Pictures below
For all of the pictures (And I forgot the battery charger so I only got about 200 pics), click here:
http://www.kodakgallery.com/ShareLandingSignin.jsp?Uc=hhuz2tp.8v5dvo2l&Uy=-ygvdhw&Upost_signin=Slideshow.jsp%3Fmode%3Dfromshare&Ux=0&UV=387926864993_383068608605&localeid=en_USWe just got back last night from Hawaii! What a fun trip. It was so nice to open the door to see Kaitlyn running to give us a big hug. Jackson was a little surprised and has been warming up this morning. I think he definitely wanted to know where we went and why we left him.
We really did have an adventure in Hawaii. We didn't do all of the touristy things. We hardly even saw our hotel because we took off in the rental car all over the island. Man, there is a lot of lava rock all over it.
On the first full day we were there, three other couples wanted to come check out the other side of the island and volcano with us. They saw that we had the "Blue Book" and had a feeling that we knew what we were doing.
When we went to Maui on our honeymoon, we used the "Blue Book" to do everything and it definitely did not disappoint. A couple of guys have written and rated everything in the book for each island. It tells you a lot of local stuff to do that the typical guide book does not.
So we followed this book's map around the other side of the island from we were staying which was a three hour drive. It would tell us at such and such mile marker where to stop to catch a great waterfall, etc.
So we stopped at several of those and made our way to check out the volcano. That was great. Then went on to another stop where the lava was flowing into the ocean. We drove through a ton of places where there had been eruptions and lava flowed all around homes, but the homes were there stuck in it. A lot of people still live in them without electricity or running water. Because the house was not destroyed, the insurance would not pay, so many people had to stay in those homes.
We then went on to a black sand beach covered with rocks and nude men. Had no idea about the men or even several locals who were handing out pot. The beach was awesome and just couldn't get over some of the locals we saw. One man had hair down to his waist at the beach and the locals call him the caretaker because he considers the black sand beach his home. The waves were so strong that they knocked all of us over in just knee-deep water. I almost lost my camera, and two guys in our group lost a watch and wedding ring; just to give you an idea of how strong it was.
We then hopped down a tree-canopy covered road to a little bay. The trail took us back to a secluded area with an 8 by 14 pool naturally built into the rocks. It was heated by the lava and volcano from underneath. It was a natural hot tub and was so beautiful and peaceful. We couldn't imagine anyone not believing in God with all of these natural wonders.
We then headed to a little local Thai restaurant and we all agreed that it was the best food of the trip. So on this day, we were gone from 7:30 am to 10:30 pm on just that little excursion with the blue book. It was crazy.
On the rest of the days, we rode horses, played on different beaches and went to Hilo to shop and check out the little town.
The horses were great because we went into the mountains and it was like we were in Colorado. Brandon rode Big Roy who definitely wanted to do his own thing. I rode Blaze who was the slowest horse around. Although, he was the first horse back at the stables to eat his lunch.
We found the best beach by the Four Seasons resort, and just wanted to stay here the rest of the time. We went back to this beach several times because it was our favorite. It was not crowded and it had a small golf grass area covered with trees to hang out on. There was plenty of snorkeling available right there with coral and sea turtles. The sea turtles were sunning themselves as long as we were and didn't even care about people being around.
The hotel was huge. It had a tram to take you to different towers and a huge pool and lagoon. It had plenty of activities and a huge area with dolphins to swim with, however, the explorers that we were, the hotel was child's play for us. The hotel had tons of birds in an area of trees right by our room and would start being really loud around 4 or 5 in the morning. We didn't get a ton of sleep while we were there like I had thought.
Everything was so nice and we weren't stressed at all about having to do anything. The most ironic thing was that between 4 couples, we hung out and did all of these activities together and didn't disagree on anything. We all liked doing the same thing and just went with the flow. It was really cool even when we were riding in a bright red HHR and drove around the circle drive in front of the hotel to rap music with the windows down.
As for getting home, that is a different story. Our plane got delayed for three hours. So we went to eat dinner and watch the sunset. That was great that we got to do that, but we ended up leaving Hawaii at 12:30 am and getting into LA at 9 am and then flying home at 12:30 pm LA time. With the time change, we finally arrived home at 6:30 pm Texas time for a total of 15 hours traveling. It felt like the longest day ever because we only got some brief shut eye on the Hawaii plane.
We definitely give the Big Island a four star rating for all of the activities and friendly beaches. We can see why a lot of families choose to come here. We could tell it is an international destination.
