Around the Big Island (Hawaii, 1/20)

Let us time-travel back to Monday, January 20th, on my Hawaii trip.

We ate breakfast at a place on Ali'i Drive, overlooking the water. Great view:

This man was walking his dog not just along the sea wall, but on it.

And a hopeful bird joined us when we ate.

The food was very good; the service, unfortunately, was not (tip for servers: if your customers come to find you because they got their food ten minutes ago but don't have utensils so they could eat it, apologize to them). Well, you can't have everything.

From there, we drove north to Waimea, a town up in ranch country, and stopped for some shopping. Fun stuff!

A very modest name, eh?

This is where I got the gecko. They had all sorts of animals. Like a peacock.

And, oh, a few more.

This table would be a lot harder to bring home, but check out the detail.

The carved legs!

And this gorgeous stained glass piece.

Guess what else was there? Roosters!

We split a sandwich, since we'd had breakfast late, and it came with this:

No, not sorbet: purple potato salad. Wild!

We drove along east until we got to Hilo. It's not a boring drive.

First stop: Big Island Candies. They don't have tour per se, but you can look through the windows at the working area, nicely labeled. Panner:

Melters:

Enrober:

They make cookies that are half-dipped in chocolate, which makes this Hello Kitty design pretty funny.

(Back in the what-I-brought-home post, you can see the brownies and cookies I bought there. Both delicious! Although looking at that post makes me want to order more of the Hamakua Toffee, which vanished fast; wow, that was good.)

Next stop: Mauna Loa mac nuts!

My aunt was the one who had wanted to stop there, but after tasting the Kona Coffee Glaze flavor, I bought some. So good!

We drove on down to Volcanoes National Park, where we enjoyed watching the movie about the park and lava flows, but were disappointed to learn that there was currently no lava visible anywhere in the park. Ah well!

To get back to the west coast, we drove down and around the point, stopping a few times to look at the scenery.

I was very confused by this sign. A koala? In a headdress? I have no idea.

The sunset was quite nice that night.

Once we were back near Kona, we stopped for dinner at a place my aunt had been before, Jackie Rey's, which did not have the water view so many of our dinner choices did, but of course it was dark by then anyway, and both the food and the service were excellent. No complaints; a good way to end a long day.