On Monday we headed for Hilo on the other side of the island. It was a wonderful drive as we had a view of Mauna Kea on one side of us and the ocean views on the other. It was so clear we could see Maui across the way. Both sides gave spectacular views; the ocean with the crashing waves and spray and the other the stark and bleak landscape of Mauna Kea’s barrenness.
Scenic overlooks and short walks in tropical rain forests to see the beautiful scenes of the falls made the day. The little towns and small "burgs" we passed through had small old fashioned looking churches. They reminded me of the "little church in the dell". Almost all of the homes were rather small compared to the trend here on the mainland. They looked even small compared to my house. There were many, many of them with solar panels.
We encountered more than one road construction crew and just about all of these guys and gals had Christmas decorations on their hard hats. It was something neat to see these burly looking men with tinsel rope and Christmas greenery on their hats.
As we crossed the "boundary" over the mountains to the east side of the island, the scenery changed very drastically. The eastern side of Hawaii gets about 130 inches of rain per year which makes it so lush. There were grass lands and lots of trees. The grass was really tall and there were several cattle farms and horses galore.
We made a short side trip to Akaka falls for a walk through the rain forest.
We took a side trip on a short 4 mile scenic drive; it was called Hamahua Scenic Drive. It was so pretty.
When lunch time came we stopped at a cafè in Hilo; we had an Ohno fish sandwich and Hawaiian sweet potato salad. Ohno is a kind of fish and it was very good. The Hawaiian sweet potato is purple in color and just a little sweet but still tastes sort of like a potato. The texture is the same as a white potato and in the salad are mashed and have very little other ingredients. As a matter of fact the salad is scooped with an ice cream scoop like you would regular mashed potatoes.
We discovered the loveliest Liliuokalani Park. It was a traditional Japanese style garden. It was so large that I opted not to walk around all of it. It sat very close to the ocean and you could choose any of many, many vantage points to sit on benches or in lovely gazebos and watch the ocean or the rest of the park, which contained many small ponds and some wildlife and lots of beautiful shrubs and flowers and walk ways. This place was truly peaceful and so serene and quiet. It was difficult to leave it.
We then went to find Rainbow Falls and some others I did not record the names of or they did not have names. Rainbow Ralls was my favorite, if I had to pick one. If you got the sun at the right angle, you could see the rainbows. However, it was clouding up to rain again and we did not see rainbows.
We also went to the macadamia nut farm. The nuts grow on trees about the size of dogwood trees and are not harvested from the trees. They have to wait until they fall off and then harvest them from the ground. They grow in pretty good size "husks" similar to the chestnut. They are hulled and roasted and are used in everything all nice and tasty!!
As we tried to find our way back on the road home at the end of the day, we made a wrong turn and wound up in "downtown" Hilo, which may be a little larger than Cookeville. We drove around and just happened upon the Hilo Federal Bldg. of Hawaii, which was where the TV series Hawaii Five-O is supposed to have taken place. I think Steve McGarret and Dano were supposed to have been based in Hilo, weren't they?
On the way back we got to talking about all the street lights and parking lot lights, virtually all outdoor lighting on the island being yellow. Victoria had read that it was to keep down the light pollution for the observatories. Light pollution is a big problem for astronomers. I think that it is great that the state of Hawaii is working to help them out. There are so few places in the world where you can get a clear view of the universe.
It was a very nice day and we had found so many gorgeous places. Everyone was tired and happy.
