Fire!

The musician Arthur Brown used lyrics in his song FIRE which said “ Fire, I’ll take you to burn. Fire, I’ll take you to learn. I’ll see you burn.”

I have a farm worker who has not seen the island (except from working on-board a cruise ship). He had landed in Hilo and Kona 4 times each, but never really explored.

We started out at Walmart to pick up a few things then up on the upper road to Waimea. Waimea is home to the Parker Ranch, one of the U.S.’s largest family-owned ranches.

He was surprised to see cactus but I said that is only the beginning of the surprises he will see.

Our first stop was the overlook at Waipio Valley.

Then on to Tex’s Drive in so he could have his first taste of a malasada (Portuguese doughnut). As we finished and drove off, I asked him what he thought of it. He replied that he should have had 3 or 4 🙂

This is Jonathan at Akaka/Kahuna Falls.

Continuing south we passed through Hilo and I chose the Panaewa Rainforest Zoo. It is a great local zoo and it is free. I always make a donation. The big attraction is the tigers.

As we were running late, we skipped visiting Hawaii Volcanoes National Park and headed down to the lava flow. Lava flows down the pali (hill) and then heads underground, finally exiting at waters edge. Daytime viewing sometimes shows some red lava, but after dusk it really “heats” up 🙂

Sorry for the wind noise in the video.

Getting to the flow from the parking area is either by walking or by bike, as no motorized vehicles are allowed. We rented bikes at $20 each and they came with lights, a lock, a first aid kit of sorts and the promise to come help if we got into trouble or the bike broke down.

I can attest that I had real problems on the ride. I had problems changing between the many gears (my old bike only had 3). Also, My hip was bothering me a bit and I was huffing and puffing quite a bit. I also could not peddle well on the cider road. I ended up walking some both ways, however I saw young kids doing fine on bikes.

As we were heading back to return the bikes it started misting and by the time we got back it was raining. I heard a guy looking for  ride to Hilo and let him come with us.

It really started pouring down rain so I drove him to the hostel where he was staying. Then Jonathan and I backtracked a number of blocks to Ken’s House of Pancakes, where the menu has hundreds of items. They are open 24 hours and I believe 365 days a year. We got there at 8pm and it was all but full.

After dinner I drove us back across Saddle Road with heavy rain and fog. Both those stopped on the other side of the saddle as we passed Mauna Kea on the right and Mauna Loa on the left. Most of the trip back, Jonathan slept.

The total trip was about 13 hours. He was pretty impressed with our island and my choice of stops. I reminded him that this island is so big that we had to skip many things and one really has to make multiple trips out there to really get a good feeling of what the island has to offer.