miscellaneous pictures and commentary

The tropical flowers are so exotic

and the plumerias that I have to protect from freezes grow into 15'+ trees that are covered with flowers. White was the most common but I saw yellow and pink and magenta and coral orange and red and the trees were everywhere. The groundskeepers raked up fallen flowers the way we rake up fallen leaves.

At the black sand beach, on the edge where we saw the sea turtle and then walked down to the water's edge, it was more rocky than sand and when the wave surged in and then receded, it sounded like a string of firecrackers going off.

My friend Denise found this information about the Ki'Opi pond (picture at low tide): The languorous town Kailua-Kona, spread along one main street paralleling Kailua Bay, was a favored retreat of royalty long before the missionaries showed up in 1820 and was the refuge that the great King Kamehameha I sought in 1812, following eight years of waging war to bring the Islands under his command. The king sailed to Kamakahonu, in a sandy cove near the present site of King Kamehameha's Kona Beach Hotel and built his residence, a hale called "Papa" nearby. John Papa I'i, an attendant of the succeeding King Liholiho, described the area, "Outside the (royal) enclosure, by the edge of the sea, was a spring called Ki'ope...It was a gathering place for those who went swimming and a place where the surf rolled in and dashed on land when it was rough. It was deep enough there for boats to land when the tide was high..."

The Hawaiian language consists of 5 vowels...A, E, I, O, U both long and short...and 8 consonants...H, K, L, M, N, P, W, and 'okina (glottal stop). The W is also pronounced as a V under certain circumstances.

Driving around both islands, it was common to see hedges planted and trimmed of hibiscus 

and often the road sides with banks of up to 10' or so were covered solid with blooming bougainvillea of all colors...red, pink, yellow, orange, white. This is the best picture I could get and it's out of focus because we were always moving and compared to most, sparse.

A few more miscellaneous photos...

I have no idea what kind of a tree this is but it is enormous.

A (prehistoric) tree fern growing amid another tree.

My salad for lunch in Hilo constructed as a volcano.

Puzzle boxes at the market.

links to previous posts in this series:

1. it took all day but we got there

2. our first full day

3. the drive to Hana

4. another day in paradise

5. the island Hawai'i

6. the long drive and volcanoes

7. our last day and the journey home