Hawaiian Road Trip!

Chris and I decided to take our first ROAD TRIP in Hawaii. We got up relatively early and were on the road by 8am, driving in my car since Chris' truck is still drying out from the "Pele" incident earlier in the week.

I've done the circumnavigation trip around the Big Island once before, but went via Kau to Kona. This time we took Hilo-->Waimea-->Kona.

Leaving Hilo was WET. For the first hour on the Hamakua drive was some form a rain from a misting to a torrential downpour. From what we could see, the land is lush, green and there are some spectacular mansions. When we finally hit Waimea, I was a little surprised that it was such a lovely town. It actually seems like a more developed area than Hilo. What I mean is - I saw big-box stores I recognized. Store-wise, it was almost like being back in Kapolei! Waimea is so pretty. There's big spaces that have cattle, sheep, goat or horses. It seemed quiet and picturesque. Chris and I both agreed we could live in Waimea.

NORTH WAIMEA

Leaving Waimea, we hit Parker Ranch, where they were staging a rodeo! We didn't stop, but within minutes we both realized that the landscape had completely changed. Leaving Hilo it was wet rainforest; Waimea was green farmland; now, on the northern end of Waimea everything looked dead and like it had been dead for awhile. It was looking like a big wildfire waiting to happen. One neat thing we did see was the telescopes ontop of Mauna Kea. I wished I had stopped to take a photo.

Right around now we were hitting the two hour mark. Chris has always talked about how his limit is around two hours. Well right around two hours and three minutes, Chris was asleep!

I drove for about forty minutes later and over time the landscape seemed to increase in elevation and some green, life color was returning to the land. At long last we pulled into Kailua-Kona. The first leg of our first Hawaiian road trip pau :)

KAILUA-KONA