Aloha Kona

Dick finally got his long awaited trip to Hawaii. It's been two years since we had a vacation and we were looking forward to it. 

First stop was Oahu for a few days to decompress and get used to the island life before heading over to Kona. 

The beach at Waikiki is still one of my favorites. 

So nice and big and calm and beautiful white sand. And so convenient to the hotel. 

 The grounds at the Hale Koa are just beautiful and keep a lot of people employed just trying to keep the jungle from invading and taking over. 

 The Kona Temple. It was hard to get a good photo because it sits at the end of a city street and it's so wide. I guess it would've been a good day to bring along the good camera. It's quite beautiful inside and reminded us a little of the Anchorage Temple.

Every morning we would hike up to the top of this hill near our condo.

 I was sure I was going to die the first couple of days! 

 Since Kona still has active volcanoes, the terrain is a little more rugged and many of the beaches are the black lava sand. But they are still beautiful.

The salt and pepper color comes from the combination of coral and lava. 

 The view from our lanai. Most of our meals were cooked on the grill and we had such a good time experimenting with all the new fish options! Just grill it all!

You can't go wrong.

 The little shopping center we walked by each morning. 

The Captain Cook monument. At first he was welcomed as a god, but no so much after that.  

He was killed here by the locals. Too bad cause it's a beautiful little bay that is very popular for kayaking and snorkeling. We took a cruise out here and snorkeled all day and it was a lot of fun and we met a lot of very nice people. 

 Waimea, where are the ranches are. 

And Merriman's, where we had a wonderful dinner. 

We took one day off from beaching and drove to the Volcano National Park.  Interestingly enough, there are no volcanoes here, but there are craters that still have lots of steam vents, which is in the background. It was a fun day. Some to find out, the Air Force has a rec camp here inside the park, which is nice. 

 We had a wonderful lunch at this lovely little inn in the town of Volcano.

 The best strawberry rhubarb bread pudding. 

 On the way home we stopped by the famous Puu'lunu black beach where all the sea turtle like to hang out.

Also lots of tourists would can't read the "keep away from the turtles" sign. So instead they just took lots of pictures and bothered them. Too bad they aren't really fast and bite!

 You will never guess where this is???

Our last night we had a great meal at the fun place called the Fish Hopper right on the water in downtown Kona! A must do for anyone who goes to the island. This was our appetizer. 

One of the few white sand beaches on the Big Island, this one is Kapuna, along the northern part of the Kona side of the island. Most of these beaches are attached to large resorts or state parks. 

One of the nice little local beaches. This is more common on the big island.  

An out of sync photo of our snorkeling boat.  

But a fun reminder that there is so much to see and do on this beautiful earth of ours!