Trip to the North

Due to our "United Airlines" issues, we needed to wait until the airplane arrived with my backpack...so I could especially get my camera.   So, we went to an orientation thingy where they tried to sell us expensive tours (but learned a lot) and then we headed to the airport to retrieve my bag.  We were a little early, so we stopped off for a traditional Hawaii lunch...hotdogs at Costco.

After that, we were headed to the north of the island to visit some sites recommended by our vet.

We were told that their were 11 climate zones and that was certainly true.  On the Hawaii Belt road, it kinda sorta looked like Eastern Washington.

But you could still see the ocean from time to time.

There was a neat little park with an historic village.  Unfortunately, we didn't have time to hike down to it but got to see at least one house.

Hawi (pronounced Habi) is one of the oldest, orginal looking towns on Hawaii. 

We just motored through as we were headed for Pololu Valley (aka lost valley) which was at the end of a dead end road.  As I stated in the overview, our vet grew up on this island and he mentioned we should see this valley as it is were his mother was born.  We ended up parking on the side of the road, but there was a "welcoming donkey" which had two birds perched on it's back.

At the head of the valley, there was a lava stone beach which we were directed to pay attention to.  There is a story about those rocks coming later.

It was quite a hike to get down to the beach (quite a drop....and a walk back up) so we opted to miss that.   However, the overlook provided a great view of the valley.  Unfortunately it was hazy back in there.

We stopped on the way back and took a look at the original King Kamehemaha statue.  He was the king who united  Hawaii in the 1700s.  It all goes back to the stones from the beach.

Remember how I said there were many climates?  Well, here are some pictures from the ride out back to Highway 250.

Highway 250 took us back to the coast connecting road.  It went over some 3500 foot hills and it was WINDY.  Like way windy.  I checked the Weather Underground the next day and the wind was 35 gusting to 50. 

Remember the lava rock beach and King Kamaehameha?  Well, here's the story.  He decided to build a temple to the war god to help him unite the islands.  He needed special rocks from that beach which was 10-24 miles away across those windy hills.  He needed a lot of them and they couldn't touch the ground on the way.   So, he gathered 10,000 of is warriors to make a "human chain" to pass them from that beach to this site hand to hand.  Took a year.  The stones weighed about 100 lbs each.  What did he end up with at the end?  Big temple and 10,000 buff warriors who knew how to operate as a team.  Like, you wouldn't want to be # 10,000 and drop that rock at the end of the chain.  So, after 19 years of fighting...he united the islands.  He got Pu'ukohola Heiku.

Janice had to dip her toes in the water so we stopped at a beach.

But it was windy there as well.

Finally, a nice dinner at a restaurant so we could watch the sunset.  It had just opened a couple of days earlier after some repairs needed due to the tsunami.