Day 3 - 20 JUN - Mountain THUNDER!

We started off the day strong! Anne-Marie rode the recumbent bike for an hour this morning and I went for an hour jog. After some breakfast, we headed up the mountain to a coffee farm by the name of Mountain Thunder THUNder THUNDER!!! This coffee farm, mill and roasting facility was featured on an episode of Dirty Jobs.

This fun little lion kitty greeted us. They had hot, fresh, pure Kona coffee available for everyone. I definitely got the tour started with a buzz.

This is the nice hut where they were showing the Dirty Jobs episode and some other interviews of the owner on his property.

This is the main facility where they sort the beans, dry them and roast them.

This is a cluster of growing coffee cherries. I think that they said it takes 9 months for a cherry to reach maturity.

The guide is showing us some ripe coffee cherries. Most cherries have 2 coffee seeds. Cherries with just one are called peaberries. Peaberries have a more concentrated flavor and are more prized than normal coffee beans.

Anne-Marie's Grandpa West grew hydrangias like these in his garden.

The husks are removed from the coffee cherries. We got to taste them. They didn't taste bad. They tasted kind of like cherry skins. Once the husks are removed, the beans are dried in the sun. They are brought to this hopper where they are carried to the top and then dropped down and sorted into different bags. My lovely model (and fiance) is demonstrating proper coffee bean sorting technique. Folks, she doesn't even have to practice to be this pretty!

This machine shakes the dried beans. The heavy beans move UP the ramp to the left. The "bad", lighter beans roll to the right and down. Coffee is graded by the number of "bad" beans in the mix per 100 (?).

This is where all the good beans go.

This is quite an amazing machine. It sorts the beans SUPER fast as they fly by a color detector. The screen shows the quality of the bean.

Then, we entered MY favourite part of the tour, the roasting room! Here the beans are cooked up to 447 F. They smelled AWESOME as they were spilled from the roaster. That probably led me to buy so much of this wonderful coffee after the tour.

Back out in the yard, this poor little kitty had a broken leg. I think that he was licking at it because it itched so much.

Here I am standing at the top of the road that leads down into the coffee fields. I wish that I could grow my own coffee. Sigh.

I thought that it was interesting that the gift shop was constructed from 2 shipping containers. Of course, inside is where the good stuff is. Yeah!

This is the entrance to the Mountain Thunder coffee farm and mill. Mountain Thunder is one of 48 organic coffee growers. They don't use herbicides like Round-Up to keep the weeds away from their coffee plants. They let the ducks do that. Pretty cool, eh? Seriously, they use ducks. That way I don't get coffee that tastes like Round-Up. This is always a good thing. Also, they use donkeys for moving the coffee around and also for fertilizer. They use the coffee husks and other natural coffee by-products for mulching. Apparently, the owner was a maverick because he was growing his coffee at too high of an altitude where it was too cold and he was going to do it organically which has a lower yield than using herbicides. His coffee has won 14 best coffee awards. Apparently, he ios doing something right! His coffee is wonderful. I think that I drank enough for everyone.

Day 2 - 19 JUN - Old Kona Airport Beach State Park (cont)

Later that evening, I went to Annie's for dinner. It was VERY good. It is a small hamburger joint with some gourmet hamburgers. I had the BBQ burger and one of Annie's cookies.

Day 2 - 19 JUN - Old Kona Airport Beach State Park (cont)

On our way back from the Old Airport, we walked through Kona town. We saw a few interesting things. We also stopped for Shaved Ice. They had a sugar-free option which was good for Anne-Marie. I had one called "A Lotta Colada". This was my first shaved ice. It was very nice. They also just happened to have these cut-out posable available. ALWAYS a good thing.

My first shaved ice!

Day 2 - 19 JUN - Old Kona Airport Beach State Park (cont)

On the opposite side of the runway from the beach is a very lovely park with a walking/running path around it. The park was put there to encourage people to be active. There was a nice green playing field in the middle of the park. Around the playing field and along the walking path, small squares of land had been planted and decorated by different community groups.

Here I am standing next to a beautiful little plant with lovely reddened edges.

This is a more close-up pic of those plants. They look kind of like really strong and colored cabbages to me.

Some kids were having their own foot race in the green space in the middle of the park. The little boy in the black shorts was FAST!!

Someone really took some time to paint these stones blue.

Wouldn't you know that those Canadian cats are the sleepiest?

Day 2 - 19 JUN - Old Kona Airport Beach State Park (cont)

pahoehoe is smooth unbroken lava. I used the Fiji water bottle to show the scale of the "waves" frozen in the lava. It boggles my mind to think of how long that lava has been there. There was a large flow in the 1950's but I don't think that this flow was from that.

Between the rocks in the pic below are hundreds of little clams. They are maybe 1/2" in width.

The muses descended on Anne-Marie in the following pic. There was a piece of finger coral that looked like the type that some people use to hold their jewelry. She very nicely staged her engagement ring on the coral. I thought that it was beautifully done.

Here is Anne-Marie looking out over the tide pool.

This is a nice pic of Anne-Marie and I in our very colorful work-out clothes standing next to the tide pool.

On the way back to the runway, Anne-Marie saw this cool little rock. We though that it looked like a Mar-Mar footprint. You can see the scale of it against Anne-Marie's foot.

(to be continued)

Day 2 - 19 JUN - Old Kona Airport Beach State Park

Today, we had every intention of getting in a nice work-out but our plans veered from that early. After breakfast, we met with the Expedia Local Expert to help choose and book most of our "excursions" in the Kailua-Kona area. Anne-Marie has a great list of well researched options but we forgot the list on her laptop back at home. She remembered quite a few of them though. We spent a couple of hours laying out our itinerary. We finished and grabbed some lunch. Then, we hopped in the car and drove through Kona town and ended up at the Old Kona Airport Beach State Park. You drive through the gate and right down the old runway. There are a few areas where you can get to the water over sand but most of it is straight lava. It is quite striking though while the waves smash their thundering whiteness over the stark black lava.

Here I am with the bay behind me.

Another shot of me an the bay. Notice that I'm still wearing my "work-out" clothes. Ha.

Here is Anne-Marie with the bay in the background and also one of her favorite drinks, Fiji water.

Here is a great example of the white breakers on the black lava.

I believe this is the pāhoehoe type of lava.

(to be continued)

Road Trip from Hilo to Kona

As I mentioned previously, we awoke quite early on Saturday morning. We were starting to deal with a 6 hr time difference from home. After cruising around the market and a part of Hilo, we put the tack on our pony and mounted. We were driving Saddle Rd from Hilo to the Kona area.

Here is a map of where Anne-Marie drove us:

Here is Anne-Marie ready to roll. We stopped at a pharmacy and grocery store to get a few things before this wagon-train rolled out.

We had great weather for driving with the top down. I took some pictures along the way. At the top of the mountain, you can see the white spots that are the observatories on top of Mauna Kea.


I just loved seeing the layers of clouds as we were coming down this side of the mountain.

Hawaii - Day 1 - Hilo

Here I am sitting (however briefly) behind the convertible Mustang that we rented for our vacation. A few minutes after this picture was taken, Anne-Marie took the wheel so I could eat my breakfast. She kept the helm until we reached Kona.

The next 3 pics are of the farmer's market right behind the VRBO where we stayed our first night in Hawaii. There were a TON of fruits and vegetables that I have never seen before. This is supposed to be the best farmer's market on the Big Island. I got some papaya and pineapple. I had never had papaya before.

This is the VRBO where we stayed for our first night in Hawaii. The inside is very nicely done. Hilo is kind of a run-down town though. First, we were awakened by some crazy lady in the street yelling and cursing for about 20 minutes. Then, the kids in the room next to use must have started their own wrestling association. There was a lot of bumping around going on. We did get plenty of sleep though. I think we went to bed around 9PM and, of course, we awoke at 5:30AM!

I am so glad that Anne-Marie rented such a cool car for us to drive.

Kick-Off Post

We decided to start this blog to capture all of our adventures together. We love to travel and experience life. We are starting with our vacation in Hawaii. We hope that all of our friends and family will enjoy the blog. We look forward to sharing our adventures with family and friends.