Hawaii part 2

Now we are to Friday of our tropical dream week :)  That morning we drove up to Waimea to have breakfast at a local and tourist hot spot called Hawaiian Style Cafe.  Holy delicious.  I'm still dreaming of those pancakes.  It was TONS of food for CHEAP.

 

From there Jim headed back home because he had just gotten off a night shift.  We drove to the other side of the island to Waipeo Valley.  We had upgraded our vehicle to a 4-wheel drive so we'd be able to drive down this crazy steep road to get into the valley.  But apparently the Tahoe they gave us didn't actually have 4-wheel drive.  We opted not to try it and we also didn't want to walk down it either. So we went to the lookout and took pictures :)  Maybe next time.

 

After that we drove the road down to Hilo, which was just along the coast and quite incredibly gorgeous.  The Big Island is cool in that there are like 13 of the 16 different climates on the one island (don't quote my facts...but the point is, there's a lot of different climates).  The Kona side is extremely dry, and the Hilo side is very rain forest like.  Pretty cool.

Then we went to Akaka Falls State Park.  We did about a one mile hike around and saw two different falls and lots of other cool jungle type plants.  Harvey was in heaven.  He seriously loved being faced out in his bjorn and being outside.  It was awesome.

I love Harvey's jowls in this picture!

 Funky flowers...

 Next stop was Hilo.  Apparently there is a lot of cool things to see and do in Hilo, but alas, we just did not have enough time to do EVERYTHING we could have on the island.  So we did a quick drive through of Hilo in search of some legit shave ice.  We found it and it was awesome.  Then we headed to the Mauna Loa Macadamian Nut Farm for a brief self guided tour and free samples - duh :)

Watching an informative video

 It was pretty cool.  This machine right below puts a little blob of chocolate out and then the workers hand place the nuts and then they get covered in chocolate and then put into boxes.  I think we showed up at closing time so we unfortunately didn't get to see all the workers in action.

 Chocolate covered shortbread cookies - all dipped by hand.  

 They had a little garden out front that had a bunch of different tropical plants.  I just liked these pictures.

 Last stop was dinner at Kaleo's.  One of Laura's friends told her about it and said it was basically the best food he'd ever eaten, so we figured that was worth a slightly out of the way drive.  It was.

Kalua pork wontons.  Amaze.Balls.

Harv got the shaft on dinner and resorted to eating me.

Wasabi crusted Mahi. Heaven in my mouth.

So ya.  Food was amazing.  Then we had a couple hour drive back to home base.  The next day we took it easy and spent the morning/afternoon at a private beach resort that the Martin's had access to. Oh my gosh it was glorious.  The colors of the water, the warmth of the water, the snorkeling, everything.  So awesome!

After the beach we went "home" and showered and then headed into town to shop a bit and get more shaved ice.

Harvey's pretty excited about it.

After shopping, we ran into a little spot where a guy was about to play some music. So we sat down, rested our feet, and enjoyed a little concert and ate hot dogs. It was rather impressive when he was playing the guitar and harmonica and doing some stuff with his feet.  Far more coordinated than I will EVER be.