35 Miles, on 2 Wheels, in Fresno

So I've mentioned before -- several times, and probably more than is necessary -- that my knees are bad.  Bad, BAD knees.  No dessert for you.  I can't walk/jog like my wife can, and it can even be a challenge to walk a 5K without limping for a day or two afterwards; but without the impact of walking I'm not too bad off.  For instance, I can ride a bike pretty well -- my butt might not appreciate the bicycle seat very much, but my knees appreciate the exercise.

That last rambling paragraph leads me to this: we were just in Fresno to attend and celebrate my niece's graduation from Fresno State University, where she got her Master's degree (congrats again to her!)  As it happens, that same weekend is the bicycle portion of the California Classic event, which is a companion event for the California Classic half marathon / 5K that took place and in which we participated back in March.  Because we got the finisher's medallion from the walk portion, we decide to get the matching interlocking cycling medallion as well.  The pedestrian events consisted of a half marathon or a  5K fun run; the bicycle event has the options of a 100-mile "century" ride, a 60-mile "metric" ride, or the 35-mile "mini-metric" ride.  Seeing as how the longest we've ridden so far has been a little over 21 miles, we opt for the mini metric.

Because it's Fresno, in May, the ride starts at a very early hour to avoid the Valley heat; so we arrive early enough to get a really good parking spot (a combination of lucky timing and my sister-in-law's keen observation and quick thinking, we get the first two spots right at an intersection, making our exit strategy after the ride simple and easy) and head over to the starting point, where a large number of cyclists has already gathered.  We take a few obligatory group shots (try as I might to be the guy taking the pictures, I still end having to pose for a few myself) and a few minutes after 7 the ride begins.

The first few miles are along closed streets downtown, winding past office buildings and through residential neighborhoods, past police officers directing traffic as we gradually ride along larger and busier streets, until after about 5 miles we hit the highlight of this particular ride, where for a ten-mile stretch we ride north along a section of southbound California State Route 168 which has been closed for the occasion.  According to the California Classic web site, it's the only ride in California where Caltrans shuts down part of a freeway for a bicycle ride... and it is a glorious thing.  Instead of a three- or four-foot strip along the shoulder of a street where cars are whipping past your left elbow at far-too-quick speeds for my liking, we have a full four lanes of smooth road, hundreds of cyclists enjoying the still-cool morning air and clear sky, peace and quiet of no vehicle engines nearby, encouraging cheering from the spectators along the freeway overpasses above us; all of which add up to what almost seems like a wonderful post-apocalyptic outing, without any nuclear winter or zombie attacks (the absence of which is also nice.)  I use the wide lanes and abundance of space to entertain myself by taking some video from my newly purchased mini camcorder which I've installed on the side of my bike helmet, and by taking a few shots with my iPhone, both of the other riders on the freeway and a few selfies with family members in the background.  I'm a geek; this is what I do.

One thing I definitely notice during this stretch is that the gentle rolling hills of the freeway -- which we had driven down just over an hour ago in our car getting to the starting point -- seems much more daunting riding a bike than when in a motor vehicle.  Sure, the first long hill isn't too bad, but the second one comes much too quickly before I have a chance to recover; and while I do get a good amount of speed coasting downhill after the climb I immediately have to climb a third hill, and then a fourth... the underpasses we encounter along the Guadalupe River trail in San Jose are quite a bit steeper than these, but they're only a few hundred feet long instead of a quarter or half mile, and my leg muscles let me know they don't really appreciate the longer distance climbs.  We're all able to manage the hills, though, which is good -- I'm glad they came at the beginning of the ride instead of near the end -- and after a total of about 15 miles we exit the highway and take a quick break at the first rest stop.

We parks our bikes, grab some of the snacks they offer (licorice, fruit, and other simple sugars and carbs for energy), I take a minute or two more to get my knee working properly again (the vastus medialis muscle, or the quadriceps femoris muscle, or the kneecapsicum hurtialis, or whatever the name of the thing is that hurts so dang much when I bend my knee sometimes) and we're off and riding again, this time along the side of country roads around the outskirts of Clovis.  There aren't any legitimate bike lanes along the roads here, but the shoulders are wide and there isn't much traffic, and after the mostly uphill first leg of this ride -- a net rise of 150 feet or so in the fifteen miles of freeway, but quite a bit more than that taking the rolling hills into account -- this portion of the route is mostly flat, so my legs appreciate the easier work.  As we get closer to our second rest stop, however, I do start getting some complaints from a different body part -- while I do have a bicycle seat that is wider and more cushioned than most, my butt is also wider than most butts (no comment on the cushioning comparison), so I'm getting a little tenderness in my nethers the further we ride.

I take the second rest stop as an opportunity to refill my water bottles (it's getting warmer and they have both water and ice here, which is a very welcome thing) and stretch my legs for a bit before the final portion of the ride.  As we ride through the streets through the southeastern portion of Fresno toward the finish line, the traffic gets heavier, the shoulders narrower, the day hotter, and my butt grumpier; but we persevere.  After a few miles of riding through the downtown area (they do have bike lanes here, but also a lot more traffic; and by now all three bike routes have reconnected so there are a lot more cyclists than during our last portion) we begin our approach to the finish line.  I get a little concerned as we notice a huge column of thick smoke emanating from where we estimate the finish line to be, but as we find out later it's a three-alarm fire at an abandoned Del Monte packinghouse a block past the finish line, which thankfully doesn't affect the bike ride and -- more importantly -- isn't anywhere close to where our cars are parked.  I get a few video clips and iPhone photos of the smoke from various distances as we ride the last mile or two of the route, because it's newsworthy and just in case we need them for insurance purposes.

We cross the finish line triumphantly to the cheers of volunteers and spectators and maybe a hobo or two, make a U-turn before we ride into the fire trucks, and head toward the valet bike parking area where we also receive our race medallions. We walk (a bit stiffly, at least in my case) into Chukchansi Stadium and partake of the free light lunch they offer to riders, and I also have a cup of free ice cream that they're serving from the Cold Stone Creamery cart (their coffee ice cream is one of the better coffee ice creams out there) to help cool off a bit, as it's almost noon and it's getting pretty darn hot out.  The free lunch consists of decent but dry rice pilaf, very well-done (almost rubbery) tri-tip, salad, a roll, and crunchy green beans.  It's protein and carbs; maybe not fantastic fare but needed after riding for three hours -- my Cyclemeter app says I burned 3400 calories during the ride; that seems a bit high to me but I do need to hydrate and make up for some of what was burned.  We'll make it up with a much better lunch later in the day.

The finisher's medallion is a Fresno cityscape, with a tiger head on the bottom (it's sponsored in part by Chaffee Zoo, and the tiger is their mascot critter) and some cyclists  in the lower left portion; the half marathon medallion is the same cityscape and tiger, but with runners in the bottom right.  The medallions fit together in such a way that both event names are visible, along with the runners and cyclists... it entertains me greatly.  The 5K was the first walk/run event this year for us, and today's bike event was the longest ride we've done to date; it's a whimsical little thing to have interlocking medallions, and both events are something to be at least a little proud of, so I am happy about having gotten them.

Even if my butt's a little whiny about it.

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Hawai'i One-3, Day 11: Aloha Nui Loa, Hawai'i

It's always a bummer leaving Hawai'i and coming back home.  Today is no exception.

We wake up, take a few last pictures of ourselves on the lanai with the ocean in the background (and I will never get tired of that view -- my wife or the ocean -- let me tell you), and pack our luggage.  It's grown from two suitcases to four in the week and a half since we've been on the Islands (taking an idea from my mom, we've been nesting our clothing suitcase inside of a larger suitcase on the way over, matryoshka style, and filling the larger one with souvenirs [coffee] and stuff [coffee] that we buy [roast] while we're here [drinking coffee]), so we call down and have a nice brudda help us wit da bags.

We pay the bill -- as always, made substantially larger by hotel-related taxes and fees as well as our bar tab -- and overstuff our poor convertible for the drive to the airport.  We manage to fit the two smaller suitcases in the dinky little trunk, but the larger suitcases have to be put into the rear seat of the car.  Convertibles aren't known for their luggage hauling capacity, and every trip here reminds us of this.  Fitting for our moods, it's gray and cloudy today, and we need to stop a few miles out of Kailua-Kona to put the top up when it begins to rain.

I drop Lucie and our luggage off at the airport (the cloth interior of the car gets a bit damp because I have to lower the ragtop to get the suitcases out of the back seat) and I  hitch a ride with the shuttle once I drop the car off at the rental agency (the attendant who signs the car in sees all of the rain spots in the car and on the cloth seats, just grins, and says nothing about potential water damage -- obviously not an uncommon occurrence here, I'm guessing.)  By the time I get back, our luggage has been checked by the porters (love those guys!) and Lucie has our boarding passes in hand, and it's a relatively easy walk into the gates through the metal detectors and TSA agents with their grabby and judgmental hands.

Because we're hoity-toity Important First Class Passengers, we're able to access Hawaiian Airlines' "Premiere Lounge" while we're waiting for the connecting flight to Maui... and believe me, until you get to experience the Kona Airport's Premiere Lounge, with its fountain drink dispenser and free WiFi, not to mention high-speed PC hookup (note the lack of plural there), you haven't lived a full life.  Okay, so it's not the Ritz or anything, but there are comfortable seats, and it's an air-conditioned room, and we do appreciate the WiFi, so it really is a nice touch.  We sit at a table and pull out our iPads for the twenty minutes or so before our plane is set to arrive, and then make our way out to the gate.

It's a short jump over to Maui -- we wave at the sugar cane fields as we land -- but the ten minute wait for the flight to the Mainland turns into almost 45 minutes as the plane we're scheduled to board isn't yet at the assigned space.  There's no early boarding because of this, and no "delayed" notice on the info board, but while we're not thrilled about how crowded the waiting room becomes during this time we're certainly not going to complain about getting to stay in Hawai'i for a little while longer.

The flight back (once the place finally arrives) seems to take much longer than usual, due to the turbulence that we hit on the way.  The flight attendants are instructed to take their seats on two different occasions, the drink carts are delayed a few times for safety reasons, and it's a bit of a challenge to watch the movie selections on the entertainment tablets (iPad minis with Hawaiian Airlines branding and operating software) they loan us First Class passengers -- although if you time the turbulence jostling just right, it totally cancels out the camera shaking in Star Trek: Into Darkness so it looks like Kirk and Spock are just drunk.  Hard to follow some of the archery shots in Brave, though.

Dinner on the flight -- when we're flying smoothly enough to break out the flatware, at least -- is enjoyable.  I opt for the salmon roulade appetizer, while Lucie has the chicken salad with ginger sesame dressing; she has the macadamia nut chicken entree and I have the red pepper gnocchi with cream sauce; and I have the chocolate covered vanilla ice cream bombe they offer for dessert.  The bombes are kept under deep freeze with dry ice, apparently, because it takes a good 10-15 minutes before I can even break the chocolate coating with my spoon, much less scoop into the ice cream... but it's refreshingly cold, sweet and creamy, and worth the wait.  a drizzle of raspberry sauce on the side adds a welcome sharp fruity bite.

We arrive back in Oakland a few minutes early, and are greeted by Dean, our usual driver, who we missed on our drive up.  We fall right back into casual and entertaining banter on our drive back to San Jose.  Lucie briefly considers asking Dean to hit a drive through for a burger because she's never ordered fast food from a stretch limousine before, but opts not to.  We take one more silly selfie of the two of us in the limo as one last digital souvenir, and arrive back at our place without incident.  Dean brings our luggage up to our front door, we thank him with a nice tip and some coffee -- we do have some to spare, and we bought some specifically as a tip in case he was our driver (in all honesty I wouldn't tip Demetrius nearly as generously) -- and pronounce an end to our latest Hawaiian vacation.

Mahalo, and aloha a hui ho.

http://youtu.be/IBU9Awbe2b4

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Hawai'i One-3, Day 10: Ali'i is Love

It's our last full day in Hawai'i, and it's a strange dichotomy of not much planned for the day but still a lot that we want to do, so we're up a little early and off to breakfast.  We had spoken with our waiter last night at Kai Lanai about where to find a decent macadamia nut pancake, and one of the places he recommended was the Big Island Grill, a favorite spot for locals.  It's definitely a local hot spot, we find out, as we have a little difficulty finding a parking place in the lot; but luckily there's a vacant location on the far side of the lot with an open spot, so we park and enjoy the sunny morning as we walk back to the building. The coffee is passable -- not our preferred medium roast 100% Kona, but not swill either -- and the breakfast plates are generous.  Lucie's macadamia nut and banana pancakes are the size of slightly-larger-than-normal Frisbees, stacked two high and slathered in buttery goodness.  I see an intriguing option in the menu and go for the shrimp scampi omelet.  It's shrimp scampi.  In an omelet.  Definitely good flavors, not shy with the garlic at all, and I'd order it again if given the chance... but it's still kind of weird to my brain as I'm eating.  My taste buds say yum, nose says yum, and gray matter says what the what?

After breakfast, we head up to our one scheduled appointment for the day, which is just a few miles up the Mamalahoa Highway.  From Mamalahoa, we turn right onto Kaloko Road, and drive for several minutes up the steep curvy road, crossing Hao Street, and a few minutes later we cross Hao street... and a minute or two after that, we turn right onto Hao street.  This is confusing for most people, but it's our fifth time coming here in four trips to Hawai'i (maybe it's only our fourth trip, but for some reason I seem to remember coming up here twice one time) -- I'm talking of course about the Kaloko Cloud Forest farm location for the Mountain Thunder Coffee Plantation, and it's always a welcome sight.  It's also busy -- busier than it was last time, which was busier than it was the time before that, and so on.  These guys have been getting more famous and popular in the years since Mike Rowe first visited them and featured them in his show Dirty Jobs back in 2005, and today there are two small tour buses and half a dozen cars parked along the road and in the courtyard of the Big Island's largest and highest (elevation-wise) organic coffee plantation.  We still have a few minutes before our scheduled tour, so we hit the gift shop -- located off the main courtyard in what looks like two connected shipping containers -- and fill up a couple of bags of coffee-scented lotions and coffee (whole bean, "American Roast" [their name for a light roast]), several T-shirts and a tank top that actually fit me (albeit a bit snugly, but that's only for now), chocolate covered coffee beans, some children's books for our coworkers, and assorted other items with coffee or Hawaiian themes.

Kyle, the nice guy running the register, turns out to be the host for our Roastmaster Tour, so after I bring our purchases out to our car we start roasting some beans.  It's another wonderful experience roasting, as I get to operate their smaller Diedrich roaster (which is still far and away a huge beast in comparison to the quaint tiny cement mixers used for the UCC roastmaster tour) and make a little over five pounds of coffee to a city roast.  I'm slightly bummed that they stopped providing the customized labels like they did last time for the bags the beans get sealed into for the final product, but that's certainly not a deal breaker -- it's really all about the beans.

As with every roastmaster event I've ever done, I once again totally geek out as Kyle walks me through the steps of roasting using the Diedrich -- keeping the vents closed until the machines get to the right temperature, dumping the beans into the drum, venting air at the right time to get the beans cracking, dumping the beans at a city roast -- just a little darker than the light roast of their American Roast, but much lighter than their Vienna Roast (and just forget about their French Roast.)  They're still using the huge 5-gallon Homer bucket to hold the beans before and after roasting, which just tickles me greatly; it's without a doubt the best smelling Homer bucket out there (unless there's someone who stores cooked bacon in one, in which case we need to FIND that guy and take the Baconfryer Tour which I'm assuming they offer.)

After I roast and then package the beans (heat sealed into nitrogenated bags, to preserve freshness), we head back down the mountain into town.  We stop at the UPS Store and ship a suitcase full of souvenirs and food items (and, of course, coffee beans) to my work address so we don't have to pay ridiculous airport fees (although, since it turns out that we ship three 25-pound boxes of stuff, it's still not exactly cheap using UPS either!), then drive back to the hotel.

From there, we decide to take one more walk along Ali'i Drive to enjoy the day before tonight's luau.  We walk up the mauka (inland) side of the road, stopping along the way at the Big Island Running Company to say hello, for Lucie to thank them for inviting her on their run a few days ago, and to buy one or two more items; then up a little further where we have lunch at That Taco Place (very wide range of ratings on Yelp -- they're very slow in bringing out the food, but that's just Island Time so no worries, and the food isn't spectacular but it is tasty so it serves its purpose, and since we eat our food sitting at the counter facing the ocean it's definitely a good experience); poking our heads into the Kona Square Mall marketplace, one of our usual stops (Country Samurai Coffee provides some good swag, but Island Silversmith has closed and they don't offer sarongs any more at the other store Lucie likes); buying more stuff at Del Sol and Whaler's General Store and Big Island Kine; then crossing the street to the oceanfront mauka side of the road and heading back to the hotel.  Along the way, we make more stops at two of the 4 ABC Stores along Ali'i, and at Keoki's Donkey Balls (again), and at one of the local guys selling palm fronds folded into roses, and at Hulihee Palace (we don't go in, though, because there's a coconut tree out front that keeps me at bay), and once or twice just to stop and enjoy the ocean view, and to watch the small crabs scuttling along the rocks just on the other side of the small breakwater wall along which we're walking.  It's a beautiful day, sunny and crazy -- but bearably -- hot, with the ocean twenty feet to my right, and the Island beneath my feet, and my wife next to me holding my hand; there's not much at all in this world that could possibly be better, and I am very content.

We attend the luau at our hotel that evening.  The food is good, as it always is; Lucie hurts her foot when we arrive, however, so we retire from the luau a little early and do our best to nurse the foot back to health by heading to the breezeway bar and having her raise it onto the wall as we drink frozen tropical drinks and watch the ocean.  Don's does a good job of making everything feel better (if maybe a little blurry after several drinks.)

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Hawai'i One-3, Day 9: A'a, Nene, Mahi Mahi

It's our ninth day in Hawai'i (eighth morning), and on our books for for today is our trip down the Kona coast to Volcanoes Park.  We didn't get to Volcanoes on our last trip, so it's about time to visit Pele's playground and pay our respects to Kilauea; plus, we have a scheduled hiking tour of the park with Native Guide Hawaii's native Hawaiian guide Warren Costa. We're supposed to meet him at the visitor center at 09:30, and it takes more than 2 hours to get there from Kona, so it's an early morning wake up for us.

We start off slightly behind schedule, but thanks to what may be my driving a tiny bit over the posted speed limit we end up down around the south point of the island a little bit ahead of schedule; so we decide to make a brief stop at the Punalu'u Bakery ("Southernmost bakery in the USA!")... but we pull into the parking lot before they're open.  This is almost becoming a theme for our vacation, but like with Kai Lanai yesterday we just shrug and decide to come back later.  We get to Volcanoes National Park (now open once again, after the temporary government shutdown) and meet up with Warren right on time (he's actually a few minutes late, but that's just Island Time, which is fine.)

Climbing into his minivan, we drive from the visitor center out past the steam vents close to the Jaggar Museum parking lot and park near the Kau Desert Trail, where we take our first hike -- along the trail to the edge of the main caldera, almost in the shadow of the rangers' observation post. There's no active lava flowing in plain view, but there's some definite smoke or steam or magic lava exhaust or Scientologist thetans or something rising up from the crater's activity pit of doom -- where all the Hobbits throw those gold rings -- and we stand there for a bit, oohing and ahhing while Warren talks about the latest volcanic activity.  He also points out the native flora that's managing to grow from the rocky soil, such as the hapu'u tree fern and ili'ahi and ohi'a lehua and pai'iniu and pilo and lots of other plants that have names with lots of vowels and 'okinas (those apostrophe-looking fellas that make you swallow your epiglottis while speaking in the Hawaiian language) which is pretty darn interesting and educational and overall just flat-out cool.

We walk back out to the vehicle, and drive from the caldera down just a bit to the steam vents; there's a large number of tour buses parked here and a pretty sizable crown of visitors clustered around the three nearby steam vents, standing safely behind the installed fence so there's no chance of falling in.  Warren walks us past those boring vents, through a field of wild orchids and ferns, over to what essentially becomes our very own private steam vent, without any of those pesky background noises or camera-schlepping haole or safety structures. We carefully walk down a couple of natural steps in the rock, slick with moss and steam, along the edge of the vent.  The hole itself is surprisingly large and deep -- you could fit a classic Cadillac into this thing --  and standing there in the steam (very soothing and warm, with only a slight mineral smell) standing on the moist lichen-covered lava rock is both calming and nerve-wracking at the same time.

From there, we get back into the minivan and drive down the Chain of Craters Road (and just like every time I talk about Volcanoes Park, I mistakenly say "crane of chaiters" at least half the time I say it out loud) as Warren continues to talk about life in Hawai'i.  The discussion ranges from the private Hawaiian cultural immersion Punana Leo preschools which strive to maintain the native culture in today's youth, to the different lava types (a'a, the fast flowing lava, and the slower pahoehoe) and the science behind how they're formed, to really cool formations such as lava trees and angel hair (needle-like strands of lava, not the pasta.)  We make another quick stop along the side of the road and hike out to an unmarked pit crater (essentially a sinkhole caused by receding magma) named Devil's Throat.  As with our own private steam vent, Devil's Throat is our own private pit crater for today; because it's not marked nor visible from the road, it's kind of a secret find that many locals don't even know about.  Technically, though, we're not alone as we stand near the edge (not too close, Warren warns us, since the edge of pit craters have been known to collapse and it's a 165-foot drop if one were to fall in) since there's a large beehive that formed along the side of the near-vertical wall and we have a dozen or so bees flying around us as we try to remain calm and not flail at them (which would be a very unwise thing to do when standing near a 150-foot wide chasm in the earth's surface without any safety rails or fence.)  I do manage to get a decent shot of the beehive below us, and we retreat back the vehicle away from wildlife.

We make one more stop further down the road, almost within sight of the end of the Crane of Chaiters Road where lava closed off the pavement, and hike on the lava for a few hundred feet until we come to the edge of the island.  We stand at the edge of a cliff, seeing nothing but ocean in front of us (were the Earth flat, and with good enough binoculars, we could theoretically look due south and see Antarctica), just enjoying the day and everything we've seen and experienced today.  There's a lava arch we can see off to the left, with the crashing waves making spectacular foamy photo opportunities, and maybe 50 feet back from the cliff there's a small crater in the lava, maybe 18 inches deep and five feet in diameter, which we all kind of simultaneously realize would make a great place to have the picnic lunch which comes with our tour.  Warren breaks out a tablecloth and uses it as a picnic blanket, and we nosh on poke (sesame as well as creamy wasabi flavors), One Ton chips, sandwiches, fresh pineapple, and a Hawaiian take on teriyaki beef.  The food is relatively simple fare but delicious, and it's actually perfect for the day's theme -- any food that's fancy or too complex just wouldn't feel right when you're eating lunch in a crater in the middle of a lava field.  I'm sure you know how that is.

Warren even takes some time helping me look for the so-called "nene", which is exactly as successful as I expect it to be; specifically, we can't find any.  Sure, he hems and haws trying to come up with an excuse other than "the haole's on to us", and eventually looks up in a book -- which, and this is important, he doesn't actually let ME read myself -- that early November is roosting season for nene.  Actually, I think he says it's nesting season, since a nest is built to be sat in while a roost is perched on, which is different.  And that's beside the point, since I believe all nene that people see are actually manufactured in a factory somewhere by Disney imagineers or something.  It's right around this time that Lucie presents me with a souvenir of Hawai'i, my very own plush nene, whom I call Santa for obvious reasons (...because he's a present, like you get at Christmas.)  I figure this is as close to seeing an "actual" nene as I'm gonna get, and it really does entertain me that she was able to surprise me with this, so I'm satisfied with what I generously consider a nene sighting.

We drive down the remaining stretch of road to where everybody else gets out and hikes across the lava to where the most active flow is happening; but since there really isn't an active lava flow right now and my knee says it don't wanna we decide not to do that particular hike and drive back up Chain of Craters Road to the rim of the main caldera.  Warren stops at the pleasantly-named Devastation Trail where we do an easier (on my knee, at any rate) walk along a gravel path to the edge of the crater.  From here, we can look across to the other side of the ridge and see where we had been standing just a few hours ago next to the observation area by Jaggar Museum.  The scenery is just as impressive from this point of view, and we ooh and ahh as Warren talks about an eruption that happened in this spot back in 1959, where the lava fountained as high as 1900 feet at one point, creating the angled peak where we're standing.

We make one more stop at Nāhuku, a.k.a. the Thurston Lava Tube, and walk through the lush rain forest to do some volcanic spelunking.  This is our first time walking through the tube; during previous visits we either had on the wrong footwear or my back and/or knees were too bad to make the hike.  We enjoy the remarkable quiet forest setting, hearing the songbirds and enjoying the copious shade from the trees overhead, make our way carefully down the stairs and across the bridge that spans the chasm leading into the tunnel (Warren motions over the side of the bridge to the rocks below, pointing out some cameras and sunglasses accidentally dropped by previous visitors), through the dark and wet lava tube, and back out into the Hawaiian jungle on the other side.  It's still weird to me -- in a really cool way -- that we're standing in a rain forest with trees a hundred feet high and ground that is permanently wet from condensation and no direct sunlight getting through the canopy overhead, and there's a barren desertlike wasteland less than a quarter mile away from the volcanic activity.  It's just one more way the the Big Island is so freaking awesome.

We drive back to the Visitor Center and say our goodbyes to Warren, thanking him profusely for the experience.  If we had just relied on following the road or using the pamphlets for what to do we'd never have experienced half of what we did today.  From the best lookout spots to the hidden secret steam vents and pit craters, it's definitely one of the more educational and science-geeky experiences we've had in Hawai'i, and I am very grateful for his expertise and knowledge, not to mention his easy-going attitude and adaptability to the challenge of taking an old fat guy with a bad knee hiking on lava.  Warren Costa, you are a good dude.  Mahalo.

On our way back to the hotel, we make two more stops, making up for previous missed opportunities... first at Punalu'u Bakery where we share some malasadas and cold beverages (and buy some of their shortbread cookies for bringing back to the Mainland), and for dinner at Kai Lanai.  Finally experiencing Sam Choy's Big Island eatery is nice -- we don't have reservations so we don't get a totally unimpeded view of the sunset, but enough of a view to still be enjoyable, and the food is worthy of celebrity chef association.  For our appetizers we split the shoyu poke and an order of coconut glazed short ribs -- the poke is a slightly deeper flavor than what we normally eat, due to the more intense Japanese shoyu when compared to the Americanized Chinese soy sauce, but it's good if a little salty for Lucie's taste; and the coconut glazed short ribs are a great combination of crisp skin, toothy mean, savory pork goodness, and light sweet hit from the glaze.  It's not only really tasty, it's not a flavor combination we've had yet this trip (nothing against raw tuna, but poke is always a variation on a theme as far as the different flavors are concerned; but glazed dry cooked short ribs have their own porky niche in the island mealtime echelon.)  For the main course, Lucie opts for the New York steak and I go with the furikake crusted mahi mahi -- unfortunately, most of the sauces offered with their daily specials have too much cream for the lactose intolerant to enjoy, but her steak is at least a very good one, so there's that.  The mahi mahi is light and buttery, just a hint of dry bitterness from the furikake, and the accompanying piña colada I order from the bar is crazy strong, so that's a nice thing.  Dessert is a chocolate cake for Lucie and coconut chocolate mousse for me, along with a cup of French press Kona coffee medium roast.  Sweet, sugary, and caffeinated is pretty much always a good thing.

After we finish our meal and relax for a bit -- and also discover that the restrooms are decorated differently, with the men's room having a deep red lava and fire theme, and the women's restroom having a soothing blue aquatic theme -- before driving back into our Big Island hometown of Kailua-Kona.  We cruise Ali'i Drive a bit, and take advantage of a conveniently-located parking place to stop and walk around to assist with our digestion.  The henna on my arm is a little light (and smeared, as a result of a humidity assault when we first arrived and had it applied) so I get it retouched at Kona Henna Studios.  We pop into the storefront for Keoki's Donkey Balls and buy a variety of their wares -- chocolate covered macadamia nuts, coffee, coffee candy, chocolate covered malt balls, chocolate covered coffee beans, and a set of golf balls -- for familial distribution, and then head back to our hotel for the evening.

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Hawai'i One-3, Day 8: Hawi Doin'

We awake on another day in paradise, but even in paradise we feel the need to keep in shape; so we decide to check out the exercise room at our hotel and see what kinds of equipment it has.

The exercise room is actually a repurposed ground floor hotel room, and not exactly a large room at that, so there isn't much they can do with it -- there's a treadmill, an elliptical, a recumbent bicycle, some free weights, a small bench, and a couple Pilates balls.  Lucie starts off on the treadmill and I give the bicycle a go, but quickly find that as with most exercise bicycles I can't adjust the seat to where my leg doesn't bend to the point of pain when pedaling, so I move to the free weights.  We work out for a half hour or so, with Lucie moving to the elliptical and bicycle as I focus on the free weights, utilizing the Pilates ball for wall squats, and opening the sliding door and planking using the lanai wall facing the ocean right in front of us.  It's not the best exercise setup, but we certainly can't complain about the view while we're working out.

After exercising, we head back to our room and prepare for the day.  During our last visit to the Big Island, we had wanted to stop by Hawaii's favorite celebrity chef Sam Choy's new restaurant Kai Lanai; however, the construction had been running on Island Time and didn't open on time before our arrival, so we missed out.  This time, however, the restaurant has been open for a while (not surprising, as it's been over two years since our last vacation) so we figure we can try them out for an early lunch before heading up to Hawi... but due to our being maybe a little too casual and relaxed on our vacation we don't bother to check out the restaurant's hours before we drive there, so we end up arriving about 45 minutes before they open for the day.  D'ohh.

No worries -- we decide to try them again some other time, and instead of waiting around until the doors open we opt to drive up to Hawi and have lunch at one of the places up there that we've read about.  We head up along the Kohala coast highway one more time, much like we did for the Hilo trip; however, at the point where yesterday we headed inland toward Waimea staying on highway 19 we instead turn left and take highway 270 along the coast.  It's a beautiful drive, hilly and mostly straight, with an outstanding ocean view almost the entire way.  It's pretty windy, but seeing as we're in a convertible with the top down the wind doesn't really matter to us.  This stretch of road is what they use for the bicycle portion of the Ironman Challenge, which definitely gives us a huge amount of respect for the athletes for not getting distracted by the scenery and riding off the cliff and falling a hundred feet into the ocean.  Oh yeah, and maybe that whole healthy lifestyle thing too, but mostly it's the willpower not to ride off cliffs.

We eventually arrive at the small artist colony town of Hawi, find a parking spot, and wander the stores for a bit.  Our first stop is at the Kohala Coffee Mill (surprise -- a coffee store!) where we grab a refreshing coffee beverage, and head upstairs to the kava and fudge shop located on the second floor.  We don't bother with the kava -- not for us, thanks -- but we do get some fudge for later.  I get the Mexican chocolate, a dark chocolate flavor with cinnamon hints, and Lucie goes for the tiger stripe, a sweeter and more intense version of the Reese's peanut butter cup with peanut butter in white chocolate.  With the fudge threatening to put us into a sugar coma there's really no need for kava anyway (not that it's something I'd ever drink regardless.)  Needing something more savory after sampling the fudge, we look for one of the restaurants we'd read about before our trip... unfortunately, though, the popular local spot Bamboo isn't open on Mondays, so that's out; and we hear from one of the coffee mill employees that the Lighthouse Deli, home of what is supposed to be a downright fantastic reuben sandwich, suddenly closed about two weeks ago without any notice.  Bummer.  We decide to find someplace further up the road, so after one more walk up down the main street through town (lots of blown glass and lampwork jewelry, ridiculously expensive carved koa wood furniture, and the entertainingly-named-but-has-nothing-that-fits-me store Alohaman) we get back into Betty and drive a few miles into the small artist colony town of Kapa'au.  Lots of small artist colony towns in Hawai'i.

We park at the North Kohala Civic Center in the center of town and visit the main attraction, the original statue of King Kamehameha I (originally made for Honolulu but lost at sea en route near the Falkland Islands in the 1880s; the replacement is in Honolulu but the original statue, found in 1912 and restored, is in Kapa'au near Kamehameha's birth place.)  It's shortly after noon when we arrive and the statue is on a small hill facing west at the top of a set of stairs, so it's a bit of a challenge getting a good picture of the statue without the sun blinding you, but I manage.  The statue itself is impressive, historic, and (sort of) appeared in an episode of Hawai'i Five-0 this season, but apparently is too aloof to sign any autographs or anything, but that's okay; we still pay our respects to the bronze dude, and to another nearby memorial for Hawaiian veterans, and also to the King's View Deli across the street for a cold drink and small bite to eat before looking for a real meal to satisfy us.

We find lunch at Fig's Mix Plate, where we share a loco moco.  The burger patty is ground beef perfection, crunchy char on the outside and smoky flavor, roughly the size of a hubcap; the macaroni salad is a bit too heavy with the mayo but otherwise good; and the plain rice is raised to new heights by the best stinkin' soy sauce ever, Tabasco brand spicy soy sauce, which I desperately try to find at every store in Hawai'i for the rest of our trip but am unable to procure.  We belatedly realize that this might actually be the first real mix plate we've eaten on vacation, which is surprising as well as a kind of nice indicator that we're willing to branch out with our culinary endeavors.

Heading back along the coast, we make a few stops at scenic points we saw on the way up, most notably at Mahukona Beach Park... this is a state park without an actual beach ("mahukona" in Hawaiian is "false harbor"), an old port with an abandoned building nestled amidst picnic tables; a former property of the Kohala Sugar Company.  Back in the late 1800s it was a railroad stop and sugar mill, and became one of the busiest ports on the Big Island despite being destroyed by a storm in 1911, and which was shut down and eventually abandoned during WWII.  There's still a run down but impressive building behind a safety fence, a concrete pyramid lighthouse, and parts of the sugar mill and even a sunken ship that can be seen by snorkelers about 25 feet beneath the waves.  It's not much of a beach per se, and snorkelers need to climb up and down a ladder to get into the water to avoid the lava rocks along the shore, but the scenery is outstanding.  We relax for a bit, take a few selfies, listen to the waves and watch the rock crabs scuttling around the water's edge, and then get back on our way.

A bit further down the highway, we take another stop at the Mauna Lani Resort and Rich Person Storage Facility, where we take a brief walk down to the water at Holoholokai Beach Park and dip our feet into the ocean (much more accessible than at Mahukona Beach Park) but opt not to take the half hour hiking path out to see the petroglyphs they have there.  Another few miles down the highway we also drive around the Waikoloa Resort and Secondary Rich Person Storage Facility, through the shopping centers they have, and I find myself entertained by what could be perceived as the gender-biased difference between their Queen's Marketplace (featuring shops such as Lids, Starbucks, Crocs, and Sunglass Hut) and their King's Shops (with the much more costly Coach, Luis Vuitton, Tommy Bahama, and Na Hoku Jewelers.)  We don't actually want to shop here -- and in the case of the King's Shops probably couldn't afford to anyway -- so we continue driving along the coast back to our hotel.

We spend the remainder of our day in full-on relaxation mode, watching the sun set from our lanai, then heading down to the mai tai bar for a drink, then getting a couples massage from the hotel's spa, and finally having another drink or two at the bar before heading upstairs to bed.  the tropical drinks are sweet and potent, the massage is therapeutic (though a bit too vigorous in Lucie's case), and the sunset is, though obscured by clouds at the horizon, still beautiful.

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Hawai'i One-3, Day 7: We go Head Over Hilo

We wake up in the morning, wave hello to the cruise ship in the bay -- another sign of the recovering economy is the return of a cruise ship dropping off tourists almost every day -- and prepare for today's outing, our obligatory trip across the island to Hilo.  Well, technically, it's going around the island, not "across" -- Saddle Road, which cuts over Mauna Kea, is still under construction, dangerous, and generally prohibited by car rental companies; so that's not really an option for us.  For tourists, the two options are to go up and around the island through Kohala / Waimea, or down and around through Volcanoes and Puna; since we're planning on visiting Volcanoes in a couple days from now, we opt to head up and around (which is also actually the only way we've ever done it, since going the southern route can take about an hour or so longer.)

For the trip up, we stay on the coastal highway along the Kohala Coast, up past the airport, all of the various white sand beaches and high-end resorts, and through the lava fields until we reach the turnoff for Hawi.  Since we're planning on doing that tomorrow, we head away from Hawi and go through Waimea, past Parker Ranch, passing and waving hello to Waipio Valley, and making our first stop at the Hawaiian Vanilla Company in Pa'auilo.  Remembering our last adventure when Google Maps tried (successfully) to get us lost, we use the driving directions on the vanilla company's web site and arrive without incident.

The store is technically open, but in a strange turn of events, there's absolutely nobody around when we arrive.  No tour buses, no lunch events, and no other drop-in tourists; it's just us and the teenage son of the owners, who happens to be around in the kitchen -- "if I hadn't been here, you'd be out of luck because there's nobody else here today," he says.  However, it's a good thing for them he is here, because we give him the biggest sale he's seen in a while; buying various baking items, lotions, soaps, teas, and snack foods, and we also decide to have a light lunch while we're here.  
The light lunch is actually just a dessert course, since that's kind of what they specialize in -- Lucie gets their vanilla liliko'i pound cake, I get the vanilla bread pudding a la mode with vanilla rum caramel sauce for myself, and we split the vanilla fudge brownie.  The pound cake is incredibly powerful passionfruit flavor, sharp and intensely sweet, if a little dry; the brownie is slightly crispy on the outside and just gooey enough on the inside, more dark chocolate than vanilla flavor that we can taste but still delicious; the bread pudding is just freaking INCREDIBLE, light and sweet and boozy, crazy hot out of the oven tempered with the frozen vanilla bean (of course!) ice cream, chewy and dense and just fantastic.  I don't even want to know the calorie count of the thing, but this is an absolutely amazing dish.  I'm a little afraid of blinking after eating this thing, since I'm pretty sure my eyeballs have crystallized because of all the sugar I've just eaten and the sugar crystals might scratch the insides of my eyelids.  Plus, it's HUGE -- I'm unable to finish the thing and need to bring part of it and half the brownie back with us for later that night.

We take a few minutes to digest, then head out to our car and continue on along the Hamakua Coast until we get to Hilo.  We continue through Hilo to the far side of the city, and stop at Hershey's Mauna Loa Macadamia Nut Corporation and Haole Tourist Air-Conditioned Shopping Mega-Emporium where we buy some stuff (which is -- you guessed it -- macadamia nuts) for friends, family, and coworkers, and possibly for our own snacking purposes later.  Form there, we go to Hilo Hattie's, where I stumble across a nifty find -- because of 1) the Kona Coffee Cultural Festival, 2) the 200th anniversary of coffee being introduced to Hawaii (first brought to O'ahu in 1813, though not to Kona until 1828), and 3) Hilo Hattie's 50th anniversary, all of their coffee themed clothing is on sale for 30% off.  I buy coffee-themed T-shirts, coffee-themed Hawaiian shirts, some coffee (also technically coffee-themed, I suppose), Hawaiian salts and other food items, and some other souvenir-type stuff.  After that, we head to Ken's House of Pancakes for lunch, because all of that shopping had made us hungry.

Ken's still has their late 1960s look and feel, quaint and comforting; some people may criticize them for not having the tastiest food in Hilo, but for us it's not just about the food itself, it's about the experience... and besides, the food we have is pretty darn good so it's all a win as far as we're concerned.  I go for the corned beef hash and Lucie goes for the char siu noodles, lightly pan fried noodles with the smoky sweetness of nicely glazed pork.  And, because it's the main thing we remember from our last trip here, we feel the need to have the pineapple upside down cake for dessert... it's still steaming hot, dense syrupy cinnamon pooling around the base, ice cream on the side per our request.  It's a good lunch.

While we're eating, we try and locate our next planned stop for today, Big Island Candies.  We both use our iPhones to find their location, and we opt to use the directions from Lucie's iPhone 5 instead of my new iPhone 5s.  See, there's an issue with the new phone's GPS sensing (which has since been fixed, but not on this day) which -- possibly combined with what I feel is Hawaii's attempts to get us lost when we use technology -- that has it telling us we need to drive into the ocean to get to the candy factory.  I don't remember seeing anything about an underwater secret lair on their website, so it's possible that my phone

may have the location of Big Island Candies a little bit wrong.  Using Lucie's phone, however, we find them without incident -- it's actually only about 5 minutes from Ken's, which is nice serendipity -- and head past a small crowd of Japanese tourists with their translators waiting for the tour bus into the store.  They specialize in shortbread cookies and chocolate, so we buy large amounts of both in our survivalist goal of staving off future carbodehydration (I've heard that's a real thing and we must at all costs avoid it.)

We head back out past the tourists (now much larger in number) and head back toward Kona.  It's about a two and a half to three hour drive, so it's about dinner time once we get to Kamuela, about two thirds of the way back.  Lucie's heard about a burger joint that's supposed to be very good -- picked as the best burgers in the state of Hawai'i by USA Today a while back -- and she wants to give them a try.  It's a little difficult to find -- we have the address available, but the restaurant is tucked into a corner of a strip mall and we drive past it a couple of times before Lucie sees their sign -- but the food is definitely worth it.

I get their gorgonzola burger, a 6.5-ounce patty made with local Parker Ranch beef cooked to a light pink medium and topped with a crazy-thick slab of gorgonzola cheese and bacon, served on a pleasingly crunchy toasted roll from a local bakery -- everything that Village Burger makes is done using local ingredients.  When I first see the size of the slab of gorgonzola cheese, I'm more than a little concerned that the cheese will completely overpower everything else as blue cheeses are prone to do, but these fears are totally unfounded -- the flavor is mild enough so it works perfectly with the bacon and the beef, and it's overall a succulent, juicy, and downright awesome food experience.  Lucie goes for their Kahua Ranch wagyu beef burger with bacon and avocado -- it also looks amazing, but she says afterwards it's a little gamey for her tastes though not too bad.  We share an order of their twice-cooked french fries -- all good fries should be twice cooked for optimal crunch and creamy interior texture -- with wasabi mayonnaise, and I get a vanilla milkshake with 2 shots of espresso to stay alert for the drive home.

We opt to drive back to Kailua-Kona using the more inland Mamalahoa Highway instead of our outgoing choice of the coastal Queen Ka'ahumanu Highway; not that much of a difference in times but a different driving experience with the narrower mountain road and lush foliage.  It rains a little bit on the way back so we need to put the top up on our Mustang (whom we have dubbed "Betty" -- we used Mustang Sally last time, so went with a different name but still a Ford), but nothing too bad at all.  It's dark when we get back into town, but decide to head upstairs to bed instead of heading down to the bar.  It's been a long day, filled with good food and scenery; no need to supplement with plastic drink-accessory monkeys.  Those can wait until tomorrow.

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Hawai'i One-3, Day 6: Coffee Run

We wake up earlier than usual on our first full day in the Big Island, so Lucie can make it to Big Island Running Company for their 06:30 couch to 5K group.  This means we need to get up around 5 or so, which for a vacation day that doesn't involve greeting the sunrise on Haleakala is just weird; but Lucie is very eager to get some running in, and we end up being the first people there.  Within just a minute or two, however, the rest of the group shows up (maybe they were hiding in the bushes making nene noises to mess with people -- not sure and don't want to hazard any guesses [it was nene noises, I'm sure of it]) and they head out for their run along Ali'i Drive.  My knee is only begrudgingly willing to do any kind of distance walking, and certainly not willing to do ANY kind of running, so I force myself to go over to Kona Haven for a leisurely breakfast while Lucie exercises.

She runs south along the road, away from all of the shops and traffic, up and down the rolling hills ("they said it was a flat road, but they lied" she says about it later), sweating and pushing herself; I sit at a small table facing the ocean and have a bacon, egg, and cheese croissant sandwich and a hand-drip cup of Kona de Pele medium roast private reserve coffee.  She gets sweat in her eyes; I read the latest issue of Marvel's Avengers Arena comic book on my iPad Mini.  I do, however, exert myself a little when I buy a bottle of cold water to have available for her when the group returns from the run -- I'm not *completely* lazy.

From there, we drive down Ali'i Drive (Lucie has a few flashbacks to the run when we go uphill) to Keauhou, just a few miles south of Kailua-Kona and the location of this year's coffee festival.  We arrive at the Keauhou Shopping Center, but take a quick side trip at the farmer's market that's also taking place here today.  We wander through the stalls; I buy a couple bags of coffee from new farms I discover, some extra-spicy macadamia nuts, and a few jars of handmade jams -- chocolate macadamia nut (think Nutella, but with macadamia instead of hazelnuts) and POG (passionfruit-orange-guava, one of Hawaii's favorite drink flavors) -- and when it gets closer to lunchtime we wander over to the coffee festival.

Last time we came to the festival, it was being held at the old Kona airport location, had a parade along Ali'i Drive on the final weekend, and even had a one-mile running event; this year, however, it seems very much downsized... no parade or Miracle Mile (Melissa at the Big Island Running Company says it wasn't financially feasible to close Ali'i Drive only for the run once they couldn't piggyback on the parade), and several of the art exhibits have been moved to other venues like a quilting store (for the coffee quilts) and the nearby Keauhou Resort's convention area (their coffee-themed art exhibit.)  They do have several small coffee farms exhibiting their wares, so I stock up on several new bags of medium roast whole bean, we stop for a minute to appreciate the Polynesian dancing, buy a Kona Coffee Cultural Festival tote bag, and have lunch at their food vendors.  We look through the options and decide on the local high school volunteers offering mix plates -- Lucie gets the Korean chicken and chicken long rice; I go for the Korean chicken and smoke meat.  The chicken long rice is chicken pieces cooked in thick rice noodles, funky glassy appearance and pretty mushy in texture, but good flavor; the smoke meat is essentially a char siu without the barbecue coating, satisfying with a densely smoky hit; the Korean chicken is fried chicken with a slightly sweet note to the crispy coating, perfectly cooked and crunchy, slightly peppery and oily but in a very good way.  We also have two huge bottles of water -- it's very muggy and humid today --

and some "Bradda Pops", the Hawaiian version of Otter Pops, for dessert.  The strawberry flavor is a pure sugary delight, and the lemon blast with li hing mui is refreshing but confusing to the taste buds, which seem unable to comprehend the salted plum and lemon combination.  I spend a few dollars at their game area, shooting suction cup darts at paper cutouts of coffee tree pests and throwing rolls of toilet paper at giant spiders perched on toilet seats and other, less Hawaiian, carnival standards, before we head out on the road to participate in our own version of the coffee festival parade -- namely, driving along the Mamalahoa Highway and visiting all of the coffee farms along the way.

Our first stop along this leg of the tour is once again also the first coffee farm (we do tend to visit the farms in the order in which they're encountered; doesn't seem efficient to backtrack on the winding narrow roads just to mix things up), Hula Daddy.  We stop by, take a picture of the large clock tower they have nicely decorated for the Christmas season still a month and a half away, take part in a sampling they're doing as we arrive -- it's a dark roast, slightly bitter but pleasingly strong -- and buy a bunch of coffee and coffee related items.  From there, we cruise down the road a ways and stop at UCC, or Ueshima Coffee Company, a Japanese-owned farm.  They're not very busy at the moment, so when we inquire about taking their Roastmaster tour where we roast our own beans (which we've done at UCC every visit to the Big Island), they say we can do that immediately if so desired, which we do.  Our shopmaster is Jeff, who hosted the Roastmaster tour on our last trip; our host this time around is Bertha, who walks us through the roasting process using their bank of tiny cement mixer coffee roasters.  Newly roasted coffee in hand (slightly more than medium roast -- they're using non-prime beans for the customers to roast so the bean sizes aren't very uniform and some of them come out a bit darker than I normally prefer) and additional bags of professionally roasted beans, Coffee Pretz, a cup of coffee ice cream (which Jeff gives us for free, along with a cup of nicely strong iced coffee which I gladly accept), and other coffee items added on, we bid goodbye to UCC and continue on down the road just as a large contingent of Japanese tourists pulls up.

Our next stop is Blue Sky, in the town of Holoalua, there's a large crowd here already -- another sign of the recovering economy, there's a tour van filled with Japanese tourists that seems to be pacing us along the drive -- so we just stop by long enough to pick up a couple of bags of coffee (their estate coffee, whole bean, medium roast, which is all we're trying to buy when we buy coffee) before continuing down the road.  We make a quick stop at a roadside store for cold bottled water and some cookies, then make our way down through Kealakekua until we reach Kona Joe, home of the downright best-ever espresso smoothie I've ever had.  It's slightly changed from our last visit, now called a Kona Joe Coffee Smoothie, and they've added a subtle little cinnamon flavor from what I remember, but this actually only improves the flavor for me, adding some of the sharp sweetness of cassia to the smooth and deep coffee baseline -- I need to stop myself after having two, or I'd end up sitting on their covered patio overlooking the ocean with a frozen coffee beverage in hand all day (which isn't really all that bad an idea, but probably a lot higher in calories than is recommended by any sane dietician.)  We mosey through the gift shop, grab a bag or two of their coffee offerings -- not too much, as Kona Joe tends to run a little on the more expensive side and it's not like we're really hurting for Kona coffee at this point so we can be a little choosy -- and head back up the Mamalahoa to our hotel for dinner and drinks and drinks.

We drop off the several armloads of coffee in our hotel room, then head down to Don the Beachcomber's restaurant -- or, more accurately, to Don's Mai Tai Bar located outside on the patio and walkway, and not to the actual restaurant itself.  Same menu available, but those wonderful, comfortable, relaxing lounge chairs facing the sunset (which by this time has already gone down, but we're not going to stop our relaxation plans because of that.)  Lucie gets the standard burger with sweet potato fries, and I go for the Bleu Hawaiian burger with bleu cheese and sautéed mushrooms -- the sweet potato fries they have here are Lucie's favorite, which is both great (because she can enjoy them while on vacation) and horrible (because she can only enjoy them like every two years or so) -- accompanied with a ginger aioli, they really are spectacular.  I also partake (a little more than is wise,

some might say) of the drink menu, going first for a lava flow sampler -- miniature versions of the lava flow, with different flavor options (I go with mango, liliko'i, papaya, and guava; the guava is really really good) -- then continuing in the sampler vein with their mojito sampler (standard mojito, pomegranate, mango, and ginger peach variants) and finally my go-to vacation drink, the mango daiquiri.  I am for some reason immensely entertained by the fact that the glasses are decorated with a variety of festive doodads, from the classic paper umbrellas to pineapple wedges, to little brightly colored plastic monkeys hugging the rim of the glass.  I decide on a whim to collect the plastic monkeys while I'm here, and end up at the end of the night with a six-monkey troop.  There are no doubt several more technicolor monkeys in my future when I return -- and probably not just alcohol-fueled hallucination monkeys, either.

We relax for a bit longer as the ocean crashes onto the rocks in front of us, then head upstairs for the night.  While we were sitting in the chairs, there was apparently some remodeling done on the hotel that I didn't notice, as the floor is now a little tilted and blurry-looking for some reason.  I hope they fix that by tomorrow.

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Hawai'i One-3, Day 5: Living Big

 We wake up -- once again a little bit early -- on our last day on Maui; we don't have much time to dawdle this morning as we need to complete packing our suitcases and head down to the main lobby for Ka'anapali Beach Hotel's lei ceremony for their departing guests. Started after the 9/11 attack as a way of showing support for their guests who were stranded in the hotel (airlines stopped flying, a lot of financial issues with banks and credit companies, and people who had only planned to stay for a few nights found themselves staying for a month or more), and to demonstrate their welcoming attitude and aloha, the hotel gives a brown kukui nut lei to each guest; and every time a guest returns (and brings along the lei) they exchange one of the brown kukui nuts for a white one, to signify an increasing of the light which the kukui symbolizes. During the ceremony, Malihini gets a little emotional as she explains its history and significance -- she does nothing, it seems, without putting her entire heart into the act. After a warm hug, she bids us aloha, we respond mahalo and a hui hou, and we drive back across the island to Kahului's OGG airport. I drop Lucie off at the departures area, return the car (as it turns out, we didn't actually drive nearly as much this trip as we did last visit, but I'm still very happy we traded in the town car for a 300), and grab the shuttle back to the airport for the flight.

There's a long wait at the departures gate, as the arriving plane is running a bit late, and the impatient tourists are a bit chaotic once the plane finally arrives and is cleared for boarding; but First Class has its privileges and we get to board the place ahead of the crowd. The Hawaiian Airlines inter-island shuttle is relatively unexciting, save for the fact that we're headed to the Big Island, our favorite (well, favorite island so far, since we haven't been to them all yet), to hit the last few days of the Kona Coffee Cultural Festival. Once we land on the Big Island, there's also a long wait at the car rental place (the economy's recovery also means a larger than usual surge in tourism, which is great for Hawaii's economy but in all honesty kind of a pain for our hopes for a quiet vacation), but eventually I get our vehicle -- a Mustang (nice!) convertible (of course!) -- and we head down to Kailua-Kona. We drive past all of the stores along Ali'i Drive, and check in to the Royal Kona Resort.

Once checked in, we take just a minute or two to get reacquainted with our hotel (same corner oceanfront view, only we're on the third floor this time instead of the 6th or 7th like the last few times), then venture back out into the humidity for a walk along Ali'i. The previous trips, I wasn't in good enough shape (more than a little embarrassed to admit that) to walk for very long; but this time around I'm a bit lighter and have better endurance (though ironically a worse knee), so looking forward to being a pedestrian tourist for a change.

Our first stop is one that Lucie has been looking forward to ever since she started running, the Big Island Running Company. They're Hawaiian, they're a running company, and they have branded clothing that says "Run Aloha" and "Run Big" -- what's not to love? It's surprisingly close to our hotel, only the first cluster of businesses on the other side of the street, tucked back a little ways behind a sand volleyball court, and it's staffed by a wonderfully friendly and enthusiastic gal named Melissa, who encourages us to take part in their weekly Saturday morning run the next day. My knee isn't up for running, but since it's a "couch to 5K" running group Lucie believes she's up for the challenge -- she already completed a couch to 5K on her own back home and thinks she can handle the Hawaiian humidity -- and makes plans for tomorrow morning. We buy a bunch of Big Island running items, for ourselves and for family, and move on.

Our next stop is next door at Kona Haven, a coffee shop (I know, right? In Kona?) where I buy an iced coffee with a couple shots of espresso added, grab some bottles of water, and a bag or two of their coffee offerings, a brand called Kona de Pele. I'm assuming they're referring to the Hawaiian volcano goddess instead of the soccer player, but the coffee is mighty tasty regardless of the moniker's inspiration. From there, we figure it's about time for a light early dinner, so we look at our options and decide on Thai Rin, about a block away. It's not one of the busy and loud bars or cantinas that are everywhere, which we'd just as soon avoid; it's not a chain like Bubba Gump or Subway, and it's not very crowded. As it turns out, this might be because the food isn't exactly spectacular... it's not bad either, just average and a little bland, which is surprising for Thai food. Lucie has the chicken pad see ew, and I opt for the tofu in Thai garlic sauce. I locate the container of chili sauce that's available, and do get the food to my desired level of spice and flavor after several scoops (probably about a third of the container.) We continue along the road, past the farmer's market, until we get to Kona Henna Studios.

We've been here twice before, getting temporary tattoos to celebrate our visit, and have always appreciated their artistry and skill with henna; this is no exception. Lucie gets a hibiscus pattern on her right ankle and a honu on her left foot; I go for my own designs -- the same tribal take on the San Jose Sharks logo that I got last time on my right calf, and something a little different on my right forearm, a coffee mug with some coffee bean honu swimming into it. I describe what I envision, using the store's child-distraction device of a magnetic drawing pad to explain in

better detail (something that amuses Lucie a lot, because that's really kind of a geek thing to do on my part), and our artist does a great job making it a reality. We realize belatedly that since Lucie now has henna on her foot and can't wear her sandals for the next few hours until the henna sets, that we kind of need to head back to the hotel instead of walking further along Ali'i. Oops.

We take our time meandering back, not only to go easy on the soles of Lucie's bare feet, but also because there's still a lot to see and do... we stop at a bike rental place and look into renting bicycles -- it's a good idea and one we'll definitely do next vacation, but they only rent the bikes, helmets, and locks, and we'd need some serious hydration if we wanted to ride; so we make a mental note to bring our Camelbak bottles and backpacks, and our own helmets, for next time. We poke around at the Keoki's Donkey Balls store, buying some of their huge chocolate covered macadamia nuts and some other coffee-related items for us and for friends and family. We also take a short break and have dessert at the Daylight Mind coffee roasters restaurant, where we find a quiet table by the ocean and nosh a bit. We share some chocolate covered strawberries, Lucie has their chocolate coconut cake, I go for their brownie sundae, and also have a chocolate spiced rum coffee milkshake. The combination of sweet, sweet, sugary, and intensely sweet proves to be -- surprisingly -- very sweet. Very tasty, a good combination of textures with the gooey crunch of brownie, the cold smooth ice cream, and thick milkshake, and all of it refreshingly cold on this hot and humid evening... but very very sweet.

We take a brief poke around the goods for sale in the lobby, I pick up a couple bags of freshly roasted coffee from two of the roasters' local affiliate farms (Kona Earth and Papa Kona) and an aloha shirt for this year's Kona Coffee Cultural Festival, and we continue on our way. The roadside walkway is a little rough on Lucie's feet, but we make it back nearly without incident -- the only casualty is that the exercise and humidity makes me sweat profusely, and the henna on my forearm slides a little and becomes less clear. You can still tell what it's supposed to be, but it's not as sharp as the Sharks logo or Lucie's patterns, so that's a bit of a bummer, but certainly not in any way anything that subtracts from the appreciation and enjoyment that we feel being back on the Big Island.

After the henna dries, we clean it off and admire the results, then head to bed for the evening; we've got an early morning ahead of us.

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