oh man did that shower feel good. I was so full of sandy grit, and was hot and wind burned. Then it was Steven’s turn to get into the shower.

We decided to grill hamburgers out by the pool for dinner. We had baked potatoes to go with them. It was a nice quiet dinner at the condo.

We are going to do our laundry and pack this evening. We will be flying out of Hilo approximately 9:30am tomorrow morning. We should be home around 8:30pm tomorrow night.

Well this is it, our last honeymoon blog from the island……. Goodnight Everyone, we will write our final blog from our honeymoon when we return.

Love Steven and Diana

Another photograph of Rainbow Falls

Boiling Pots

Pe'e Pe'e Falls

Interesting and odd tree at Rainbow Falls

Rainbow Falls

It seems these same two tourists are following us everywhere we go ... coincidence?
6:45AM, Friday, July 01, 2005 Aloha…….We got up early to get a jump on the day. While Steven took a shower I made him coffee and got the cooler ready. We had frozen bottles of water to take with us for the trip today. While I took a shower Steven ate breakfast and updated the blog with some additions and corrections.

We left for our days destination at approximately 8:20am. We are headed toward Hilo again and it starts raining. We stopped at McDonalds in Hilo to buy me a bacon McGriddle since I hadn’t eaten breakfast yet. Steven ordered an egg only McGriddle too.

We were hoping for a sunny day instead of rainy and overcast because we are heading to Rainbow Falls. The only way you can see the rainbow at the falls is if you go in the morning and the sun is shining. We got there approximately 10:00am. No sunshine. The good thing is it had quit raining.

Rainbow Falls was beautiful. I am amazed that a town has such an amazing attraction within their city. This is another site to visit that is totally free. While we were checking out the falls we asked another family to take our picture in front of the falls. It turned out the other family was from San Diego. We walk a short path and took some additional pictures from higher up and closer to the falls.

There were also these magnificent trees. They looked like lots of little trees that intertwined together to make the bigger tree and then grew branches out to connect to the other trees as well. We took video and pictures of the trees. We are hoping that one of you can help us determine what kind of tree that they are.

We then went over to the Rainbow Falls gift shop across the street. It was a small shop and a lot of the stuff in there was made by local people for sale. All the proceeds go to help poverty stricken people in Hilo. We decide it was a good place to buy a couple souvenirs to bring home.

We then headed a little further up the road (still in the city of Hilo) to see the Boiling Pots and Pe’e Pe’e Falls. Another must see site, as you will be able to see from the pictures and video.

We hiked down closer to the boiling pots to get some additional pictures and video. It was very very humid and the rocks were very slippery, but it was worth it to get some really nice pictures.

When we got back to the car we decided to go to the Lyman Museum, but couldn’t find it. So we went to do some souvenir shopping before we made the hour trek back to the condo.

We got back to the condo approximately 3:45pm. We watched the ocean crashing into the lava rocks from the lanai while we put away some of the stuff we bought.

We checked the blog to see if anyone had checked it out while we were gone to find that there had been 20 hits. That was nice. We read the comments that were left for us on the blog.

We fixed chicken helper for dinner with green beans and then shared the macadamia nut cream pie we had bought at the little restaurant the night before. It was really good. Extremely rich but very yummy.

Well I am done for the night writing the blog. Steven will be doing the updating shortly with the pictures. Goodnight everyone………
Love Steven and Diana

Posing for pictures after surviving our trek through the tube

Whittington Beach

Hana Hou Restaurant -- where we had a late lunch

Steaming Cliffs

Diana in the tube

Steven inside the tube...

About to bravely enter the void

7:45am Thursday, June 30, 2005

This morning was deliberately chosen for relaxing and maybe catching some sun. Nothing quite like a cup of coffee (Kona) on the patio overlooking the ocean in the morning :)

No sun yet 12:30pm.

1:00 -- Okay, I give up (still no sun)...so we are off to the undeveloped section of the Thurston Lava Tube in the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park.
We arrive and choose to enter what would normally be the exit path, hoping this way is shorter to the tube we want to explore. We are correct. The sign on the gate indicates this is the undeveloped and unlit section of the tube. Armed with our flashlights, we open the gate and boldly enter. Several yards in, we turn the flashlights off to "see" the pitch blackness. Most of the photos we take of the tube come out totally black even with the flashlights and camera flash.

We continue down the tube with our way lit ahead of us by our flashlights. The tube is like a long narrow cave. The height of the passage varies with us ocassionally having to duck slightly. I take a picture of Diana while pointing my flashlight at her and she takes a photo of me. About 100 yards in, we meet a couple coming back. We continue to where we find a 2-3 foot ledge followed by a pile of rocks. We step down from the ledge and climb over the pile of rocks that obstruct our passage.

Suddenly from the darkest deepest recess of the tube we are attacked by giant spiders! Just kidding ;)although the blackness and absolute silence made it a bit creepy. About 300 yards in we found the cavernous section of the tube. Looking beyond this area with our flashlights indicated that this might be the end of the tube. Not knowing exactly how long this section was, we started back and shortly ran into another couple tracing our intial trek. We asked them about the length of the tube and they tell us it is about 1,000 feet ending around the cavern. We find the exit, happy knowing that we traversed the length of the tube.

Just outside the tube, we met some people exiting the developed section of the tube and asked them to take our picture. While talking with them we found out that a few of them wanted to explore the tube we had just exited but they didn't have flashlights. We gave them ours since we had no further need of them. They were very appreciative and promised, when they were finished, to give the flashlights to others that may want to go exploring.

3:00pm Thursday, June 30, 2005
Steven didn't want to write anymore of the blog so you have me again. After spelunking in the undeveloped part of Thurston Lava Tube we went to the gift shop at the Volcano House. The Volcano House is a hotel, restaurant and gift shop. They actually have two gift shops there. We looked around and bought a couple things to bring back with us. Then we went out behind the Volcano House to see the view. You can see the steam vents on the rim and the smoke clouds from the volcano. We have taken video and pictures to show you.

We left the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park and decided to stop at one of the little towns on the way back to the condo to get a late lunch. The first town we stopped at was Pahala. They had a gas station, hospital, fire station, grocery store, laundromat, combined high school and elementary school, community center, senior citizen center and the Bank of Hawaii. There were other places there but only one place to eat that we could find. We decided to pass and go to the next town down the road.

The next town we went to was Naalehu. It is only 8 miles to the west on Highway 11 from the condo we are staying at. We drove through and found 3 places to eat. We settled on a little mom and pop type restaurant called Hana Hou. Steven ordered a cajun chicken sandwich with Jo Jo potatoes. I ordered beef stir fry. While we were waiting for lunch, Steven called his sister Trish back in California to tell her about the blog. They had a nice conversation and then lunch came.

Steven liked his sandwich, but I didn’t care to much for the beef stir fry and ate very little. We talked to the waitress about a parade, carnival and rodeo that is going to be on Saturday that we might go to for a while. Then we ordered a piece of macadamia nut crème pie to take back with us, paid our bill and left. We did take a picture of the front of the restaurant for the memory.

We then headed back toward the condo at Sea Mountain Resort. On the way we saw a beautiful ocean view and found a turn out that we pulled into so we could take pictures and video. Upon driving further down the highway we found out the place we were taking pictures of was Whittington Beach Park. We drove down to the Park and found it to be pretty much abandoned. The view from the turn out was beautiful. It is to bad that the beach itself was run down and not maintained any longer.

We drove the last few miles back to the condo. When we returned I started doing a little bit of laundry. After being home a couple of hours I was getting hungry. We decided to drive back to Naalehu to get a pizza from the little pizzaria we saw along the highway, but it was closed. We then went to the local supermarket and picked up a frozen pizza and came back to the condo to fix it.

I am finishing up the last of the laundry and writing the rest of the blog for the evening. We have a pretty full day tomorrow. I will write more tomorrow night when we return. Goodnight everyone….. Please feel free to leave a comment or two and tell us what you think.

Aloha from Steven and Diana

and more orchids...

More orchids -- Hawaii Tropical Botanical Gardens

Those two tourists again...

Cat Whiskers -- Hawaii Tropical Botanical Gardens

In front of Onomea Bay

Couple of tourists at Akaka Falls

Hawaii Tropical Botanical Garden

Onomea Bay -- I shot this while standing on the rock formation jutting out into the bay, trying not to get blown off into the water. It was quite a hike down to the bay. Most people we encountered there, passed on the hike.

Akaka Falls

7:15am Wednesday, June 29, 2005
We slept in a little longer this morning. We finally got out of bed and decided to have breakfast on the lanai. I fixed Steven’s coffee and cream of wheat with toast. I had cold cereal and toast. The view as usual was breathtaking.

After breakfast Steven got his shower and ironed a shirt while I took my shower. We decided to take the underwater cameras to Wal-Mart in Hilo on on way to the day’s adventures.

We left for Hilo ready to make more memories in this wonderful paradise called Hawaii.

We dropped off the film at Wal-Mart for developing. We decided to have the pictures put on a CD and told them to print a set for us as well. We picked up some spray on sunscreen, snacks and a couple sodas. Then we headed to Akaka Falls, north of Hilo a few miles.

I will tell you that what we had seen of Hilo thus far did not do it justice. When we headed out on Highway 19 we had no idea how beautiful it would be. The part of Hilo we had been through was not a good sampling of what was to be seen.

The ocean view was breathtaking all along the way. The greenery was awesome. The plants, flowers and trees are some of the most beautiful things we have ever seen.

We finally reached Akaka Falls. I can’t believe that the state does not charge for entrance into such an awesome place. It would be worth every cent to see this site. We have taken several pictures of Akaka Falls and the beautiful floliage surrounding it. We also took pictures of another very pretty waterfall called Kahuna Falls. There was quite a bit of hiking to get through the area but well worth the time, sweat and heat to see these amazing waterfalls. We would highly recommend this to everyone as a must see!

After leaving Akaka Falls we headed back to Highway 19 via Highway 220. We drove down Highway 19 back towards Hilo for about 6 miles to mile marker 7. We then turned to go towards Onomea Bay. This was a scenic drive. The road was very narrow and had one lane bridges that you needed to watch for oncoming traffic to see if it was safe to drive over the bridge. A little way into the drive we pulled off onto the roadside to take some pictures of the bay. It was very beautiful. We have quite a few pictures of this.

After taking pictures of the Onomea Bay from the roadside we decided to explore a little further to see what it would take to get closer. We walked down an old road that had been blocked off to any vehicles. We took more pictures as we got closer to the water. Finally Steven found a path that lead down to the water where we came upon the back entrance of the Hawaii Tropical Botanical Gardens. There was a Hawaiian man sitting there making a fishing net. He informed us we could not enter the gardens from this side. So we decide to go down to the water’s edge at Onomea Bay. We walked right up to the edge of the water. Steven went out on some lava rocks to take better pictures. I am sure he will be posting some of these pictures to the blog.

We needed to go to the main entrance of the Hawaii Tropical Botanical Gardens. So, we hiked back up to the car, which seemed a lot farther away when we were going back to it and treking uphill all the way. We then drove a couple more miles to the Botanical Gardens.

The cost was $15 per person to enter the gardens. We also purchased a large bottle of water for the hike through the garden trails. The entrance of the trail to the garden is 120 feet above sea level. The trail down into the garden is 500 feet long and quite steep. We saw many different kinds of tropical trees, plants and flowers. We also got to get very close to Onomea Bay again, but not right down to the water this time. There was also an Onomea Falls located within the gardens. There was a Boulder Creek as well. We have pictures of these sites. My favorite part of the gardens was the Orchid Garden. I took many pictures of the orchids along with other plants in the gardens.

The hike out of the gardens was a very long and steep one. The 500 feet going down into the park seemed much longer getting out. Thank goodness for that bottle of water.

We stopped in the gift shop before we left and I bought a sea turtle to match the one my son Marc bought me in Mexico. Marc told me the reason he bought me the turtle is because sea turtles mate for life. He told me that I needed to buy one for Steven since his is my life long soul mate.

We left the botanical gardens and took the scenic road back to Highway 19 towards Hilo. Again we enjoyed the beauty of the island and the ocean surrounding it.

We stopped and got gas, then went to Wal-Mart to pick up our pictures and CDs. The pictures turned out pretty good considering the water was not clear due to all the people churning up the water. We will post some pictures of the sea turtle and a couple fish.

We had forgotten that we had not eaten anything but a couple little snacks since breakfast so we went to McDonalds in Wal-Mart to pick up a quick sandwich and split a soda.

We finished our shopping at Wal-Mart then went to Subway to pick up sandwiches to bring back to the condo for dinner. The drive took the normal 1 hour to get back to the condo. We got to see the beautiful view from the lanai before it got dark.

We are relaxing the rest of the evening.
Goodnight Everyone. Love Steven and Diana

Snorkeling with a black fish with an orange marking

Snorkeling with a school of fish

Snorkeling with a puffer fish

Snorkeling with a Sea Turtle. These large turtles would swim next to, and into you.

Temple at Pu'uhonua o Honaunau National Park

Pu'uhonua o Honaunau (snorkeling area in background)

6:45am Tuesday, June 28, 2005
Another beautiful morning. Steven gets into the shower and I pack the bag for our day of adventure. Steven gets out of the shower and fixes himself a bowl of cereal and a piece of toast with apricot preserves. He also fixes me a piece of toast with apricot preserves. After I eat my toast I get my shower. We finish packing stuff for the day and head out. It is approximately 8:30am.

We are heading to the Kona side of the island today. We have decided to go snorkeling. I am a bit afraid of the water, but want to give it a try. It is a long drive through a lot of winding roads. I get car sick going up to Big Bear so this drive is getting to me. I finally have to lie back and close my eyes to keep from getting sicker. We go through some quaint little towns on our way to snorkeling. The drive along the coast is beautiful.

I was told that the island was totally different depending on whether you were on the Kona side or the Hilo side. It is amazing just how different. From the vegetation to the homes to the actual towns. The Kona side seems to be more commercial and nicer than the Hilo side.

We finally reach our destination, Kahalu’u Beach Park at 10:15am. First order of business is to find a parking spot. We drove down the street past the beach to find nothing so we turned around and came back by the beach for another pass. We decided to try the small parking lot next to the beach. Lo and behold we got a very nice parking spot.

We went to the Kahalu’u Beach Snorkel Rental Depot to rent snorkeling gear. We bought a Hawaiian beach towel too. The people that rented us the equipment were so nice and very helpful. They got us set up with our face masks with breathing tube and fins. We had to buy Steven some lip balm to put on his upper lip to fillin his mustache so the mask didn’t leak.

We found a spot on the beach next to the water. I didn’t like the fins and neither did Steven so we left them on the towel and put our water shoes back on to venture out into the surf. We had only taken a few steps and I slipped on a lava rock and fell on my butt. LOL……. After Steven helped me up and we had a laugh we continued out into the water.

It took a little bit to figure out the snorkeling gear, but after I did WOW…… the fish are beautiful. There are also big sea turtles that sometimes float right by and touch you. Steven didn’t get the breathing tube figured out so he just held his breath and looked under the water at the fish. He can hold his breath for quite a while. I was impressed.

We took lots of underwater pictures of the fish and turtles. The fish are such vibrant colors and not very afraid of people. If you don’t move quickly they will just swim right around you. We had a very large school of fish swim around us. I got a picture of them with Steven’s legs in the picture. I am not sure what kind of fish they are yet. We had taken an underwater camera with us that we bought at Ron Jon at the Block in Orange, CA. It had 27 pictures on it. We didn’t think we would need any more than that, but we were wrong. We went back to the snorkeling gear place and bought a disposable underwater camera with another 27 pictures. We had hotdogs at the food truck and then went back in to do some more snorkeling. We took all of the pictures on the second underwater camera too. You will have to wait to see the pictures after we get home to develop them.

Finally, we are getting pretty tired and decide it is time to go. We had to go back to the snorkeling place to turn in our gear and get the car keys. We took a picture of the nice people that rented us the gear.

Steven rinsed off his feet and I went over to the outside shower to get most of the salt water off of me before heading for the car. When I got to the car Steven had his white t-shirt on the ground standing on it because the ground was hot. I went around to the other side of the car to dry off and change my clothes. (any of you girls reading this, remember changing clothes on the bus after a game when you were in high school?) It was kind of like that. Steven was going to change into his jeans and a clean t-shirt but forgot to pack one. So he put his dirty, wet shirt he had been standing on in the trunk of the car. Left on his wet swimming trunks and put a towel on the seat.

We thought we would just stop and buy him a shirt, but it wasn’t that easy. We stopped along the street at this t-shirt shop. I went in to buy him a shirt. The shop didn’t smell nice and was kind of dirty. I left without buying Steven a shirt.

We were hungry again after snorkeling so we stopped at McDonalds for a couple sandwiches and a drink.

We decided to go to our next destination. We were sure they would have shirts for sale in a gift shop or something.

We arrived at Pu’uhona o Honaunau Park. It is a National Historic Park in Hawaii. To our surprise there was no gift shop. Steven wore an extra white shirt I had packed. It was a little big but didn’t look to bad. He didn’t want me to take pictures of him with a woman’s shirt on, but I snuck one in on him.

We looked at the temples and the royal grounds. They also had an old game that looked like a cross between chess and checkers that the chiefs and their tribe people used to play. I got a couple pictures of that too. We took some pictures of the carved wooden statues that stood in front of some of the temples. Steven put a picture of the one of the temples on the blog for you to view.

We took some pictures and video of black crabs on the black lava rocks. They were very small and very fast moving.

Time to head back to the condo for the evening. The drive home was uneventful except for the fact I got car sick again so I went to sleep for the rest of the drive.

When we got back to the condo we unpacked, took showers and started some laundry. I fixed broiled chicken, baked potatoes and peas for dinner. We ate looking out over the ocean. I also fixed mango, papaya and bananas for dessert, but Steven only liked the bananas.

After dinner we started the dishwasher and it started to flood the kitchen floor. We shut it off to find that it must be the gasket around the door because the leak stopped. We will call maintenance in the morning.

We are now sitting out on the lanai (patio) drinking a cup of Vanilla Macadamia Nut coffee. We are discussing what is in store for tomorrow and listening to the waves hit the lava rocks down on the beach. What a peaceful place.

We will write more tomorrow…….. Goodnight everyone….Love, Steven and Diana

Black Sand Beach... 

Orchid gardens... 

Inside the Thurston Lava Tube... 

Tropical rainforest... 

At Southwest Rift... 

Having breakfast... 

6:30am Monday, June 27, 2005
We awake to the noise of many different birds telling us it is time to start the day. We are excited to see what kind of view we have from our lanai (patio). WOW.... We are in total shock! You may see the picture of us sitting on the lanai eating breakfast with the ocean in the background. What a spectacular view!!!

First thing we set up the blog so we could let you know what we have been doing and so we don't forget anything we did :) You may leave comments on the blog and let us know what you think.

As you could see from the picture we had breakfast (cereal and toast) on the lanai. Then we watched all the different birds land in the yard or tree very close. I got a few pictures of them I will have in our album when we get home.

After getting our showers and doing our official check in at the office, we headed out for our adventure.

We went to the Hawaii Volcano National Park. After going into the Visitor's Center we headed out for the first stop on our trip through the park, Steam Vents. This was really kewl. There are cracks in the surface that release the steam from the volcano. We took video and pictures to share with you upon our return.

The next stop on our way through the park was Jaggar Museum. We looked out over Halema'uama'u Crater it is huge. We will see it from other stops through the park. We walked around the museum checking out all the displays. There was a room with windows so you could see inside that held seismographs that monitored each of the volcanos. There are pictures of this room.

Next on our journey was the SouthWest Rift Zone. This is where there is nothing but lava rock for as far as you can see. There are a couple of picture with Steven standing on the rock. We also got another couple to take our picture sitting on some lava rock.

We then passed Devastation Trail. This was a forest that was devastated by Kilauea Iki's 1959 eruption.

Now onto Thurston Lava Tube. This lava tube is located in a lush rain forest and is 500 years old. This is amazing and so beautiful. I would recommend this to everyone for one of the most awesome sights I have seen. We have lots of pictures and video of this lush forest and lava tube. We want to go back later in the week to go into the extra 1000 feet that is not lighted, but you are allowed to explore. We need to go buy flashlights before we can go back.

Finally, we stopped at the Volcano House Hotel to look around the gift shop. It was small but we found a couple things we decided to buy. We are now leaving the Hawaii Volcano National Park.

We then decided to go into Hilo (about 30 minutes more of a drive) to get something to eat and buy the flashlights at Wal-Mart. On our way we got behind a tour bus. The tour bus pulled into Akatsuka Orchid Gardens and we followed. I got some great video and Steven took a few pictures. Since the flowers for the wedding were silk it was really nice to see the real thing and see how close the silk flowers in the wedding looked like the real ones. We were really getting hungry so Steven bought us each a Snickers bar to hold us over until we could get to a restaurant.

We finally get into Hilo and can't find any decent place to eat lunch. Everything is fast food. We finally drove around and found a Ken's House of Pancakes. We were starved by this time so we decided to eat there. Steven had pancakes and eggs. He said it was very good. I ordered a Hibachi Chicken with pineapple sandwich. There was so much teriaki on it I couldn't eat it. We then decided that we would buy stuff for dinners and cook at the condo.

We then went to Wal-Mart. We picked up a couple flashlights so we can go exploring deeper into the lava tube later this week. We also picked up a charcoal grill (cheap one) and some charcoal so we don't have to worry about a restaurant to eat. :)

Next stop was Sack and Save to pick up a few groceries to cook on the new grill. We picked up hamburger and chicken with the trimmings to make dinner a couple of nights. Steven then decided I could drive home he was tired.

Finally ready to make the hour drive back to the condo. I am still hungry since I didn't eat my sandwich at the restaurant so we stop at McDonalds and order me a chicken strip meal for on the way home.

The drive back to the condo was pretty uneventful. We returned about 7:00pm and put away the groceries, etc...... Then we decided to do one more thing.

We drove about 1-2 miles to the Black Sand Beach to get really close to the ocean and see the Black Sand. There were no turtles there to see tonight so we will have to go back later this week to see them.

We will write more later........ Goodnite everyone :)

Just outside our back door... 

And the morning revealed... 

7:00am....The alarm went off. Steven and I decided to snuggle for a few more minutes. Steven was in the shower first. Michael gook us to the Orange County (John Wayne) airport around 8:30am.

We went to the Aloha Airlines desk to check in, then we headed for the security check-in. We were then asked to go to the other security check-in that wasn't as busy. When we got there we found out the desk person at Aloha Airlines gave Steven two tickets for the first leg of our flight and none for me :( . We had to go back to the other side of the airport to get a new ticket issued for me. After getting through security we had breakfast at McDonalds. I ordered a bacon and egg McGriddle meal. They said they were out of them. LOL...... The funny thing is we ordered Steven a sausage and egg McGriddle and decided on a Big Breakfast for me (to make a kind of mcgriddle)The big breakfast comes with bacon so we made me a bacon and egg McGriddle and Steven had the big breakfast minus the sausage.

WOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOO.........We are finally on the plane. The movie on the plane was Forrest Gump. We decided to watch our own movie on the computer, but the new battery we bought some how ended up discharged....... We put the old on back in and I played games for a little while until that battery died. Then I read magazines. Steven read computer magazines during the trip and did some paperwork.

We has our choice of salisbury steak w/rice or pasta with a light butter sauce and cheese for lunch on the plane. Later towards the end of the flight they served warm chocolate chip cookie and ice cold milk.

We landed in Honolulu approximately 1:00pm Hawaii time. We were directed to the wrong terminal. We left the main terminal and walked to the commuter terminal as we were told by security staff. After trying to check in at the desk in the commuter terminal we were informed that we had to go back to the building we had just came from. We headed back to the main terminal, only to have to go through security check in all over again. :( Our flight was to leave from Honolulu to Hilo at 4:05 pm Hawaii time. We went to the desk to check our flight and were told "the flight is delayed because the plane is broken." We finally arrived in Hilo at approximately 6:15pm Hawaii time. We picked up some brochures while waiting to pick up our luggage.

We headed to Budget to pick up our rental car. We were upgraded from a compact to a midsize at no charge. We have a sea green Nissan Altima. The car smells like cigarette smoke so I bought some Febreeze gto see if that will help.

We bought groceries at the local Hilo KTA grocery store. Prices are much higher here for groceries and juswt about everything else. Gas seems to be about the same as in Tustin.

Oh, I almost forgot that it started raining while we were picking up the rental care.

Also, our first meal was at KFC in Hilo. We were starving and it ws the first thing that looked good to us. Steven had a roasted chicken sandwich with mashed potatoes and I had chicken strips with mashed potatoes and corn-on-the-cob. Then we went grocery shopping.

We drove 56 miles to get to our condo at Sea Mountain Resort on Punalu'u Black Sand Beach. We had some problems finding it in the dark, but we made it. We could hear the ocean but couldn't see ti in the dark. We put away the groceries and unpacked all the suitcases. Then we laid in bed and looked at the brochures that we had picked up at the airport. WHAT A DAY!!!!!!

How lucky we are, the condo is beautiful. We will write more later............. Goodnight........