Day 21 - Kohala & Rain

Today we got a rather late start, but fortified ourselves with some reheated malasadas and coffee before starting out for North Kohala and Hawi.  One thing about Hawaii is that there is usually only one or two routes to follow to get anywhere, so you travel a lot of the highways several times while day-tripping around the island.

We stopped off at Spencer Beach Park and got long distance look at Pu'ukohola Heiau (ancient temple).  Since it was Saturday there were a lot of locals picnicking at the beach and lots of people in the water.  We drove right through Kawaihae, but stopped at Lapakahi State Historical Park further up the road.  Katie & Margie & I walked down the rocky, and in some places steep, path to look at the grass huts that are along the path to the ocean.  Of course, what goes down the path must go back up. 

We drove through Hawi, looking for someplace to eat lunch, but we all needed a restroom, so  back tracked to the visitor's center, which has nice facilities.  I talked with the man there who said that the North Kohala area has added only about 100 people in the past 10 years and it has been designated as a no growth area with no chain stores and franchises.  Their economy is strictly farming/ranching with a little bit of tourism as only about 10% of the visitors to the Big Island make the effort to go up there.  Historically, they grew sugar cane in this area and the town of Hawi is like a slice of old Hawaii with 100 year old store fronts housing galleries, shops, and restaurants.  We ate at Bamboo, which was good, then went across the street for Tropical Dreams ice cream for dessert.  After visiting a couple of galleries, we started back south via the Kohala Mountain road (250).  This is a very scenic highway across the Kohala Mountains (extinct volcano), and probably the oldest part of the island geologically.  The clouds were low and we encountered some heavy rain, but visibility was good and we could still see a lot of the scenery, though views of Mauna Kea, Mauna Loa, and the ocean were obscured.

This morning I sorted through all of the stuff I've accumulated since I've been here and decided I didn't need to buy any more stuff, which didn't keep me from buying a pair of earrings in Hawi today.  Oh, well!

We got back to the condo about 5:30, had some mai-tais and steak for dinner.