Kona coast and the Volcano Nat'l Park (Hawaii, the BIG island)
we landed on the big island, and found ourselves saddled with hunger and thirst (no surprise there). enjoyed some lunch at Huggo's. I'll go ahead and say that most of my fears of high prices in Hawaii have been shattered. we found most meals to be of similar cost/value as what we have here in Austin.
we ate a lot of poke (pronounced POH-kay), raw fish in Hawaii. EXCELLENT!
we stayed at the Sheraton in Kona. it's right on the water but there is no beach there, just big surf and sharp lava rocks. they lei'd us at check in.
the Sheraton "resort" was a bit too nice. the kids wanted to spend all their time in the pool there. it had several different areas, a giant water slide and faux beach.
we'd enjoyed that hot pot back in honolulu so much, we tried shabu shabu (japanese hot pot). sad to say, nowhere near as good as the Sweet Home Cafe and their Taiwanese hot pot.
guy cutting up fresh tuna at Da Poke Shack. I'm here to say it, it was good!
Sheraton had a restaurant over the cliffs, Ray's on the Bay. they aimed spot lights onto the water after sunset and attracted giant manta ray.
we reserved a table with a fire pit.
we sampled dragon fruit from a local fruit vendor. tasted a bit like kiwi, just a bit less flavor.
ACTIVE VOLCANO! it was belching smoke, sulphur gasses and fire!
the steam column to the left is molten lava flowing into the ocean.
there were places where the earth opened up and vented steam from down below.
standing near that edge made me nervous, not kat.
and the road was swallowed up by a lava flow. we took off on foot from here. kat hiked in for a while, stood at the edge of the cliff (no hand or gaurd rail) and she took video...
spent far too little time at Kua Bay, beautiful beach and great snorkeling location.
