We went to an orchid farm.






Then we went to the zoo.

After the zoo we went to the macadamia nut factory and loaded up on those exquisite little balls of fat. We went back to Walmart to pick up a few more practical things like excedrin and bandaids. We had lunch at the Kuhio Cafe again. Major Yum fest. Harry and SIL had the fried rice with portuguese sausage and spam. DH had a big bowl of saimin, and I had the laulau plate. The laulau plate is pork wrapped in spinach or ti leaves and steamed till tender, served with two scoops of brown rice and one scoop of macaroni salad. Everything comes with rice and macaroni salad. It was all delicious and we ate till we waddled.

The Burger King here has two items I bet you won't find at your local burger stand. You can have the Spam and rice platter (a chunk of fried spam, two scoops of rice, and a scoop of macaroni salad) or the "cro-spamwich" (a croissant sliced and stuffed with spam.)

After lunch, we had a lovely drive along one lane twisty roads through beautiful tropical forest to the beach and Ahalanui park. The locals just call it the warm pool. This is a small cove of the ocean where hot fresh water vents up from the floor of the cove. The temperature is about 95 degrees and the salinity is just about the same as tears. You can open your eyes underwater with not stinging, and you can float in that huge warm bath till you fall quite soundly asleep. No pictures because I didn't want to get my camera wet, but SIL took some so maybe she will share.

Then we drove closer to the volcano, hiked out onto the lava a ways,

and got a closer look at where the lava meets the ocean. The steam cloud roils and billows like smoke from a mill. IT was pretty exciting even from this distance. It was late in the afternoon when we got this far, and since we didn't have flashlights or long pants or extra water, we chose not to be stupid and hike the mile out into the dark to enjoy the show. Another time, perhaps.

Quite a busy day. Today, we plan to drive 90 miles North to Waikoloa resort and get a day pass to play and play and play.