Our Kona Adventure Vacation
by Joe
My son and his girl friend came to visit. She's never been here before. This is what we did. Sunday morning went to buffet at Sheraton for breakfast. Went to end of world and looked at cliff where I jumped off of and popped ear drum years ago. Saw big Mahi Mahi fish chasing school of flying fish. UNBELIEVABLE. Then went to Honokohau National Park and walked down the beach and cooled off in the ocean. Saw Turtles. Free. That evening we went to the Keauhou Sheraton to see the Manta Rays from the observation deck. Free. Monday morning walked through Kailua Village and checked it out. Went Snorkeling at Kahaluu. Monday afternoon went to the Hilton and rode the Monorail around the grounds and seen the dolphins in their pond. Free. Then went to the Shops at Mauna Lani and watched the free Hula show. Tuesday Went to Place of Refuge and had a lunch picnic there. Entry was $5 for car with 4 people. Stopped off at Painted Church. Free. From there we went to Mauna Kea. It was COLD. Slight traces of snow. Free. Wednesday we went to Volcanoes National Park and got there late afternoon so we could see the glow from Halemaumau Crater. Saw Thurston Lava Tube. Park entry $10 for car with 4 people. Stopped off on the way to Volcano at Punaluu Bakery and had picnic. Also stopped at Punalu Black Sand Beach. Stopped in Hilo for food and gas, drove back to Kona. Almost forgot, on way back we stopped off on side of road just a couple miles from Waikoloa and admired the stars in the crystal clear sky. You could see them as low as the horizon, almost as if we were in a planetarium. Thursday Sat on lanai and vegged most of the day. Stopped over at Alii Marketplace and seen my friend Curt. He gave Jr. a cool souvenir necklace. See his work in our Best Hawaiian Art Gallery Friday... last day, flight leaving in evening. So we decided to go look for geocaches. If you don't know what that is, it's kind like looking for hidden treasure with a hand held GPS unit. The first two geocache locations no problem. The third one, potentially huge problem. The third one required a hike across a lava flow of about a mile to a remote beach from Kahakai State Beach Park. My son was wearing flip flops. Not good on lava, but he made it across the flow to the other beach and we found the geocache. After we had finished inspecting the contents of the cache and returning them to their hiding spot we started back to our vehicle and that's about the time Jr. stepped on a 1 inch thorn that went right through the bottom of his slipper. After he pulled the thorn out blood started spurting. Now I've stepped on these before and yes it hurt like hell but I didn't think I was going to bleed to death. In Jr's case I wasn't so sure. I took off my shirt and applied direct pressure for about 5 minutes and then had his girl friend take over holding the shirt while I went for help. Luckily I found Bob the local K Mart manager not far away and he had a 1st aid kit and let me have some bandages, tape and ACE bandage. I went back to tape up Jr. and see if the bleeding had stopped. It had, life is good. Had the bleeding not stopped it would have been helicopter rescue time. So we bandaged him up and I gave him my shoe for the injured foot and I wore his slipper. We were a funny looking pair I'll tell you as we hobbled back to the truck approximately a mile or so away. What's the lesson here? There's a couple actually. 1. Never hike in flip flops. Never. 2. Never hike further than an 1/8 of a mile from your vehicle without a 1st aid kit. Tomorrow I'll be putting my first aid kit that is in my truck into a backpack so that it's easy to take along the next time I want to go exploring. Wrapping this up... During this whole week we've seen a pod of whales, green sea turtles, Lamas, Turkeys, Goats and a Zebra. And I almost forgot, a Mahi Mahi chasing a school of flying fish. All free. My son and his girlfriend caught their flight home this evening and except for the incident this afternoon it was a very fun adventurous vacation for my family. P.S. If you're coming to visit and want to buy a first aid kit, I'd recommend going to K-Mart and pick one up. It could save your life.
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