Our travel track for our 19th Anniversary, when we chose to circumnavigate the Big Island of Hawaii. Over 250 miles traveled in about 6 hours, with some interesting stops along the way.
We are back in Kailua-Kona after a full day circumnavigating the island. We traveled from partly cloudy and mid 70’s here into mostly cloudy along the western slopes of Mauna Loa.
The South Point area was hot, mid 80’s, & sunny with winds in the 30-40 mph range, enough to push against me and make walking difficult.
Traveling along the southern shores, temps dropped, clouds built. By the time we reached the 4,035 foot summit outside the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park entrance, it was a full fledged rain and temps about 68°F, so we decided against a visit to the part.  Besides, it was already after 3pm, so not much time to do anything there…
Fog and rain prevailed most of the way down into Hilo, but cleared up quite a bit as we made our way north along the eastern shoreline. However, even before we made the turn west towards Waimea to cross the northern “saddle”, the weather declined.
By the time we were starting our ascent westward, we were fully in the clouds with light rain, temperatures in the low 60’s and limited visibility. This lasted about 20 miles but we moved out of the clouds with only light rain before we got to Waimea.
Once we started down the slope to the South Kohala Coast, the sun quickly returned and by the time we completed the decent the temperatures were back into the mid 80’s. Now in Kailua-Kona, just after sunset, it is partly cloudy and 81°F. Just in time for a nice Anniversary Dinner at Island Lava Java, our next stop for the day.
Overall, I think we had a wonderful day driving around the island of Hawaii for our 19th Anniversary, something I can truly say was something we never though  would be in our future 19 years ago. We were too busy dealing with Severe Thunderstorms (Friday), 3″ of Torrential Rain (Saturday) and 6″ of Snow (Sunday Morning) on our wedding weekend!!

Big Island Travels, Day 6: 05-11-2015

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Travel Tracks for Day 5 on The Big Island.  We went to Island Lava Java again for breakfast, then headed down to the Captain Cook area to revisit a Farmer’s Market before heading down to Pu’uhonua o Honaunau National Historical Park, a place I have wanted to visit for the past two visits. We then drove back towards Kailua Kona and detoured up HI 180, the Kona Coffee Highway, but did not find any estates open for tours on Mother’s Day, so we returned to Kailua Kona, and back to the resort….

Travel Track for Day 5 on the Big Island, 05-10-2015

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Our Travel Tracks for our fourth day on The Big Island, May 9, 2015.  Drove north from Kailua Kona along the Belt Road to the “new” Saddle Road over to Hilo. The “summit” of the Saddle Road is about 6,900 feet above sea level, and we were at about sea level in Kailua Kona for breakfast and at the Farmer’s Market in Hilo, so it was a nice ride over the saddle.  We drove over to the Mauna Loa Macadamia Nut Company, but discovered that their 11 oz. packages of nuts (flavored & chocolate coated) were actually cheaper at Long’s Drugs (CVS) with their current sale, so we stopped at the one in Hilo before the sale ended today 🙂  Then we took the same drive in reverse back to Kailua Kona…. Racked up nearly 190 miles today, but a trip around the island on the belt road, like we did in 2007 is about 275 miles….

Big Island Travel Track Day 4: 05-09-2015

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