Greetings from the dry, lava-covered west side of Hawaii. It’s pretty incredible here. Any of you who follow Jewel on Facebook are familiar with the scenic beauty because she post her photos of it all the time. It never gets old. I kinda compete with her on photos because Oregon has some pretty nifty scenes, too. But, she totally outclasses my efforts.

Our journey to get her began at 0500 this morning when Diane’s alarm ignited, creating a dramatic start to this trip. Alarms just aren’t part of our daily routine so it’s a little startling when one goes off, even when you’re expecting it. Getting up that early was necessary in order to make it to the airport in time for our 0720 flight.

As soon as we got to the airport I used a kiosk to print out our boarding passes and they came out with TSA pre-approval. That means we got to skip the really long lines going through security. We still had to go through the scanner, but we didn’t have to empty any of our bags, and didn’t have to remove our shoes. I even wore my heart event monitor through the body scanner with no problem. I don’t know how we got to skip the long line, but I’m not complaining

Once at the gate, I checked with the agent to see if there was a possibility of upgrading seats. The plane was full, however, so it was not likely. After sitting for a bit, the agent made an announcement reporting there were four seats available in the exit rows. I jumped, ran over a couple of kids getting to the agent, and managed to score a pair. So, we had lots of leg room which made the six-hour flight much more tolerable. On the way we gained a few hours in the day because of the time difference which means after flying for 6 hours we arrived only 3 hours after we left. Weird.

We got off the plane pretty quickly then made our way to the Alamo bus to get a ride to our rental car. We got a Chrysler 200 which Diane likes because it’s not real big, but has the same size engine as her Buick. So, it’s pretty peppy.

We took a drive out to Kings Land at Waikoloa, arriving around 1230, or so, to see if by some miracle our room was ready. Of course, it wasn’t, so we had to kill some time. Since Diane was starving we went over to the food court at the mall thing they have on the other side of the resort and ate some teriyaki chicken yakisoba. We really like that stuff. Sadly, it wasn’t very teriyaki-ie so I asked for more sauce. The girl who sold us the plate didn’t have any but directed us to the pizza vendor at the other end of the food court where the counter guy was more than happy to get me some. I still haven’t figured out why I could get teriyaki sauce from the pizza guy, but not from the teriyaki chicken place. Odd.

We were both really tired from the flight so we went back to the resort to just wait for the room. Normal check in time is 1600 so we couldn’t really be upset because it wasn’t ready when we got there, again, at 1300. To fill the time we made a trip up the highway to the next resort to check out their market and see if prices were tolerable enough for us to get a few staples to tide us over for the evening. It was a very nice market, and they had lots of nice stuff, including bread for $5 a loaf. So, there won’t be toast tomorrow, for sure. We did get a couple of bananas, a couple of yogurts, and some creamer (for me). Then it was back to our resort where we decided to just wait things out. Walking around wasn’t an option because we didn’t want to do that. Instead, we sat around, reading books on our respective iPads.

At 1600 I went back to reception and got our keys. Then I went back to get Diane and we went to the room. It’s a nice one. A one bedroom condo. Once everything was in the room we walked, yes walked, back to the reception area where they have a grill. By this time the yakisoba was long gone and Diane was hankering for some ground up dead cow meat. The grill had one that fit the bill perfectly so we got two of them to go and took them back to our temporary home.

Back at the room we discovered why the hamburgers we got cost $15 each. They were entirely too big for normal people. Each of the burgers must have been at least 3/4 of a pound, and extended well beyond the limits of the bun. Take a look …

I watched Diane try to pick hers up to take a bite and suggested maybe it would be better if we just put them on plates and use forks. That turned out to be a good idea and one I was proud to have had. I don’t get many of those … good ideas, that is. Like normal, Diane couldn’t eat all of hers so I had to clean up. I suspect I ate a pound of beef, plus the bun, both of our pickles, and most of the fries. I have no doubt I’ll be tipping the scales a lot higher at the end of this trip unless we just start ordering one meal and sharing it. That’s what we did with the yakisoba and it worked out well. Don’t know why that thought didn’t carry over to the giant hamburgers.

After eating we just lazed around for a while then I had to go clean all the crap off the bed so Diane could retire. Here’s how housekeeping left our bed …

What a mess!

Tomorrow we plan to visit Kua Bay and, hopefully, see some whales. Then we’re going to Costco to see if we can get some cheap bread, for toast.

Perhaps we’ll run in to Jewel somewhere along the way. She lives just down the street in Kailua.