Up early this morning–5:45-ish! Very heavy rain in the Hilo area and south coast this morning.  Thanks, Hilda!  Tomorrow and the weekend looks better.

Since it looks like less rain to the north of the island, we think we’ll take a drive up that way and find a geocache or two.  Maybe look for some Portuguese donuts that were recommended by our condo neighbor in Kihei, Maui.

The Volcano National Park looks to be rainy today, too.  May take a drive there if the weather looks better this afternoon.  Else, another day!

We left Kahului airport on time at 3:25 PM this afternoon.  Arrived a little after 4 PM at Hilo airport. After picking up the Avis rental car–finally a Ford Focus as expected–we found the Safeway near the airport and did our grocery shopping.  Then started our 15 mile drive up Highway 19 to our vacation rental.  Flower Hill.  It’s a guest quarters just off the main house of the owner’s house.

We are in the middle of no where!   There’s a stream we can see and hear from our lanai and lush green rain forest vegetation.  We have wifi for Internet access,  but is isn’t a very fas connection.

We’re enjoying our first glass of wine as we watch and listen to heavy rain and the local frogs.  Courtesy of TS Hilda! We expect rain for a couple of days and then maybe some partly sunny days to finish our week here on the Big Island.

We had our last breakfast on Maui on the lanai of our condo.  Then while packing up and putting the condo in order we watched the Today Show.  Mostly we’re interested in the weather reports for the Big Island and the effects of TS Hilda.

Soon we’ll check out and begin our drive to the Kahului airport for our flight this afternoon to Hilo.  Of course, there are still a few caches on Maui to find today!

On the way from Lahaina to Kihei after lunch we stopped for another cache at an old historical site (Hekili Point) where the sugar industry began on Maui.  The cache was called Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch.  It was a virtual so we had to find information and email it to the cache owner.  It was interesting especially since there was a walkway or levee that went out from the land and put us closer to the waves!

Joyce discovered that her ancient Tevas were disintegrating while doing this cache.  We decided to return to the Birkenstock store in Kihei to get some replacements since the sales person was so helpful getting Gary fitted with new Tevas.

But on the way, we hoped that we would be able to get some hui hui chicken from the roadside vendor that we’d seen on the way to Lahaina this morning.  Yes indeed, they were still selling chicken at 3 PM.  We got some for dinner later tonight.  Then off to the Safeway to get one last bottle of wine to go with dinner and also found another local beer to try.

While enjoying the beer on the lanai, our next door neighbor (Toni)stopped by to chat and gave use some Hawaiian history.j  One thing led to another and we discovered that her husband Greg was a wealth of information on the Big Island. We got out a map and they gave us some really great suggestions for our stay on Hawaii.

As we were preparing dinner, Toni offered us some of the Portuguese soup she had prepared and some guava bread to go with it.  That and the hui hui chicken and the small pizza we had left over made a great “mixed plate” for dinner!

What a great evening!

We’re trying manage our food supplies so that we don’t have anything left over when we leave.  We have a small pizza and a few things to consume for dinner.  This was an opportunity to sample a local establishment’s cuisine.

We shared the Aloha Mixed Plate  which had chicken, beef and fish. It came with 2 scoops of rice and a scoop of macaroni salad. Also a coconut shrimp pupu.  Had a couple of beers and Joyce had a couple glasses of pinot grigio.

This after we found 2 caches near Kapalua Beach on the Coastal Trail.

One was called Lava Point and was out through an area where nesting sea birds were protected.  Hot some nice photos there, too!

It was hot today!

Today is our last full day on Maui.  We started at our usual time–8-ish AM. We decided to bring some of the food items we can’t take to Hilo to Aaunt Janet.

Got to Aunt Janet’s about 9:45. While there she wanted a refresher on facebook before we left.  A nice visit!

Just back from Turtle Beach south of Kihei.  We took our cameras and arrived in time to get some photos of the sunset.

Now on the lanai for the last of the Chardonnay and chocolate bannana bread from our last trip on the Road to Hana.

Altogether a pleasant evening.

We did take our lunch along to get another couple of  caches  this afternoon to the south of Kihei. The first one was Kihei beach where there is a boat launch as well as a small beach.  Although there were a lot of people around (muggles in the geocaching world),  we were able to find it without too much trouble.

Next up was the on at Turtle Beach.  This would be our 2400th cache and we wanted it to be a good one.  We drove down and as we were making the circle at the end of the road to get a parking spot that was just being vacated, some guy made a U turn in the middle of the road and stole my spot!  The nerve.  We made our way back to the beach parking area which was about 0.4 mile from the cache and started our walk.

We had a look from the beach area and decided against making the trek that direction because of the distance and the lava rocks that had to be crossed to get to the cache location.  So, on the way back, Gary suggested we just walk up the path toward the resort that was up the hill hoping to find another beach access.  Lo and behold, there was one!  We took it and when we got within about 300 feet of the cache there was a “private property” sign, but we decided to take a chance and walk to the cache anyway.  Found the cache and had no incidents!  Yahoo!  Number 2400!

We decided Turtle Beach would be nice for a sunset photo op.  So, if the weather looks okay we’ll take a chance on a good sunset. We decided against the Haleakala  sunset because the weather report at the summit was pretty dismal–high probability of rain and mostly cloudy!

Dinner was chicken, red peppers and green beans with rice and fresh pineapple.  Chardonnay to go with it.  Very tasty.  Thanks to the personal chef for another nice meal.

Just one more day here and then we have to plan our exit on Thursday.  Hurricane Hilda may have some say in our departure though.  Hoping it doesn’t cancel our flight!

Yep, we slept late again after the big luau last night!  So we got a late start on the day.  We checked on snorkeling at Snorkel Bob’s, but decided against it because we couldn’t get on an excursion.  Then off to the National Bird Refuge to take a walk on the boardwalk and get  some steps since we had a light day yesterday.

Next up, geocaching and beach going south of Kihei.  Packed lunch and will spend a while on the beach after getting a couple of geocaches.

Tonight the weather looks pretty good on Haleakala, so we may decide to go for sunset photo ops again.

Now, what to do about dinner tonight….?

We took our drive into Lahaina for dinner and a show at the Old Lahaina Luau. Another nice drive along the coast on daylight. Arrived about an hour early.  We stopped in for a beer at next door establishment  (Aloha Mixed Plate).  It had been reported that one could see the show at Old Lahaina.  This turned out to be false information.

It was an interesting evening. The dinner was a buffet that had every imaginable item of Hawaiian cuisine.  Joyce who will eat/try anything had no room on her plate for everything. Gary was aa little less adventurous.

One of our objectives was to see Joyce’s cousin Jordan Ruidas dance in the show.  Unfortunately she was off and we couldn’t change our reservations.

The other thing we wanted to do was to capture images of dancing for our first Delaware Photographic Society assigned subject competition in September.  We lucked out with assigned seating and were back far enough that we could stand up to take photos without getting in peoples’ way. Very difficult because of the lighting. Got a lot of shots.  Need to see them on the big monitor to see if any are competition  worthy.

Back to Kihei and good night!