Volcanos National Park

 We visited Volcanos National Park on 3 separate days.  

1.  We chatted with a park ranger, drove the Crater Rim Drive Tour, looked out over a crater (not that impressive tbh)

2.  Drove to the end of the Chain of Craters road to see the sea arch.  We stopped on our way back up for a 'quick' .7 mile out and back trail to see Pu'uloa Petroglyphs.  Russ discovered rattlebox plants on this hike. This was the day before we attempted to summit Mauna Kea and we were purposefully keeping our hiking to a minimum to save our legs.  Ha.  

3.  Hiked Kīlauea Iki trail, Thurston Lava Tube, Devastation Trail, Ha'akulamanu (Sulphur Banks) Trail.

Videos and photos exist.  We may or may not get them added to this post one day:

Cacao Farm

 

Chocolate is a Vegetable.  Today we proved this theory by visiting Hawaiian Crown's cacao farm and shop.  

Evidence:  Chocolate Grows on Trees.  Well technically Cacao is a tree.  And Cacao pods grow on the trees!  

The pods grow from little bitty flowers:

When they're ready, farmers remove the pods from the trees as such:

Once the pods are sliced open, there are many many seeds inside, each surrounded by some fruit like meat.  We had the opportunity to eat the fruit from several different pods.  They tasted 'fruity' ... maybe like a starburst but with a completely different texture.  

The next step in the processing of cacao into chocolate was .. disturbing.  The meat-surrounded seeds are put in an ice-chest and left to rot .... i mean ferment.  

The grossness of this cannot be overstated.  

I'm not sure how long they ferment, but eventually are moved along to drying racks.  

See comparison below of two beans cut open.  The top option (purple) is not yet fully dried whereas the bottom one (brown) is ready to move along to the next step.  

The dried beans are taken back to the processing 'plant' / shop and several machines used to separate the seed shell from the nibs inside, roast the beans, and make the chocolate.  The separated nibs looks like: 

The roaster:

The separated and roasted nibs are mixed with sugar and cooked into ... melted chocolate.  

Not pictured, this is poured into molds to create the chocolate with which we are all familiar.  

A summary of the whole process in the Hawaiian Crown chocolate shop:

Punaluʻu (Black Sand Beach)

Punalu'u Black Sand Beach is a bit further south from Lava Tree Mold making it a great addition to our rainy morning.  Parking and accessing this beach was a breeze which is nice ... except that it means there were plenty of other people also meandering about.  We even saw at least one girl try and have a full-on photo shoot with her cell phone.  Anywho.  

This beach is pretty popular for two reasons aside from easy access ... (1) beautiful black sand created from Lava and ... 

(2) the endangered Hawksbill and green sea turtles that come here to sun themselves. 

We enjoyed watching the turtles for a bit, sadly just missing catching two get into a bit of a snip over prime sunning space!  Apparently sea turtles don't particularly like laying on-top of largish rocks.  

 

Lava Tree State Park

Lava Tree State Monument is just south of our temporary home and made for a quick and interesting stop.  We arrived through the rain to find the park empty and made quick use of the facilities.  

Wifey had VERY recently sliced open her heel while opening/closing the gate at our latest AirBNB.  Which we hate.  Clean, running water to wash away blood and apply a bandaid or two was a huge blessing.  

As luck would have it, the rain subsided about the time we dug our umbrellas out of our suitcases and we walked the short .7 mile path around the park.  

This area was previously a forest, that was then covered and mostly destroyed by flowing lava.  In some places, the lava coated the tree trunks, later drying in place and creating .... Lave Tree Molds which remain amongst the new growth.  

Pardon our hair ... we'd been rained on for quite a while.  See those tree trunks?  No you don't.  you see lava statues shaped like tree trunks.  

The walking path was easy-peasy, and surrounded by new growth rainforest including some beautiful flowers.  

  

 

We did stay on the prepared trail per the signage .... and our own sanity after seeing one of the cracks (which was fenced off)

 

Puna AirBNB

The first lodging we booked for this trip was a lovely AirBNB south of Hilo.  Because of scheduling it was also our last place to be scheduled to stay.  

We were looking forward to our stay, which included access to the onsite garden and permission to eat from the variety of fruit trees contained therein!  Woo Hoo!  Spoiler alert - We never visited nor enjoyed the onsite garden.  

As we followed the GPS to the address provided we lost cell service, which made looking up the check-in instructions a bit difficult.  We eventually succeeded, though these did not tell us how to handle the gate which was at the road and driveway.  We did proceed through and eventually a 20-something woman waved us on past house #1 to  the AirBNB.  

If you're interested in seeing what the space looked like inside, click the link in paragraph 1.  The listing photos are pretty accurate.  You can also see our actual review of the property with far more detail there.

The curb-appeal of the driveway was out of this world.  We were excited.  The curb-appeal of OUR place was .... lacking.  Once we entered, we figured out that "AC" was only partly true.  The bedroom included an AC unit.  Which we did eventually get to cool ... the bedroom.  

Kee proceeded to clean out our car a bit as Russ unloaded.  She put trash in the trash can.  That was not a good experience.  Russ noticed dirt on the range hood.  We decided to launder the towels and bedding.  We couldn't settle in.  We also disinfected ... everything.  

Later that evening, after we showered, we headed out for some dinner.  While we were out the host texted .... their water had run out and would be off for a while.  A bit later she texted again ... it'd be out until sometime the next morning or noon.  Kee was not happy.  There was laundry to be done.  Yes, I choose AirBNBs specifically based on access to laundry facilities.  There were toilets to be flushed.  Teeth to be brushed.  Ya don't realize how many things require running water until ....

Water in Puna - This area of Hawaii is very prone to seismic activity.  As a result there are not water pipes servicing the folks who live here.  Every home has a giant metal above-ground pool looking container in the backyard that either catches and filters rainwater or stores water purchased from water trucks.  This is just normal here.  And we're good with that.  But seriously offer some sort of compensation for the rather extreme inconvenience of "can't flush the toilet". 

....  And then every time she want to throw away trash ... the trash can was dirty.  Every-time we went to leave the home the front door was dirty as well.

The next day we filed a complaint with AirBNB.  While the water issue was resolved:  A water truck came the next day mid-morning; we were still not comfortable in the space.  It needed a deep clean.  AirBNB offered us half our money back and we took it and ran.  metaphorically speaking.  

We LOVE AirBNB and will keep on using their services.  For us at this time, with the constraints of a small island, there were not any alternate last minute options available.  

We ended up staying here 3 nights instead of the planned 6 and then moving to the Hilton in Hilo for a couple nights and then onto Kings Land.    

Our front door and the only non-evidence gathering photo I took.

has this ever been washed?

coffee grounds

no comment.

no comment again

magic eraser.  come-on.

Dan-o's Döner

On May 18th we went to eat at Dan-o's Döner after a hike to Pololu Valley.  It was closed.  We ate our pre-packed sandwiches instead.  

don't let the frowns fool you, we were thankful for our sandwiches

Two days later, after our Mauna Kea experience, we had surprise time to kill and were already half-way up the island. This was the perfect opportunity to work in a visit to Dan-o's Döner.

We can't remember how we first saw Dan-o's Döner, but once we knew it existed, we knew it was only a matter of time before we visited this surprise blessing.  Located in the town of Waimea, in the northern part of Hawaii (ranch country), Dan-o's Döner is owned by some german folks.  

For anyone who is new to our adventures ... Russ loves Döner.  See here, here, here, here and here. 

Dan-o's Döner is in a nondescript strip mall.  You walk up to the first window, sanitize your hands (Hawaii is very big on the pre-activity hand sanitization), and order.  After a bit of a wait, your food is delivered via the second window.  

Kee does not eat Döner.  But luckily for her, there was a prosciutto bagel available on the menu!  Prosciutto in the states is complicated.  We've noticed that folks tend to call ham prosciutto to make it seem fancy.  When we ask if it is cooked or not, we get flowing reassurances that it is in fact cooked/safe.  Note the right answer is "no".  Prosciutto is not cooked.  Anyway, we asked a few questions cautiously.  No one likes a know-it-all customer so its a hard line to walk.  We decided to go forward and ordered the bagel! 

After receiving our food, we drove to a nearby park, parked under a tree and enjoyed our late lunch! 

Not the best Döner ever, but still YAY!  

Real life Prosciutto with cucumbers, tomatoes, butter on a bagel.  Happy Kee.

 

Holualoa AirBNB

If we go to visit the Big Island again, we'll plan our trip around this AirBNB's availability.  The Holualoa Country home is probably a 10-15 minute drive from the coast, all increasing in elevation.  There is no A/C here and that is perfectly fine.  The days are pleasant and the nights if anything cold.  Our hosts also own a boat repair shop on the island and have many family members living in the area on what was initially a family farm purchased by their grandparents decades ago.  

One afternoon Kee watched as cattle were moved from one pasture to another area to graze.  We were awakened each morning by literal roosters crowing.  

Kee failed to take actual pictures of the space.  See the AirBNB listing if you care.  Instead enjoy these photos of the view from our back porch and then from the driveway facing out instead.  

A butterfly on the backporch.

Getting some blogging done while looking at the ocean far below!  

waiting on the gate to let us out!