Kelly Trips and Tours

Our last morning (Thursday) looking out from our patio deck and views of our Mauna Kea Beach Resort beautiful beach captured with a few pictures before flying home. Lunch today in Kona was compliments of Trip Advisor and Karen's research. Jackie Rey's Ohana Grill is the real deal with many locals and a cool ambiance.  Most importantly, the food was really tasty...our last Hawaiian meal this trip. Aloha from Hawaii. Mahalo for joining us on Bill & Karen's Hawaiian adventures.

This morning we finished off the Cherrios, OJ, Bill's muffin and Karen ate more of her fresh pineapple. Tomorrow we'll have to have breakfast out for our last day here on the 'Big Island' as we'll be heading home tomorrow night (Thursday). After our gourmet breakfast, Karen headed to the gym and Bill headed to the golf course. After her workout, she lounged around the beach and enjoyed the warm tropical waters while Bill was working up a sweat at the golf course. Bill teed it up at Hapuna GC thanks to his former customer - now good friend - Maj Gen (ret) Bob Lee who set it up. The normal price for visitors at Hapuna is $160, but not for Bill. Instead, Bob was able to get him the Kama'aina senior rate - $50! Bill said he had a great round shooting 84. Often when he shoots under 85, he rewards himself with a shirt or hat, but passed this time. Meanwhile, Karen was relaxing at beach, reading a book and enjoying a light lunch. Later in the afternoon, the...

Today we decided it would be our day to drive all around the island.  There is a reason they call it the big island.  There is a lot of ground to cover and many ecosystems, so after our breakfast of Cheerios, OJ, pineapple and bear claw, we left the lush tropical 'Marriott ecosystem' and traveled east through the arid ecosystem (which reminds us of Texas) and moved into the 'Tropical rainforest ecosystem'. This is our favorite ecosystem. It is so beautiful and the road was more beautiful than The Road to Hana in many places. Our first stop was Akaka Falls.  We walked a descending path through the rainforest with many beautiful and unusual plants and trees. Karen stopped to take a picture of a torch ginger bloom and Bill noticed a vibrant green gecko sitting on the flower. Isn't he the most beautiful thing? Then we continued to the falls which are taller than Niagara Falls, but not as wide. The scenery was so lush and beautiful that we skipp...

This may sound like a strange title, but it will make sense in awhile.  In fact, today was the first time we heard SUP ourselves. It all started around 8:45 am when we headed to the beach. We'll get to that in a minute. Last night we finally opened and enjoyed a couple of glasses of champagne the resort gave us for our anniversary. This was the real thing, not a cheap bottle. We waited because we needed to get a stopper which we bought after dinner last night. Apparently when Bill put the stopper on the bottle, it wasn't totally secure. Around 2 am the pressure was too much so it blew the stopper off the bottle which landed against the metal bucket making a very large bang which startled us awake. We had no idea what the noise came from until this morning when we saw the stopper in the bucket. Okay, back to what SUP stands for - Stand Up Paddleboarding. Yes, this morning we went Paddleboarding, something Karen had never done. Once at the beach hut we were asked if we wa...

Up and at em. First a workout at our well equipped gym but, had to stop and take another picture of our beach. No words needed! Today we did a drive about to Kona town, the Captain Cook Monument and other beautiful spots along the way.  We traveled through the arid western side of the island to the very old Kona town where the main street faces the ocean. After finally finding a parking spot we started looking for a place to eat lunch.  We came across the Kona Inn which isn't an Inn anymore but the restaurant looked great with a view of the ocean. Our waitress was very sweet and helped Karen with ordering a vegetable sandwich.  After a while we began to wonder if they were growing the vegetables.  The waitress came by apologized saying rhetorically, "how long does it take to make a vegetable sandwich anyway". The manager and waitress both got involved in trying to move things along and so after about 40 minutes we got our lunch. It was good and even better ...