Mahalo! Well, this year certainly started off better than last.
I'll trade the Big-H for the Big-C anytime. Courtesy of a two-decade client and generous friend, we flew to Kona on the Big Island the afternoon of January 10, having first deposited Mom that morning on her flight back to Indy and it's sub-freezing temps. Sorry, Mom. Couldn't risk your bringing your bad-weather mojo to the islands. This was our first visit to the Big Island, after numerous trips to the other big three, and it has displaced Maui as our favorite, no contest. Our 
hosts, Mike and Betty, moved here three years ago after a two-year construction of their fabulous house high above the north coast (near the town of Hawi, but 1,500 feet up the hill). Incredible view of green slopes down to the ocean channel, and 22 miles across to Maui. Yes, the phrase "died and gone to heaven" applies to the living. The interior view is from our guest suite, looking across the channel to Maui. There's not a resort on the island that 
can match it. The outside view is roughly the same thing, and is the view you get from anywhere along the property. That's Haleakala in the center just above the clouds. A wider angle would take in Hana on the right and the Kihei coast on the left. It's one fabulous panorama. And one fabulous house. Out of respect for our hosts' privacy, I'm not going to post any pics of the house. Trust me when I say that the two years it took to build and furnish were worth it. Drool.
Using my trusty TomTom GPS (Xmas gift, thanks boyos), we set the house as home base and navigated all over the island, which is huge. The interior is beautiful in its own right, with vast square miles devoted to cattle raising and crops. Everywhere you go there's a view of one of the two major volcanoes, Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea. Kea is the northernmost, is inactive, and has observatory domes and
buildings on its peak. This time of year, there was plenty of snow up there, making for a pretty neat sight. Here's a shot of Kea from the hills above Waimea (Kailua). Loa is the southern volcano, along with the smaller Kilauea, and those are the active ones. They're part of Volcanoes National Park. We had a nice, clear day when we went down there. Although there were no active lava flows, the "volcano-within-a-volcano" was spewing prodigious steam. When others in our party (explain later) 
went down a couple of days later, the cloud cover was so low they couldn't see anything, like being in a thick fog. We also stopped at the steam vents, which are adjacent to the caldera, which smelled richly of sulphur. We started coughing right away and didn't stop for quite a while afterwards.One of the neatest sights on the Island, IOHO, is the Akaka Falls, with a single drop of some 440 feet. Beautiful place, reached by a path over a bridge, along
small waterfalls, and through Jurassic Park jungle. This was our last stop of a long day of touring before having to meet everyone at Merrimans restaurant in Waimea. We used the Falls park restrooms to change from our shorts to our dinner duds, amusing a few other visitors no end, I'm sure. Hey, we're laid back --- it's Hawai'i!Mike, our host, is the North American sales manager for one of Germany's oldest breweries, and along with us he brought over four other couples that represented beverage distributors in New Jersey, Kentucky, and Texas. They all stayed at the very posh
Mauna Lani resort along the Kohala coast. While we were out touring every day, they were playing golf, shopping, and sightseeing on their own. Each night the entire group (13 in all) met for dinner at top-drawer restaurants. We got to know them and found them all delightful, especially the accents. When you have New Jersey, Kentucky, and Texas voices in full regional song at the same table, it's quite a sound. Can't say I understood every word, but I'll 
put that down to the general noise level. Somehow I ended up as the only one to order dessert the first night, and thereafter I became the butt of the dessert menu jokes each night. That's ok, I have a thick skin, a buttercream palate, and, thanks to Lipitor, newly-won low cholesterol. I was good to go every night.One of the most unusual places we visited was St. Benedict's Painted Church near
Honaunau. Built in 1899, and still in use, it features wall paintings done by the first priests, which were used as a visual aid to teaching the congregation. These were not professional artists, but the scenes are nicely rendered and quite powerful in appearance. The church itself is a wooden gem. I'm surprised that it, and especially the murals, have survived a century in such a damp climate. The adjacent cemetery was a riot of flowers and worn tombstones. It was a good thing we had the GPS, as we'd have been lost 
in the warren of roads in the area. It put us right in the parking lot. The GPS was invaluable at night when trying to navigate back to the house. There's no street lights out there to warn you of the upcoming roads. We generally stopped for lunch at places that looked like they catered to the locals more than tourists, and were happy that we did. Two places stand out: the Yellow Bird down near the Pu'uhonua O Honaunau National Historical Park (Portuguese Bean soup and curried chicken sandwiches) and the Short 'N Sweet Bakery & Cafe in Hawi (scrumptious, world-class desserts). The master baker(ess) also makes whimsical and elegant wedding and special occasion cakes. Check out www.shortnsweet.biz . Too
bad they can't deliver to the mainland.Our last day we decided to hike down to a black sand beach which wasn't too far, at the end of the road at the Polulu Valley overlook. The beach is about 400 feet below, a 20 minute hike down. Loni is standing at the beginning, and the shot is the East coast looking South. Beautiful, dramatic shoreline. the Trail is steep, but not too bad. At the bottom of the trail you come out on this incredible valley-river
scene that hasn't changed for eons, at least not at the hand of humans. I think this is why we liked the Big Island so much. There's a lot of untouched wilderness beauty with nary a condo in sight. The river in the pic disappears entirely underground right when it reaches the beach. That's a lot of water to suddenly go poof! We walked up the beach to the first cliff. The tide was coming in so we couldn't go any further, but this was a very relaxing place to be so we just sat, looked, and listened to the surf until it was 
time to go. Nice way to end the trip. We had dinner that night at the Canoehouse at the Mauna Lani. It's set right on the beach, crashing surf, tiki torches, bamboo & wicker, and great food. We debated staying forever, but economics took hold and we hightailed it down the coast to the airport for our redeye back to (sigh) L.A. At least it was easier this time with Homeland Security. On the way over, Loni got put in the "cage," and had to be individually searched. Her ticket said "Loni," but all her i.d. is in her given name, Alana. Big no-no. Don't go there. We almost didn't make it out of L.A. Thanks, Mike and Betty, for a fabulous time! 
