Hawaii- Jan 22

I woke up promptly at 7:30. Wow, that is a record for me right? Ha, that is because my body still thought it was 11:30. I stepped outside and saw our landscaping. The first words out of my mouth were, "What is up with all the 'mud-clumps' they must be renovating?" Rose laughed and told me that it was lava.


See how I could get this confused? I had to venture up it to see what it is all about, it is tough to climb old lava in flip-flops. But, we had a great view of a golf course and mountains.

So, after exploring our backyard, we checked out our hotel pool. It was amazing! Complete with water volleyball, children's sand beach, waterfalls, adult pool, a hammock, two hot tubs and a bar. I could've stayed there the whole vacay, but I'm glad we got to explore too!


We made a short drive to this beach!


We continued along and stopped at this point that was marked on the road- scenic point.


We continued driving towards Captain Cook's bay and stumbled across a state park sign. We followed it since there seemed to be a lot of traffic. However, this was ONE BUMPY, car-SHAKING, drive.


But, alas, it was worth it! AHHHHH!


At some point on this trip, Jim thought that the perfect thing to do on the trip was to get a stick and be close enough to hot lava to throw it in and watch it burn. So, thus this pose with 200 year old lava.



We drove some more with our poor complimentary maps and we were aiming for Captain Cook's expecting to see a beach. We found some local shopping and businesses and stopped for a bite to eat. We were back on our way when we drove past markets and beaches (that were closed thanks to high tide). We drove around a mountain and the rain clouds were coming in and we got further and further from sea level. We saw some nice scenery and stopped for another picture.




At some point, we bumped into locals and asked them what there was to see at Captain's Cook and they said a monument. Well, we decided it wasn't worth making any more trips in that direction, so we turned around. We saw a few neat things on the way back, and stopped to get our book- "The Big Island Revealed"


We got back to the hotel and cleaned up to go out to dinner nearby at Ramano's Macaroni Grille- sad to say that only 2 out of 4 like their meal but it was still a nice outdoor atmosphere... when the wind wasn't knocking things over. We walked around the shopping center and headed back to call it a night. Great day!


Thanks Rose and Jim!!