Being tourists

On the second leg of our Hawaii trip, we went from Kauai to the Big Island of Hawaii. It is the first time I have been to the Big Island. I "arranged" the trip as far as booking for hotel and flights. I put a quote around arrange because I totally dropped the ball in terms of research and prepare for the trip. So I knew Kona was on the west side and Hilo east of the Island, and that's pretty much all I knew at the time, well I might have sort of looked at the map a little.

First of all, where we stayed and where we were going to was completely opposite in my mind's plan then it was in reality. This island is very big and still growing - lava flow expansion into the ocean. When I booked the hotel, I was told - most likely by someone who had no clue about the island - that I would stay on the Kona side. Now we wanted to go to Hilo to check out the neighborhood and go to the botanical garden, so it would be a drive, I got that. But in my mind, I thought we would drive from west to north to the east - Kona to Hilo. Mind you, I had no clue of the biggest attraction, the volcanoes.

So you could imagine my surprise after landing on Kona, hopping in the piping hot rental car, and punching the hotel address into the GPS, we were directed to hwy 11 and would drive south bound for 60 miles. Then I read the hotel information in the car and found that the recommended airport was Hilo airport. OK, this is not good.

Along the way, there were signs for 100% Hawaiian coffee estate everywhere, and I intend to try some good Kona coffee while we are here. Outside of the Kona area, there was pretty much a road in the middle of the jungles and deserts with no businesses and very little residential area. I felt concerned to discover what was to come.

Two hours later, we finally reached our hotel/condo. It is in the southernmost of nowhere. The condos were built into small huts, which was very cool. I went to check in. The receptionist gave us the room keys and some paper work, and charged my card for tax, then she asked, "did you get any groceries?" And my said alarmingly: "No." It didn't surprise her a bit. She said matter-of-factly, without sympathy, I should add, "we usually recommend doing shopping on the way here from either Kona or Hilo. There is a small store 6 miles from here to the west, and there are some restaurants there as well ......" I didn't get everything she said, because she went very fast, perhaps out of practice. But I got it that in order to eat anything and buy grocery, we have to drive back to where we came from for 6 miles. She also told us there were restaurants 8 miles from us to the east, Hilo direction, and the town of Hilo was 1 hour and 10 minutes away, which was quite exact.

We found our way to our tiny studio facing the golf course, and unpacked. Then we had to decide what to do about food and water. The decision was easy. We went back west bound to look for food, and found Hana Hou, who claimed they were the southernmost restaurant in the U.S.A. Which was impressive. The food was good.

After dinner, we stopped by the store across the street looking for coffee creamer and fruits, but they didn't have much of anything, tho they did have two freezerful of ice. On the way back to the hotel, we stopped by the 76 gas station, which looked sparkly new compared to every other building in the neighborhood, to look for water and creamer, etc, and I was pleasantly surprised to find plenty of choices of milk and drinks. I grabbed a couple of bottles of Hawaiian water, a bottle of milk, and some yogurt as if I was afraid that they would vanish. The cashier was very kind to give my extra sugar packages for making coffee in the morning as he was apologetic that they ran out of creamer.

Serendipitously, because of my poor trip planning we found the southernmost "thing" - restaurant, bakery and bar, of the U.S.A.