The Traveling Pine

Today was our final full day in Hawaii. We had planned to go to the Dole Plantation to revisit where the pineapple collection started. We had looked at bus routes before and from what we could remember it would take about an hour to get there. But when we checked this morning, it was a 2 hour ride. Neither of us wanted to spend 4 hours of our last full day in Hawaii on a bus, nor did we want to spend $90 on an Uber, so we decided to skip it.   The day turned into a chill beach/rest day instead. We wandered all the way down to the Hale Koa shopping area for a little while and I revisited a shop that had some earrings I liked, but still no sale for me. We sat on the beach for a little while people watching and then walked back to our room. We ended up taking a mid-day nap, which was refreshing. Then it was back to the beach for a little while. I knowingly didn’t reapply any sunscreens and will be paying the price. My legs are a bit red, but not as bad as I expected them to be. I brou...

  After our first night on Oahu, I think we both kind of miss our last hotel. There’s no open balcony door with the sounds of the ocean coming in and the pillows are terrible. BUT - that is not discouraging us from having a good day today! We had entrance to Diamond head State Park booked for noon, so we had plenty of time to find breakfast and hop on the bus up to the park. We found a corner cafe for breakfast and got a veggie panini and a breakfast burrito with veggie chorizo. Both were excellent. Ross also got a fruit smoothie while I snagged a lemon ginger tea. I’m still fighting a cold.  Even though we know we’d probably get there early, we went to the bus stop to catch our ride. Ross kept refreshing Google to see approximately when the next bus would arrive, but the time kept getting pushed later and later. We probably could have walked most of the way, but eventually our bus arrived. It was a quick ride and we were headed up the hill to the entrance in no time. We had v...

With such an amazing view from our room, we set an alarm to make sure we caught the sunrise. Even with a 6:30 alarm set, we were both awake by 6. The sunrise was as lovely as we had hoped, though we had our bearings a little off, so it rose in a slightly different direction than we were expecting. Either way, a beautiful way to start the day! We ate our farmer’s market fresh mango, papaya, and star fruit. I was not a fan of the star fruit, but the other two were so good! The papaya was easier to eat, but the mango might have won out on flavor, just barely. I look forward to more mango and papaya in my future! We took our time packing our bags and soaking up the views one last time. Eventually we got everything together and checked out of our room. We still had a little time to kill, so we went down the street to a Japanese garden. It was a peaceful walk and a nice end to our time on the big island. With our departure time getting closer, we headed to the airport. The Hilo airport is ni...