Winter Reprieve - in Hawaii

Returned last week from a 2-week trip to Hawaii; it was on my bucket list for several years. My husband always felt it was very touristy and full of sunbathers and surfers. We found it to be quite different. I expect some islands have beaches more favorable to sun worshipers and surfers than the two we visited. Kauai, the most eastern island, was our first destination on an organized tour, where we visited the South Shore that included Poipu Beach and the National Tropical Botanical Garden. The North Shore included a Fish and Wildlife Preserve, Kilauea Lighthouse and Halalei Valley. Also included in the tour was the beautiful Waimea Canyon, which reminded me of the colorful red rocks in Arizona. The weather was not at all what I expected; it showered numerous times a day for very short periods but never spoiled our tours, and it was not as warm as I had expected.

Our 2nd week was at Hawaii, the Big Island, and here, too, it rained most days. This is the island of volcanoes; most interesting was our visit to the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park where we viewed the Kilauea Caldera and the Thurson Lava Tube. We later walked on lava that had covered several villages years earlier. The volcano is still active and we watched smoke in the distance coming from lava that was flowing into the sea.This is something that one just doesn't here about. In Hilo where we stayed, they have a Tsunami Museum that showed the terrible destruction that occurred there from an earthquake in South America many years ago. Lava is everywhere and is used in many forms -like a rock garden, or even sidewalks.

So we discovered that while there are beaches and surfers, there is so much more to the Hawiian Islands. We very much enjoyed our trip. Here are a few pictures in my blog below to give you an idea of what we saw.