Today was a low key day; today was a good day. We started off by sleeping in, which was a vacation within a vacation. We decided to head over to Kahaluu Beach which was pretty close to the hotel. We hung out there for a couple hours, got some sun and continued on with our lazy day. We went back to the hotel and cooked up a pizza and then just sat around with the geckos on the lanai, each of us reading our respective books. I think at this point Bex was reading The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, and I was reading a Cussler novel.
We finished our books and decided to check off another item on our Hawaii Bucket List: Visit a coffee plantation. We decided to go to Kona Joe’s. They’ve got an awful web site, but an absolutely stunning actual site.
We ended up on a guided tour with two other people, a couple from Colorado in their 50′s, who turned out to be either staggeringly hard of hearing or staggeringly stupid. The tour was pretty informative, and led by a girl named Anna from Ukraine who was there on a year-long internship for a Food Science program. I digress, the amusing part here was listening to this poor gal answer the multiple questions from the other couple multiple times. Anna mentioned that the coffee tree in question was 4 years old, and within 40 seconds, the guy had asked how old it was twice, and his wife had followed that up with a brilliant "So how old is this coffee tree?" Other questions that this couple asked multiple times were "When do they bloom?" and "When are they picked?" We were so amazed at how dense they seemed to be that by the end of the tour, when she asked if there were any other questions, it was all we could do to not ask "So, how old was that coffee tree?". We had to settle for just giggling to ourselves.
As part of the tour, we got some coffee at the end of the tour. We ended up sitting on the lanai just soaking up the beauty of our surroundings until they politely reminded us that they had been closed for about an hour and they needed us to leave before they shut the gate. One of my favorite afternoons of all time.
For dinner, we took the recommendation of the concierge and hit up a joint called The Fishhopper. I had probably the best ribs I’ve ever had, and I’ve been to quite a few Ribfests back home in Minneapolis, and have a sister-in-law that lives in Austin, TX, so we get our fair share of BBQ style food. Bex had a plate with 3 different types of fish (not positive, but offhand I think there was Mahi Mahi, Ono, and Ahi Tuna) that was pretty damn tasty too, and I’m not even very fond of fish. We both really liked this place; the service was great, the food was fantastic, and we stuck it on our list of places we’d make sure to revisit the next time we’re back.
The rest of the evening was pretty tame. We drove back to the condo and began the task of packing for the morning flight to Kauai.
Today was the day we decided to head towards Mt. Kilauea. We swung through town, returned a bunch of stuff and picked up some gear (flashlights, softshell for Bex, etc). While there we ate at the Wave Cafe in Kailua. We were seated next to a gecko who was calmly licking a maraschino cherry, much to Becky’s delight.
We headed south along 11 down the eastern side of the island and stopped a couple of times for photo ops. We also made a pit stop near townX and checked out a black sand beach. There was a sea turtle basking in the sun there as well. We wandered around for a while, walked along a little pond on the other side of the beach and watched some variety of ducks stickin’ their butts up in the air and foraging for food, then continued on to Hawaii Volcanoes National Park.
We stopped by the Visitors Center, but nothing much was going on there. There is currently an active lava flow out at the end of Hwy 130, so we drove out as far as we could. We arrived at a basically a big parking lot, and we were both pretty impressed with the level of organization of the park staff, who were on site and directing all of the visitors to the lava flow. 
We hiked about a mile or so through lava fields (which were pretty cool, we may go back during the day to see these) to the actual site of the lava flow. Once there, we got up against the park service barriers and checked out the lava. Neither of us had seen flowing lava before, so that was pretty neat. While we were watching, it was fairly actively moving and set a couple of trees on fire which burned pretty brightly for a little while then got pulled into the flow. One of the park rangers went and dipped a long metal pole into the lava and pulled out a hunk and brought it over to us for pictures, but the dumbass kept waving it around, so the pictures are pretty blurry. After some complaints about this, he just set it down on the ground, but it was cooling down at this point and didn’t really look as cool as when he first pulled it out.
At this point, we were ready to head back, but figured since we were pretty much 2/3 the way around the island, we may as well just complete the circuit, so we drove up through Hilo on the way back. With the help of Urbanspoon and Yelp!, Bex found this little joint in a strip mall called the Hilo Bay Cafe. It’s a good thing the reviews were so good, because we weren’t really expecting much in a strip mall, gotta be honest. The place was great. I’d highly recommend it to anyone staying in or passing through Hilo. Drinks, food, and service were all fantastic, so give it a shot if you have the chance.
About 2 hours later, we were back in Kailua-Kona, where we promptly crashed for the evening. I was pretty stoked about not falling into the lava flow, so it seems that maybe my luck is changing and the rest of the trip will be incident and injury-free!
Becky informs me that before I woke up, a girl came to the resort and did her and Amber’s hair; I’ll have to take her word for it. After that, we drove a few miles over to the Royal Kona Resort for the wedding itself. The ceremony was on a very nice little point that overlooked a nice landscape of lava rocks, spectacular surf, and a small swimming lagoon/bay protected by rocks and reefs. Sun, surf, and a ukulele player, pretty much everything you could ask for in a nice destination wedding. Congrats to Amber and Andy!
We sauntered over to the resort proper for the reception, where we had some tropical drinks, some good eats, and the best Banana Macadamia Nut cake that has ever graced the tables of mortals. At this point we were sickeningly full but absolutely had to eat every last bit of this masterpiece. Also learned that mixing strawberries or mangoes in with a Pina Colada is pretty much an excellent idea.
We then headed back to Kona Coast. I have no idea what everyone else at this point, but Bex and I entered the tropical version of a Thanksgiving Food Coma. We napped for about 3 hours, then woke up and got ready to meet everyone over at Huggo’s.
Nothing much happened there, just milled about and visited a while. The wait staff was pretty cranky, but the food was good, so overall it was fine. We didn’t stay too late, made an early exit and went home to get some rest. They’ll be having a stateside reception later this spring where we can do that stupid chicken dance all we want, so hopefully we didn’t miss too much by taking off before everyone else.
Becky headed to the salon with Amber for manicures and pedicures. After getting her prettified at the salon, Becky went to a natural foods store and was in line to get a smoothie when she was accosted by a local. Becky describes her as an “early-fifties, crazy hippie who was carrying little bottles.” At this point, the lady said “I’m going to dust you,” started chanting some poem or something, and commenced to throw a handful of glitter all over Bex. She didn’t get her smoothie.
Meanwhile, anxious to get out and see Hawaii for the first time, I decided to go for a walk along the coastline near Kona. After about an hour of hanging out, walking the shoreline (mostly lava rock formations, not sand), I was introduced to the unforgiving surf of the Hawaiian winters. I was about 15-20 feet from what I had calculated as “safe”. I’d been watching the breaks, how far inland they came, and was keeping what I thought was a healthy distance. I need a new calculator apparently. A nice monster wave rolled on in and smacked me off of my feet. Soaked me from head to toe, and actually stole the flip flop from my right foot. Wouldn’t normally seem like a huge loss, but I’m walking on sharp lava rock here. But wait! I’ve packed my Keen sandals in my backpack, in case I decided to walk further than flip flops could comfortably carry me! So I sit down and flip my Keens on real quick and proceed to head out. About 3 seconds later, I heard a wave coming. I turned around, saw it, braced myself (turned out to be worthless, I was pushed back about 10 more feet, near as I could figure), and got pummeled again. And Mother Nature? That bitch knocked the Keen off of my right foot and stole it. She stole two pieces of footwear from me, and didn’t even have the decency to do it from different feet. Now I have 2 left shoes. I consider looking around for the Keen; it’s waterproof, and they float, but I didn’t want to tempt fate any more. I’ve gotten knocked around quite a bit, I sure don’t need a head injury to go along with it. Here’s one of the pictures I snapped of the area before I got beat down.
Now, in my haste to get out of there, I didn’t notice what I noticed once I was back on terra firma: I was bleeding from about 45 different places. I’ve got 18 cuts and scrapes on my left arm, 17 on my right, 6 on my right foot, and a handful on my back and ass that I can’t rightly count. About this same time I start to notice how awesome saltwater feels on several dozen cuts. Oh, and that new calculator I needed? Add a phone and camera to that list, cause they’re not exactly waterproof. For an extra dose of irony, I had two waterproof cases in the backpack I was carrying that can be used to waterproof cameras for taking pictures while snorkeling.
The remainder of my afternoon consisted of me going back, taking a shower until all the bleeding stopped, then sitting on the lanai reading, drinking beer, and trying not to move.
However, I did have to move, because tonight was the Groom’s Dinner. In a very happy coincidence, it was held in the brewery/pub I had heard about the night before after having the Coconut Ale, which means there was plenty of good beer to go around. We had a bunch of appetizers and specialty pizzas to go along with the brews, and a good time was had by all. I also regaled Amber’s grandparents with the story of my run in with the lava rocks and why my arms looked like hamburger; Norm seemed to find it pretty damn funny.
Big Island, here we come!
So Becky and I headed out to Hawaii today (Wednesday, Jan. 5th, 2011) to be there when our friends Amber and Andy get married on the 7th. We flew into Kona, HI, and didn’t really do much. We were pretty wiped out on Wednesday; was about 13 hours flying or hanging in airports. We stopped by a couple of stores Wednesday evening for some basic necessities such as food, wine, and beer.
We checked into the Kona Coast Resort, where Becky was promptly taken over by exhaustion. After we unpacked a bit, I scouted the activities desk, pool area, and bar/restaurant, where I had a Coconut Ale from Kona Brewing Company, a local brewery that has several bottled options and a few draft-only beers. The Coconut Ale was definitely different, but definitely good. To go along with the beer, I ordered what I thought was a pretty run of the mill cheeseburger (cheddar, fried onions) and found out they soak them in au jus, which turns out to be pretty damned good.
I’m exactly 50-50 on whether or not I believe John will actually be dead 400 pages from now.
After that little surprise, I wandered back to the room to read some more of the book I got for Xmas from my brother, John Dies At The End, by David Wong (pseudonym of Jason Pargin) who also is the editor over at Cracked.com. So far, the book is filled with a Herculean amount of strange/crazy/psychotic. We’ll see how it ends up. I’m exactly 50-50 on whether or not I believe John will actually be dead 400 pages from now.