Aloha

Aloha! We're back from a great week on the big island of Hawaii! There were 12 adults, and 11 & an almost 1. Most of the folks stayed in a large 3-br condo, and Dave and Jeanne (pictured here) and hubby and I stayed in a very large 2-br just 1 building away. There was a pool between us and we spent much quality time in and around it! The 2 condos are timeshares and are in a beautiful complex that borders the ocean and wraps around a beautiful golf course.

Our condo looked out on the 16th green and we could look down the fairway and see the ocean beyond the trees. We had the best of both views in one! We had a lovely lanai (patio) where we started every morning with 2 pots of wonderful Kona coffee and watched the golf course staff taking care of the green, and ended the day with happy hour watching the golfers try to minimize their putts!

This is the view - you can see the ocean just above the low trees - of course in person the color of the ocean was much more vivid - it was dusky in this picture, so the colors aren't as bright!

Our first night sunset was spectacular - we couldn't see it from the lanai, but we walked out on the green and discovered that the trees made a beautiful frame for it!

I got to play golf with the guys two times! I was sooo jazzed! The first day (Tuesday) was with Dave and hubby - I haven't played in 4 years, so sometimes it wasn't pretty - but over-all not too bad! On Thursday the other 2 guys were supposed to play with them, but one got sick, so - what was I to do?!! I "had" to go play again!! I took 11 strokes off my Tuesday game! I had a higher score than the guys, but I didn't embarass myself!!

The golf course was beautiful - a lot of it was right on the ocean, and was bordered with very black volcanic rocks - the colors were just incredible!

When we got to the 16th green Jeanne came out and took our pictures - you can see her going back to our condo - this is how close we were - It was a perfect location!!

One of the fun things about going to a different place is the different food you can find! This is a Dragon Fruit - we saw it in the grocery store and it was too interesting to pass up! It is a beautiful fruit inside! It is really mild, faintly similar to the taste of a kiwi. We had it for breakfast two times!

(As you can see Jeanne's hair is making a good come-back! She still wears her hats and wigs, but only when we went out - its really soft, and looks like it could be coming in a bit wavy! Her "old" hair was very straight - so she is hoping for a bit of curl - sometimes that happens after a chemo-induced hair loss!)

This is our last morning breakfast - white pineapple (yum!), papaya, and dragon fruit! We squeezed a little lime on the papaya, and I even tried some on the dragon fruit (double yum!!)

We drove out to the volcano and looked around out there - that was our only rainy day - the remnants of a wanna-be hurricane were drifting by the south and east portions of the island. We went through the museums and the lava tube (interesting! - it was left after the lava quit flowing through it!), but the cloud cover was down low, so we didn't drive out around the old crater area. The current flow is not real accessible, so we didn't drive down to the coastal area to see that.

We stopped by the Volcano Winery on the way back - that was fun, and the Hawaiian Bread company - their bread is soooo wonderful!! It took about 2 hours to drive back to Kona, and until we rounded the south end of the island and started up the west side we had a LOT of rain! The closer we got to Kona though, the nicer the weather was, and by the time we got back to our condos the sky was blue and it was a beautiful evening!!

We snorkeled a lot - almost every day! ( no pictures - I didn't want to leave my camera sitting on the beach) the bay is just a half mile from the condo, and is protected by a reef - way out - so the bay is calm and a perfect refuge for some wonderful fish and sea turtles!! They were both in abundance this time of year and we never tired of watching them! Spending an hour or more in the water each time was easy!!

The 11-yr old in our group got to go swim with dolphins one day. The Hilton Waikola over on the north side of the island is a spectacular resort - we drove over and spent a few hours looking around one day. Ron (his grandpa) learned that if his folks would sit through a timeshare presentation, he could swim with the dolphins for free. It is normally $190 - and since they already have a timeshare, they had no problem listening to their talk and saying "no"! ( They were interested, however, and the Hilton plan was interesting to them - they will expore further!) Anyway 11 got to swim - he LOVED it!! He got to be right in the pool with the dolphins, pet them, even hold one up (in the water of course)!! They took tons of pictures, and of course the Hilton staff took a video - that came with the experience!

Ok - my laundry is done, I'm ready to pack and go back!! Hawaii is just one of those places you can go back to again and again and it just doesn't get old!! Aloha!