Hello Everyone! I’m sorry I didn’t get this post written last week, but I was feeling a little bit under the weather and decided that rest was probably more important in the moment. As it turned out, it was the beginning of my symptoms for Covid which I managed to catch somewhere in Hawaii and am still wrangling with as I write this today. It’s not been the easiest thing to deal with either while I continued to run my tour in Hawaii or upon returning here to the mainland. I did, thankfully, climb out of the valley from Phoenix pretty quickly and find myself today in Flagstaff which is cool and clean and a good place to recover my strength and move towards the future. I am very thankful to be vaccinated and boosted and to know that this is likely to only be a temporary setback. It is going to tamp down my plans for the next couple of weeks as I need to make a full recovery before I go back to guiding tours in the second week of June, but I feel like I’m going to be alright. I knew this was going to be a risk when I decided to come back to guiding this summer, but it was a risk I was willing to accept and now here I am. All of that being said, Hawaii was still beautiful and I had a wonderful group of people around me to spend my time there with.
I arrived in Honolulu late in the evening on the 12th and was thrilled to wake up on the morning of the 13th in beautiful Waikiki where I went for a walk on the beach and enjoyed my coffee under the shade of a palm tree. I still had work to do that day, but did manage to get out and cruise around a little bit in the afternoon. I met my group in the evening and we enjoyed a hula show at the International Marketplace followed by a nice dinner and a beer at Maui Brewing Company. The following morning, we headed out to Pearl Harbor first thing for a few hours exploring the museum and a brief trip to the USS Arizona Memorial. In the late morning, we headed up to the North Shore of Oahu. I dropped my group off for a swim in beautiful Waimea Bay and then we had some lunch in Pupukeia before heading up and around the coast. We made several photo stops taking in the magnificent coastline and the stunning mountains rising out of the sea. We wound up our day back in Waikiki with another hula show, this one right on the beach and a lovely sunset over the water.
Saturday morning we made a stop in Honolulu to see Iolani Palace, the home of the last king and the last queen of the Kingdom of Hawaii. We checked out a handful of the other historic buildings downtown and even the modern state capitol before heading off to the airport for our flight to the Big Island. We arrived in Kona in the early afternoon and then headed south and around the island and made a stop at Pu’uhonua o Honaunau National Historical Park. This fascinating and beautiful park once served two purposes in early Hawaii. The first was as a retreat for the royal family and the high chiefs and priests of the island. The second was as a place of refuge for people who had broken the sacred laws of Hawaii and also for the wives and children of warriors lost in battle. There is a lot of fascinating Hawaiian history there and it is always worth a stop. From there we made our way around the island to Punalu’u Black Sand Beach and our first look at some of Hawaii’s wonderful honu or green sea turtles. Then we headed on to the small town of Volcano, just outside of Hawaiian Volcanoes National Park, where we would stay for the next two nights. We stayed at the lovely Volcano Inn which is probably my favorite hotel on the whole trip. It’s a small eco-lodge out in the jungle where you go to sleep to the sound of rain on the canopy and a symphony of tree frogs all around you.
We spent the next day exploring the national park with a local guide who brought us to all kinds of cool places and showed us some beautiful parts of the landscape. In the afternoon we checked out some ancient Hawaiian petroglyphs and the beautiful Holei Sea Arch on the coast. After a quick stop at the Volcano Winery for my group to sample some of their volcanic grown wines, we had our dinner at the park lodge while the sun went down and the glow from Kilauea became more apparent. I visited this park four times in 2019 and there was no lava to be seen so it was wonderful to be able to see this volcano alive again. We traveled to several viewpoints where we could see the glow of the lava, and then hiked out near the Keanakākoʻi crater where we could actually see the lava flowing and pooling. It was pretty amazing and I’m really glad we went out to see it even if it made for a long day.
On Sunday we headed out of the park and stopped to see Rainbow Falls just outside of Hilo (one of my favorite Hawaiian waterfalls), and then spent some time among the beautiful flowers of the Hawaii Botanical Gardens in Onomea Bay. This was my first visit to this garden and it really has some stunning flowers and plants throughout. From there we headed up to Akaka Falls, one of the island’s tallest, and then stopped in to Tex’s Drive In for delicious Malasadas (Hawaiian donuts) and some lunch (I ate mine in that order). After lunch we dropped back to the coast and headed back down to Kona. We had some time to wander around town or go for a swim and then I took about half of my group down to do a night snorkel with the manta rays. I’ve done this activity before and it is truly magical how close the mantas come while they feed on plankton inches from your face. I didn’t go with them this time, but they really enjoyed the activity.
We had our morning free on Monday so that my group could explore on their own or maybe even sleep in a little bit, but then we went out for another snorkeling adventure in the early afternoon. We had a nice trip out to Kealekekua Bay which is a lovely snorkeling spot but is probably most famous as the final resting place of the legendary Captain James Cook. Cook died in an altercation with some of the local men after he had broken the sacred Hawaiian Kapu by placing his hands on the local high chief. I really enjoyed being back in the water and seeing such a wonderful array of tropical fish. That night I dropped my group off for a luau at the Royal Kona resort and had a quiet night as I was beginning to feel unwell.
The next day we were up and off to the airport for a nice early morning flight to Maui. We arrived mid-morning and headed out directly to the Iao Needle State Park for a short walk to this lovely volcanic spire. From there we headed out to Paia for lunch and then on to the Hookipa Lookout where we found at least a dozen sea turtles lounging on the beach. From there we headed down and around to the west side of the island and checked into our hotel on the Kaanapali coast just north of Lahaina. I have been dreaming of returning to this lovely beach since I left in 2019 and it has been one of the memories which has gotten me through the pandemic. The second line on my weather app has been occupied by Lahaina for the last three years because sometimes I just need to look at the weather in Lahaina and it puts me in a better mood. I took my group on a tour of the historic downtown area and then we watched the sun set behind Lanai from right next to the lighthouse. It wasn’t the best sunset I’ve ever seen, but it was still nice to be there.
The following day we set out early for the long trip down the Road to Hana. The Road to Hana is really only about 40 miles long, but is full of scenic views, waterfalls, food trucks and lookouts so it takes most of the day to get to the end and back. We enjoyed a stop to see the fabulous rainbow eucalyptus trees and another along the jagged volcanic coast of the Ke’anae Peninsula (with some delicious warm banana bread from Aunt Sandy’s – a definite must-stop along the way). We stopped for a swim in the Pua’a Ka’a Falls and then headed on to the Nahiku Marketplace for lunch. After lunch we visited the small town of Hana for some photos and then went past Hana for a swim at the beautiful Hamoa Beach. On our way back, we spent some time at Waiʻānapanapa State Park, truly one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been and one I was thrilled to return to. Despite being sick, it was a wonderful day in Hawaii and is always one of my top highlights of the trip. We returned to Lahaina in time for the sunset over the ocean and then headed off to dinner.
Beautiful Hamao Beach
The next morning my group was doing a bus ride up and then a bike ride down the side of Haleakala, an activity I decided to skip as I wasn’t feeling great and could really use the rest. I found a nice little quiet cove where I could put up my feet and watch the water for a while. It was exactly what I needed and the peace and quiet were wonderful. My group enjoyed their ride and we got back with plenty of time to enjoy the beach and pool for a little while before having a wonderful final night dinner at the Royal Lahaina. Our trip had come to an end. It was really difficult trying to navigate the end of the tour while dealing with the onset of Covid, but the people who were with me were wonderful and understanding.
I had one last swim in the ocean on Sunday morning, said my goodbyes to the Kaanpali coast for now and then headed off to the airport. I spent most of the day in the air, landing in Phoenix just past midnight. I took a taxi to my friend John’s house, where Shadow Catcher had been well looked after for the last two weeks, and then hopped in and drove all the way to Camp Verde. It was cool in the evening and there was hardly another car on the road and since Phoenix has been seeing temperatures hover around 105° during the day, I decided it was best to just head on up to somewhere cooler. I got into Camp Verde about 3am and bedded down for the night. The next morning I got some supplies and then headed on further up the road to Flagstaff. I’ve been staying in a hotel here for the last two nights, hibernating and taking care of myself and trying to get over this illness. It’s been a very quiet couple of days of sleep and television and I’m feeling much better today. This is definitely an illness I wouldn’t wish on anyone, but it is slowly starting to pass.
This next week is definitely going to depend pretty heavily on how I feel. I do hope to get out and spend a few days on the North Rim of Grand Canyon, but my plans to hike down to the river are definitely on hold for now. I also hope to get out and visit a few more national park sites this week before I set off across Nevada towards Northern California where I will catch up with some friends for a few days before dropping back into San Francisco and getting ready for my next trip. That trip will take me back to the Rocky Mountains and back to the Grand Tetons, Yellowstone and Glacier and I’m really looking forward to it. That’s going to do it for now, y’all. I’m not up to 100% and I want to take it easy on myself, but I will definitely try and get some more photos published this week and I definitely plan to be back with you at this time next week – probably from near Lake Tahoe. Have a great week out there, stay safe and look out for yourselves. Thanks, as always, for reading.
-Mike
Byodo-In Temple on Oahu
Rainbow Eucalyptus