Hilo Side - Big Island

Hi Everyone,
Well, we made it to the Hilo side on Wednesday afternoon and it's Friday night. The Coque Frog dating scene is really uh...hoppin' (sorry, but I couldn't resist.)

We had an interesting day yesterday (which I'll blog a bit more about on my other blog at http://billshiblog.blogspot.com) and today was even more so.

Yesterday, we went into town to grab some lunch and got a good 'ole country lunch in Pahoa to go. We took it over to the Lava Tree State Park for a little picknic. Well, I got a flat driving into the parking lot, so the girls enjoyed their lunch while I called around trying to get some help, and eventually just figured out how to change it myself...fun fun fun. Anyhow, we managed to get a photo of one of the lava trees with the girls which is posted here.

Today, we drove down Highway 130 to where Kalapana USED to be. Wow. We really got a first hand view of what madame Pele can do when she's angry. A historic Hawaiian town is essentially gone. There are a few houses that were spared the lava flow, only to be declared "fine" by their insurance companies even though they exist in an area that no longer has any support...no electricity, no water, no sewer...nothing. I'm sure those folks wish that their houses burned with the rest of them. Also posting a couple photos of the lava flow.

We drove down to the end of the road and walked out to visit the new black sand beach, which was created at the end of the lava flow back in around 1990. I visited Kalapana back in 1989 as the flow was taking it, and had an opportunity to visit the "old" black sand beach there, which was amazing. It really is a shame that it was covered, but that's how this island works. Over here when you look at real estate there is a thing called "Fee Simple", which means that you own the land that your house is located on and "Leasehold" which usually means that it is owned by one of the big Hawaiian trusts or is "Hawaiian Homeland" land and does not belong to you outright. Well, I would submit that there is another type of land here on the Big Island, which is "leasehold from Pele" which means that even if you THINK you own your land and do so according to public record, that all this land really is on loan fro Pele and she can take it back at any moment. The good folks of Kalapana learned that back in 89 and 90.

We then drove up the beach road, which is beautiful and very rugged, not sure why they call it a beach road though, as there really are almost NO beaches around here. We stopped for lunch at a nice overlook and went for a short hike down to near the shore so we could feel some sea spray.

The girls are watching Lilo and Stitch... a classic, realistic Hawaiian film. (yea right) I'll try and get them to do some blogging soon. Tomorrow I think we will head off to the Volcano National Park and see what's up on the other side of the flow.
Aloha,
Bill