Diamond Head

This morning dawned sunny and HOT. We slept in this morning (until 7:30!) and then went to breakfast at the Shore Bird. Unfortunately, it being Sunday morning and us being later than usual, we did not get a choice spot by the sand. That's okay...every seat looks at the ocean anyway :-).

After breakfast Kelsey went in search of souveniers while Jay and I went to Diamond Head.


It's a .8 mile trail up to the top of the crater. It's not that steep going up because there are a lot of switchbacks and we scooted through that part. Then we hit the stairs. Man, there were a lot of them (99 I think). The view at the top was worth it though, it was awesome. We also witnessed a marriage proposal at the top. Sweet, but who wants to be dripping with sweat while either on the asking or the answering part of that?




Going back down was of course a cake walk compared to the going up portion. It took us about an hour total for up, look around, and back. According to the time estimates at the front gate, we did pretty good. We swung back to the hotel and picked up Kelsey, then hit Hilo Hatties to load up on souveniers for Kelsey's friends and Jason's work buddies. Hilo Hatties is a huge store where you can get anything you would ever think to want in Hawaii..leis, macademia nuts, seashells, hawaiian shirts and dresses, and of course monkey heads carved from coconuts. They've got it all.

When we were all shopped out we headed back and returned the car (thanks for the upgrade!), then back to the hotel for showers, which felt so good you have no idea. Now we're all dolled up and ready for our luau, which is our last scheduled activity :-(. Tomorrow is a travel and study day, so this is probably it for vacation now. I'll try to post more on the luau later. Aloha for now!