For Kelley’s 35th high school reunion, we visited the big island of Hawai’i. It was an awesome trip filled with sun, exercise, excellent food and new friends.
Kona to Waimea
We arrived at Kona Int’l, and headed to the car rental counter. Empty counter, silence for several minutes straight. Kelley said, “Yep, welcome to Hawai’i” My first experience with “Island Time”. LOL
A nice young lady did emerge some time later. So we picked up our convertible Camaro and headed for the nearest coffee shop. The temp was quite warm, around 85, so we grabbed some iced Kona coffee, dropped the top and headed north to Waimea.
The landscape near that part of the island is very different than I expected. A lot of exposed lava. Not many trees near the coast, except in populated areas. The higher you climb in elevation, the more greenery there is.
We drove straight to Hawai’i Prep Academy and walked around the grounds.
It’s a really nice campus at the base of a small mountain/big hill. Most of the building are unchanged from 1984, she said.
After an hour of exploration, headed to find our nearby Airbnb. Was only a couple miles away, towards town.
Craig’s Airbnb was superb. The location was super convenient, the lanai was so nice with a breeze blowing most of the time. The interior was awesome too, but we didn’t spend much time there. The weather was so nice, we stayed on the go, or on the lanai, or in the hot tub most of the time.
Late afternoon, we went into town to meet up with her classmates at one of the local resident’s business. Was really nice to meet everyone and put faces/personalities to all the stories I’d heard.
Saturday morning, we headed back to the campus to start a day filled with activities. First up, a two-hour hike from the school up to the top of a large hill (1200 ft gain).