Hawaii - Big Island

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From Las Vegas we headed to San Diego for the weekend to spend some time with Lisa’s brother Nathan and visit California Paulicks. We’ll post on San Diego separately as we are headed back after Hawaii for more adventures. 

It had been four years since we had been on the Big Island, where Ryan proposed on the top of Mauna Kea in the snow. This Hawaii trip was dubbed as a “girls trip” as Lisa was going to meet up with Brenda and Amy, two friends from college. The girls agreed Ryan could come along as chef, bartender and DD. He did a fantastic job filling all those roles. 

We started our tour of the Big Island on the eastern side near Hilo where Amy lives. We were greeted with a delicious home cooked meal of baked salmon, couscous and veggies that Amy so elegantly prepared for us! Hilo is typically rainy but the next day we had some awesome sunny skies. We drove south to the Puna area and started off the day with soaking in a volcanically heated pool which felt like a hot springs. We timed the tides right and were able to snorkel in some tide pools, the water was a little chilly but the fish and coral were amazing. On our way back to Amy’s house we detoured to enjoy the sights of Hilo town from Coconut island and the Japanese gardens. 

From there we readied ourselves for a killer happy hour at Karma with Amy’s dear friend Auntie Randi. Let’s just say it was an epic night. Lisa and Amy partied like college girls but realized in the morning that they were not in their 20s anymore. Brenda arrived the next day and we did some damage at the Hilo farmers market buying fresh produce and local crafts. 

Later that day we headed toward Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. We visited a black sand beach and were greeted by the local sea turtles sunning on the beach. 

On our last visit to the Big Island the volcano was very active and we were not able to visit the National Park. We hiked to a lava tube and around one of the craters.  We drove down the Chain of Craters road during sunset which was of course spectacular. As it grew darker we drove to the Jaggar Museum to get a better look at the Kilauea crater. You can see a bright orange glow from the lava lake that is bubbling inside the crater. The air temperature was freezing (relative to Hawaii standards) and it was windy but it was an amazing view! 

The next morning we were headed to Kona. Hilo treated us to some rainy weather in the morning which made the rivers gush and the waterfalls were awesome! We stopped for delicious local food at the Hawaiian Style Café in Waimea before headed to the beach. We rented a condo with amazing views at the Sea Village resort and toasted good friends with Pink Elephants (a drink from college days). 

It was Lisa’s birthday and Ryan found the perfect spot for dinner out. We dined at the Lemongrass Bistro and were awed by the owner’s love for food, family and stories about his food. It was a great find! Lisa remembers Amy’s first postcard from the Big Island was the green sand beach. We found out that Amy had not been there yet so we knew it was a must. This time we hiked (no Jeep) 5 miles round trip. 

The next day was the Brawl of the Wild in Montana where Montana State Bobcats play the University of Montana Grizzlies. It is a heated day in our world and it was 3 Grizzly girls vs one Bobcat boy. We started the day with an amazing breakfast of French toast made with Hawaiian sweet bread, SPAM, Dragon fruit, Apple Bananas, Strawberry Papaya, mango, and of course Pineapple. Humpy’s of Kona tuned in the game for us and we started the game day at 10:30 am with Bloody Marys. The Cats won this year so Ryan was happy. 

We spent the afternoon trying stand up paddle boarding with lessons from Amy. It was a lot of fun especially when we were paddling with dolphins! We topped off an amazing day with tropical drinks and music with hula at Huggos on the water. The next day Brenda headed back to Oahu to spend the Thanksgiving holiday with family and Amy had to go back to real life. Ryan and I had all the intentions to drive up to the northern most part of the island to hike however we decided to spend the day at the beach…lucky us! 

From the Big Island we headed to Maui. More to come!