I am still very upset that I had to come back from Hawaii. It's been a rough transition back to warm clothes, cold pool water, and zero humidity. My heart is still in Kona. The Tuesday after the race we drove over to the Hilo side of the island to hunt for waterfalls. Everything I heard about Hilo was that it was the wet side of the island and looked like what you would expect of Hawaii (no Lava).

We packed up the convertible, put the top down and started out towards Akaka Falls State Park. The drive over started dry and lava like and there were cattle ranches along the way. Then near Waimea we noticed there was some green grass. We pulled over and Grandma Marla treated Annie to a new hat and sunglasses. Shortly after Waimea HAWAII hit. It was green, lush, and we were starting to ooh and ahh.

We found Akaka falls easily and headed out on the short path that visited the falls. We walked at a grand speed of 1 mile per two hours. Seriously, there were so many things to look at that we took our time!

Check out the cute little lizard on this flower. He was so tiny, this is soo Hawaii.

As we were walking up the path there were all these little yellow fruits on the ground. Most of them were smashed, but they looked rather edible to me. So I started hunting around for one. They were the size of golf balls, little yellow golf balls. I broke one opened and tasted it. mmm, sweet. Probably won't kill me right? So I ate one. Then another, then another. I had no clue what they were but they were so good, I couldn't stop. We turned the corner and there was Akaka Falls.

I still wasn't dying from the little yellow fruits so I had Annie tried one, she loved it too!

After driving out of Akaka falls we saw a sign for a fruit stand and I am a compulsive fruit stand stopper. I can not physically pass one. I think its from growing up in California. There really aren't any fruit stands in CO, so you can believe I made Troy stop. this fruit stand had Coconuts, Rambutan, and Passion Fruit. Umm, I'll have lots of all three please.

Passion Fruit (below) is MIGHTY tasty. Not so much when it's a bit tart (under ripe I think), but unbelievably good when ripe and sweet. Rambutan is a red spiky looking thing, and I'm pretty sure it's also called Lychee? These were the big hit of the day, positively delightful and I could have eaten 300 of them. Annie and I tried! I asked the fruit stand guy what the little yellow fruit was that I had been eating copious amounts of, he said it was Guava. Oh good, whew!

We then headed to Hilo for a really nice lunch, a little bit of farmers market shopping, and then a side trip to Ribbon Falls and Boiling Pots. Ribbon Falls is right in the heart of town.

By Boiling Pots we were all pretty much ready to take a nap. We were waterfalled out and headed back towards Kona, with the top down of course. Until it started raining...which is why everything is so green. So up the top went for the rest of the trip.

Annie fell asleep with her sunglasses on, which was super cute. She had so much fun running around all day. It was just such a relaxing day, full of new experiences and good times. You can see why I didn't want to come home.

We tried to leave a few things on the island to do in future trips. We didn't visit the volcano because we heard that most the roads were closed due to high sulfur levels. Not much to see there, no access to flowing lava. So that was saved. I didn't see any turtles, Annie and Troy did, but I didn't. So, there are many reasons to go back.