Saturday, September 20, 2008

Big Island Bliss

After roughly 20 delightful hours in Seattle, and about 20 gazillion hours on the plane we're here in Hawaii.  Banish those postcard images of white sand beaches and palm trees - we're in the rain forest, hanging out on black sand beaches and exploring lava flows.  This place is amazing.

Val and the boys picked us in Kona Thursday night.  The airport is tiny and almost entirely outside (wish I had pictures).  Intuiting our extreme hunger, Val brought bags of burritos for us and we all happily drove across the island to their house near Hilo.  The kids were thrilled to be together and talked and sang for the full 2 and 1/2 hours in the car.  

We crashed hard, sung to sleep by the coqui frogs.  We were up with the sun around 6, again serenaded by all sorts of delightful creatures.  Sitting up in bed Ben said, "what's that Nuk-Nuk-Wuk-Wuk sound?"

After a mellow morning Val and the kids and I headed into town for lunch and adventures.  First stop was a crazy stir-fry place for lunch, and then Liliukalani Park.  The kids tried to catch fish and Isaiah (and Val!) caught a nap.
  

After the park we visited the most crowded, retro, Asian-inflected grocery store I've ever seen.  You really have no idea how many flavors of soy sauce there are!  And then on to Richardson's Beach to swim and explore.  


Back home there was delicious soup (and Delicious Bread!), movies and grown-ups staying up way too late catching up.  Not a bad beginning at all!

Volcanic adventures to follow....

1 comment:

ebruening said...

Wagz:

Thanks for setting up the site. It will be fun to see how your bid adventure goes. Good Luck!

I'm bummed because I was just in Madison for Labor Day but I thought you had left already. I'm sorry we missed you.

Good Luck!
Roni