DATE: Tuesday, December 27, 2022

First full day on the Big Island today. In general, as I understand it, the Big Island is separated naturally into two east-west halves, the “Hilo side” is the windward (east) side, and the “Kona side” is the leeward (west) side. From what I’m told, the Hilo side is more natural, authentic, less touristy, and the Kona side is more like what you’d expect from Oahu’s Waikiki area with more tourist attractions and accommodations. The two halves even have very different climates from what I’m told. I chose the Hilo side since I thought it would be best to experience authentic Hawaii, as best as us Hoosiers could anyway.

I didn’t really have a solid plan to go off of today, just some general ideas. We started off the day hitting a site about 10 minutes from our place, Maku’u Point. It was absolutely breathtaking and very different from what we saw on Oahu. We also stopped by nearby Paradise Cliffs, which was a very similar sight.

After this brief stop, we thought we’d go unto nearby Hilo, one of the two bigger towns on the island. We had a great time walking around and doing some shopping. The AirBnB has a French press coffee maker, and I just didn’t have the energy this morning to go through the process, so some of us got some coffee, too.

One noticeable thing I noticed both on Oahu and the Big Island is all the beautiful murals!

Souvenir shopping was fun. I’d like to say that we’re done getting souvenirs at this point, but I don’t think we’ll be that lucky. We’re now at about the 1/2 way point in our trip.

One thing that I have enjoyed is talking with the people here, specifically the locals. We stopped in a gift shop run by, and with products made by locals, Hawaiian Force. I struck up a conversation with the lady working in there about the Hawaiian phrase “Aloha Aina.” She struggled to describe it to me since, as she put it, the Hawaiian language is more poetic than English is. But she said that it meant that we should take care of our home, our land, because it takes care of us, much like an older sibling would. I liked that.

There was another shop owner I was talking to, Renee, who was appreciative of our asking questions about Hawaiian culture and respecting their home. She’d seen the island change so much, more so on the Kona side, by so many people moving there from somewhere else and changing it. She was cool to talk with.

Most of the early afternoon was spent playing the “let’s see if we can go into every souvenir shop in Hilo before we starve to death” game. We won. We also hit an open-air farmers market on the way out for some fresh fruit, which we’ll enjoy tomorrow.

A local auntie told us about a nearby black sand beach that would be a nice place to eat our lunch, Richardson Beach Park. So we headed there to sit and relax for a bit. There wasn’t much sand as much as there were rocks, but it was a cool spot to chill out.

After lunch we went to nearby Rainbow Falls. A quick stop right off of the road. Beautiful sight.

From Rainbow Falls was about a 1/2 hour drive north to Akaka Falls, another must-see site. My military service came through with a substantial discount here. What normally would have been $54 came down to $15. The hike here was paved but with elevation.

Again, just a breathtaking view of this waterfall that pictures just don’t capture.

Driving back to Hilo for dinner was the plan. But not before a quick hour-and-a-half pitstop for drinks, ice cream, shaved ice, and more souvenir shopping in the nearby small town of Honomu.

Dinner this evening was an adventure in itself. Restaurants don’t stay open as late as they do where we live. It’s kinda hit or miss with the closing times. Our general plan was to go “back into Hilo and find someplace that looks good while walking around.” So we parked in Hilo and walked. First place we saw was a place called Jackie Ray’s Ohana Grill. Looked too expensive and busy. Moving on. I’d seen a fish and chips place, Mohala’s, earlier today, which looked yummy. Closed at 3:30. Moving on. Rounding the corner and walking on to Reuben’s Mexican Restaurant. We put our names in for a 45-minute wait. A 10-minute wait allowed the kids to decide they didn’t want Mexican. Moving on. We decided to drive out of Hilo toward a recommended restaurant from our AirBnB hosts, Boogie Oogie Pizza in Pāhoa, so we drive south for a 1/2 hour, picking up laundry detergent on the way. We get to Pāhoa and the Boogie Oogie owner said that there was an hour and a half wait, which we think was her way of telling us that she was done for the day, filthy tourists. Moving on. If we would have stayed at the Mexican place, we would have been finishing our meal by now. We’d seen a Burger King about 3 minutes up the road. Closed. Moving on. Across the street to Domino’s, passing a Hawaiian BBQ place, L&L, where we decided to stop. 15 minutes before closing, the employees were just thrilled to see our sweaty party of 8 walk in. But we finally got dinner. To go! Back to the AirBnB to settle in for the night.