Pana’ewa Rainforest Zoo & Gardens

 Confession:  I am not a big fan of zoos, simply because I find them to be rather boring.  I don't like paying a big-time entrance fee only to walk around and hope to see an animal doing something interesting, but to only spend my time trying to get a glimpse of animals asleep in the shadows.  

But the Pana'ewa Rainforest Zoo is a different story!  It was just so beautiful and for the most part the animals were out and about.  It was an overcast day and the perfect temperature!

The Mighty Kilauea ... That Wasn't

No trip to the Big Island would be complete without a visit to Volcanoes National Park and a peek at the infamous Kilauea.  A few short weeks prior to our arrival, Kilauea had been erupting, creating an awesome glowing spectacle at night. 

Alas, when we arrived, the eruption had died down to mere steam vents.  It's still pretty cool looking into the huge caldera and imagining what it must be like to see lava flowing inside.  

Afterwards, we went into a "volcano tube" that was nothing more than a poorly lit natural tube created by lava flow forever ago.  Not too exciting, to be honest, but the walk down to the tube was beautiful! 

(Update:  just weeks after our visit, Kilauea erupted again and it was pretty exciting for 10 days. Too bad we missed it ... again.)

Hapuna Beach - Kona

Ahhh!  Hapuna Beach on the Kona side of the Big Island was a true Hawaiian beach experience!  The water was so warm and wonderful compared to water at a California beach!  

The drive from one side of the island to the other is TWO hours so we couldn't stay at Hapuna Beach for as long as we wanted because our hope was to get home before it turned dark on that long winding road.  So I missed seeing a Hawaiian beach sunset, but I'm pretty happy with the picture I got along the drive.

Interestinly, during much of the drive we discovered the landscape looked a lot like ... New Mexico.  WHAT???

I don't know if we can every truly enjoy a California beach and it's cold water again after this wonderful beach experience.  👃

Coconut Island in Hilo

"Coconut Island" in Hilo had been suggested to us, so we had to go!  Any place named Coconut Island in Hawaii is surely for me!

Alas ... Coconut Island was simply a park on the waterfront, and had a tiny little "beach" (if you can call it that).  Definitely not what I envisioned for a beach in Hawaii.  

We quickly learned the "Hilo side" is not known for amazing beaches.  In fact, I wasn't a big fan of Hilo at all.  From what we saw, Hilo is old and dirty ... definitely not a tourist paradise.  

In fact, our time in Hilo was closer to a "local experience" than a touristy experience, in part because were staying at an Airbnb in a neighborhood, rather than a big resort, condos, etc.

As we drove to our daily destinations, our routes took us through a lot of neighborhoods and we saw homes, school, stores ... just regular things in life.  So many of these places were so run down and dirty (with all the humidity, black mold was seeming everywhere on exterior surfaces). The poverty throughout Hawaii was so obvious.

As mainlanders, we think of Hawaii as a paradise, and it certainly is in many areas.  But the fact of the matter is that Hawaii is an extraordinarily expensive place to live.  The majority of islanders work in tourism, which doesn't pay very well.  

As I dug deeper, I learned there is a lot of complicated history in Hawaii and a tremendous resentment of the fact that Hawaii was essentially conquered by the U.S. and forced into statehood.  I also learned that islanders often raise their children to hate tourists.  There are a lot of underlying issues in this tropical paradise.