To Kona... and beyond!!!

The next day we went to Kona. We originally planned on camping at one of the beaches, but after dropping off two other people the sun began to set and it began to rain. We decided to see if we could priceline.com a room for the evening. We hopped into a internet cafe and gave it a shot, but there was no luck. We thought one more try was worth it and went to two of the hotels we knew had specials up. One woman gave us the local rate and took really good care of us and we had a room in civilization for a night and it was wonderful. We quickly stashed our stuff in our room, got changed, and ran off for a date in Kona's harbor. It was a lot like Baltimore's inner harbor. It was colorful, kitschy, but fun and a lot like a boardwalk. There was even an arcade with ski ball. We went out to dinner and had sea food and some Mai Tais highly recommended by the waitress (they were really tasty).



In the morning we left the hotel, grabbed a small breakfast, and headed to the ocean. We found a gorgeous public beach and explored the tidal pools for a while before heading to return the jeep. A few days earlier I had called to see what the cost of extending the Jeep would be. The man at corporate was really rude to me, and it was impossible to get any information out of him. When we went to return the Jeep I spoke to the woman about this, and she set us up with a GREAT deal for a compact for 1 or 3 weeks. They were out of compacts so instead she gave us the new Chevy HHR -- cool car.

We took our new wheels on a tour of the coast for the day. We stopped at hand made craft galleries, general stores, and other assorted cool stuff shops. We saw farms and the observatory shiny on top of the mountain. We stopped at a mac nut farm and got treats and an amazing view.

We continued on around the coast till we got back to Puna.