Before I start about this days events, I have a couple of observations.
- When on vacation Tonya and I are always looking at license plates to see where people are from. But here in Hawaii, all cars seem to be from Hawaii. We haven’t seen any cars visiting from other states. Go figure.
- Tonya was using the GPS on her phone and we were trying to find our destination. The GPS seemed to be having a problem and Tonya said that it seemed to be putting us in the middle of the Pacific ocean. After a minute of trying to figure out the problem, I asked, “Have you zoomed it in?” Oh, yep, there was the issue. We were in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Once we zoomed in we found that we were on this tiny little island in the middle of the Pacific. Interesting.
This morning was the helicopter ride. Tonya was very concerned about getting sick on the flight, based on previous experiences on small flying machines. She took a Dramamine pill before we left. Then during the orientation, they offered us some ginger candy, which is suppose to help. I had one of those and they were pretty good.
There were 5 of us tourists. The other 3 were from Austria. The older women (I think the mother of the wife), actually lived in Hawaii now. She moved here after her retirement. The pilot had an Japanese accent, but had a good sense of humor. We were in the air for just about two hours and I have to say that was about 30 minutes too long. I thought Tonya would be needing the barf bag before we landed, but she made it the full two hours. Me, I really didn’t have a problem with the urge to barf, but I did get a headache. The ride was like being on a mild roller coaster for two hours. When flying straight the ride was easy, but when the pilot decided to give us a better view of the lava flows and the waterfalls, he started doing helicopter spins and circles, the head started to spin with it. Sitting across from Tonya, I thought it was time for the barf bag use. Her face was white. We did make it and having our feet back terra firma, we had time to reflect.
Actually, the ride was spectacular. From Kono we flew up over 10,000 feet to the volcano. We saw fresh lava flows. We could see the red lava at the end of each lava wave. We circled a cauldron with lava shooting up in the air. Not too high, but we could see it. We also saw were the lava flows were running into the trees and creating flames where the trees were burning. We circled Kilauea which has erupted in the past, but today was just smoking. The pilot said that he couldn’t get any closer because of the poison gases coming from the volcano. So we circled and then headed north to the rain forest on the north end of the island. This island is amazing, with its 13 different climates; desert, rain forest, pasture, lava rocks. All the rivers enter the ocean in the north. There are no rivers in the south and the west. Most of this area is covered with lava rock and so the water seeps right through into the earth. So in this area there seems to be an ample supply of underground water. In the north, they collect rain water for use.
discount viagra Don’t have Kamagra tablets, if you are allergic to vardenafil or taking Riociguat. Order for 3, 9, 6, 12 generic uk viagra bottles can be placed using a credit or debit card from your home. Too little canadian online viagra testosterone also can make it more difficult to get over this issue. Doctors do know cheapest tadalafil 20mg about all the medicines and their effects so they suggest people according to it.
The waterfalls were wonderful. A couple of them are over a 1,000 feet tall. We flew up into these rain forest valleys and started circling allowing all to take pictures. This part also included an up and down motion. We all started to wonder if we were going to make it without the bags. Then on top of the mountain the pilot showed us an old WWII bomber that had been found after the war. It looked to have tried a crash landing on top. Not sure if anyone survived, but the plane seems to be in okay shape.
The flight ended and again, we loved it, but were glad it was over. We then went to get something to eat. Because of our worry of losing what we ate, we had a small breakfast. We then drove up to the west coast to the north side of the island to where the road ended at one of the valleys we had flown over. Such an amazing drive; lava, desert, pasture and rain forest. At the north western point of the island, we stopped and took pictures of Maui. We could barely see it across the channel. On the way back to the condo we had a beautiful sunset.
We made it back to the condo around 7 p.m. Between the two of us, we probably took over 600 pictures today. The problem is that we just ran out of time to do anything else. I think when we go on vacation, time should be stretched out a little. During the work week it could be shortened and we could save the extra up for the vacation weeks. But, alas, every day has its own 24 hours and not willing to give up even a minute. So we go until we drop.
Tomorrow we have the hike into the waterfalls. The only question right now is, “Will I swim in the waterfall pool or just take pictures?” The story continues….