So here I am, Friday night, the last night of my third and, dare I say, most fantastic of my summer of three fantastic vacations. I'm sitting in the Kona-Kailua airport, which is an entirely-outdoors structure. I understand why they do this, because it's Hawaii and it's, you know, nice and stuff. However, it is also, you know, humid and stuff, and I am currently sweating in places that a family-friendly blog like this dare not describe. My kingdom for some air conditioning!
Although it does amuse me that the only announcements I've heard over the PA system so far have been in Japanese. It doesn't amuse me as much as some AC would please me, but you take what you can get in life, right?
So, this post is undoubtedly going to be disjointed, since I am hot and sweaty, and I'm going to be trying to accurately recollect three days' worth of events. In addition, I'm sure I'll have to get up in the middle at some point and board the plane, which will probably reduce the quality of the post but will also reduce the ambient temperature, a trade-off I am all too happy to make.
I didn't write much about 'lay on the beach' day because, frankly, there wasn't much worth writing about. We slept in, had a slow breakfast. Eventually, we headed off to try to find a beach. At the advice of the apparently-not-too-well-informed desk clerk at the hotel, we started around the Hilton north of town, which is the general vicinity of the white sand beaches. After following signs for the shoreline, we ended up at a beach made up entirely of black volcanic rocks and white chunks of coral. Not exactly the beaches of my dreams that I was promised.
We hiked back through the grounds of the Hilton (very nice, resort-ey hotel, in case that's the sort of thing you are looking for next time you're in Kona) and got back in the car.
At this point, I feel like a small digression is appropriate. If you are going to travel to Hawaii, any of the islands, I highly recommend the Hawaii...Revealed series of books (in this case, “Hawaii, The Big Island Revealed.”) There's really nothing I hate more in a guidebook than indecisiveness. I don't want a book that tells me about 18,000 different things to do. I'm never going to have time to do all those things, and I don't really want to waste my time reading about the 17,990 that I'm not going to do.
I just want you to tell me the 10ish things that I really ought to do while I'm there. I don't even need the '10 best.' As a habit, I try not to regret the things I don't do. Instead, try to make sure that you enjoy the things you do do (heh heh, he said 'doo doo.') So, I want to make sure that I have a list of things that are pretty cool.
And so, 'Hawaii, The Big Island Revealed.' Short, small, easy to carry.
When I wanted a white sandy beach, we looked under the 'Beaches' section. A brief scan lets us know that Kohala, north of Kona, is the place for white sandy stuff. Look for the ones labelled 'A Real Gem'. Sure enough, Mauna Kea. A few miles north, just off the main drag. Sounds super.
When we arrive, suddenly Mike remembers: Mauna Kea is a resort hotel. The hotel building was hit by an earthquake not too long ago and condemned. Fortunately, it looks like the beach is still open. But mostly empty, since the hotel is closed down. The condos associated with the hotel are still open, so the bar is still open for the residents. $10 for a very tasty Mai Tai – a little pricey but what the hell, it's my birthday week!
A few hours on the beach, a nice sunset, and some reasonably serious amounts of alcohol consumed back at the hotel, and all-in-all a very nice day.
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