Ah....where to start? Today started out a little bit later. We got to sleep in a little. We ended up leaving the house around 10-ish and headed down to the Lava Tree Park. It was a neat little park with a little trail to walk around. It's in a rainforest, so there were a lot of neat sounding birds! There were some interesting looking lava trees!
Jen posing next to a Lava Tree
After the Lava Trees we headed over to the Warm Springs. They were just a little ways down the road. I think it was called a "warm pond" rather than a "hot springs", but same thing, right? First we passed it and ended up on a boat launch at the ocean!! So we turned around and headed back to where we thought it might be. We FOUND it! We already had our swimming suits in the car in case we wanted to swim, but all of the 'Caution' signs made me not wanna swim!! One sign said "Enter at your own risk. This natural ocean thermal pond is not disinfected. Do not enter if you have open wounds due to risk of bacterial infection. Do not feed marine life. Fish and eels may become aggressive." After reading that sign, we decided not to go in. But I still wanted to know how warm it was, so I stuck my feet in it. It was WARM! Like bathwater warm. It was pretty cool. But I still wasn't brave enough to get in.
the warm spring
After the Warm Springs we decided to take a quick little detour over to the Mauna Loa Macadamia Nut Plantation. We took ourselves on a 'self-guided tour' of the factory, and got to see how the nuts get roasted, salted, chocolate coated, sorted, and packaged. It was pretty fun, but quick. So if any of you feel the need for macadamia nuts, you know who to call ;o)
Mauna Loa Macadamia Nut Factory
Factory workers hard at work packaging macadamia nuts
After Mauna Loa we headed to the Punalu'u Black Sand Beach! BLACK SAND!! It really was!! I was very excited to go, and was amazed when I got there. It was jet black. I guess it's just made out of crushed volcanic rock. I thought it'd make my feet all black and dirty, but it doesn't. It was just like regular white sand. It was great! There is also a beach with GREEN sand on it and you can hike to on this island, but it's too huge and we're running out of time, so black sand will have to do. There were also sea turtles swimming in to rest. It was a lot of fun!
Jen's loving the black sand!!!
Matt on the Black Sand Beach
Matt and I on the Black Sand Beach
We even got to see a Sea Turtle! what a treat!
After the Black Sand Beach we decided it was dinner time. We were right next to the Southernmost point of the United States!!! We drove miles and miles trying to find a "sit-down restaurant" and kept pulling up to places that were either too dirty or too expensive. So we finally ended up in Hilo (about 95 miles from where we started)!!! We saw a place called 'Ken's Pancake House' and I said, "Let's try here. And if it doesn't work, we're going to Pizza Hut!!" So we went in, asked to look at the menu, and it was JUST what we were looking for!! YAY FOR DINNER!!! A million miles later, we were finally eating dinner. Then we are paying for dinner, and the woman says "I'm sorry. It's not taking your card..." Embarrassed, dazed, and confused, I run out to the car to get my purse to get my credit card, and this Japanese man is yelling at me asking me for a ride to his hotel because it's raining and he'd walked over before it started raining. So I grabbed my stuff out of the back seat and told him that I wasn't leaving yet, and headed back inside with my bag and credit card. The credit card goes through, we pay for dinner, dash past the Japanese man, jump in the car and head home in the pouring rain.
Then on the drive back to the volcano (where we are staying) Matt says, "Something just crawled on me." It was dark so he flipped on the dome light... it was A BEE!!!!! I covered my mouth and screamed (i was driving). So I frantically grab an empty coke bottle and give it too him to bottle the bee!! Of course Matt has to do it all gently, while I'm freaking out saying "GET IT OUT! GET THE BEE!!!" So he bottled the bee, and no one got stung. WHEW!!
Beat up and broke, we finally get home to put an end to our long day. But WHY did our debit card decline?? Where'd all the money go? So Matt goes online to check our account and we see all of these charges that we didn't make!! WE ARE VICTIMS OF IDENTITY THEFT!!! Here's what we DIDN'T spend:
Old Navy.com $184.03
G. By Guess.com 1.00
Dell Bus. Online 239.80
Dell Bus. Online 1.00
Old Navy.com 54.13
Old Navy.com 97.42
Hollister.com 165.60
6pm.com 89.45
All of these charges add up to $832.43!!!!! All charged to our account TODAY! So we frantically look for our cell phones to call up USAA to get this fixed!! LUCKILY all of those charges are still pending, so they removed all of the charges, cancelled our debit cards, and reported it to the fraud department. The fraud department will investigate it and we will get our money refunded in 3 days, and our new debit cards in 3-5 days. HOLY COW!!! What a DAY!! As I re-read this, I laugh. But I guess it's not that funny!!
Tomorrow is our last day here. Luckily we have my stupid credit card, cuz that's gonna be savin our bacon tomorrow when we check out. Back to O'ahu tomorrow afternoon. Our plan for tomorrow is to see the Petroglyphs, then the Orchid Garden, then the airport. But we'll just hafta wait and see what the weather looks like tomorrow.
In spite of the miles of driving to eat, bee in the car, and identity theft, we're still having a good time :o)
We end our chaotic day by building a nice fire in our fireplace :o)
Comments
Sarah