Tomatico woke up pretty early, likely because he took a long nap the day before recovering from his motion sickness. By about 5:30 he was wide awake so I decided to go to the gym with him.

We started off by jogging along the trails of the resort to see where things were. We found the basketball and tennis court in the process. On the other side of the resort, we found the chapel and the rock gardens along the shore with great views of the bay.

The gym was mostly empty with only a few other people working out. There was a good selection of treadmills, elliptical machines, and stationary bikes to go with the weight machines. We managed a solid 30 minutes on the elliptical before breakfast.

Seeking Sunglasses

After meeting the rest of the family in the lounge for breakfast, we decided I’d take the kids until noon while my wife worked by the pool. The kids wanted to try out the newly discovered basketball court so we headed to the adventure center to sign out a basketball at 8:00 right when it opened.

The first night we were at the resort I had somehow lost my prescription sunglasses. I know I had them by the pool before we headed up to the room for the night so I must have left them there. I had searched EVERYWHERE in the room behind anything I could move and checked several times with security to no avail. Everything was closed on the 4th of July so I had to wait for places to open on the 5th in hopes I could get something made quickly. I can’t see anything without my glasses and I really need sunglasses given how much time we’d be spending outside.

While the kids played basketball I called my eye doctor back home and had them email me my prescription in hopes I could find a place that could make me some glasses the same day. I went searching online for a local place that might be able to do that. Costco and Walmart did glasses but they said it could take up to 7 days according to their website and we’d be on a different island by that point.

I lucked out and found Eyewear Kona via a Google search. Several of the comments indicated people had gotten glasses made the same day so I was hopeful I’d be able to get something made. They were in town and opened at 9:00 am so I planned to be there when they opened to see what options I had. Not having any sunglasses for the rest of the trip would have been bad so I was willing to throw money at the problem if there was a solution.

I gathered the kids around 8:30 after a few games of P-I-G and we returned the basketball before heading into town. We found the storefront and went in. The agent was very friendly once he was free and gave me my options. While he could have made some tinted lenses for me, he suggested an option for some glasses that fit over my existing glasses. They had several options for styles and he found ones that were the least bulky that would still fit over my glasses. While the look wasn’t quite as stylish as normal glasses it didn’t look all that bad. The tinted glasses would have taken all day, would not have been polarized like these, and would have been much more expensive. For $60 I decided to get the ones that fit over my glasses and be done with it. I would plan to get replacement sunglasses back at home when I returned.

Back to the Pool

With new sunglasses in hand, we headed back to the hotel. The boys were tired of doing my chores with me and wanted to go to the pool and the slide. We met my wife who was there working in the shade and the kids went straight for the slide.

The boys then started throwing their waterproof football back and forth and attracted some other like-minded boys their age to play with them. It was great to see them playing well with others.

Due to the time difference, my wife’s co-workers were starting to sign off around lunch so we convinced the boys to get out of the pool so we could go into town to get some food. It’s not often we have to convince either of them to eat so they were definitely enjoying the slide!

On the Rocks

We ended up parking in the same parking lot we went to the day before for lunch and decided to try a restaurant across the street called On the Rocks. It’s a restaurant located literally on the rocks right on the ocean so it had excellent views all around!

My wife got the catch of the day and Tomatico ate most of it for her. It was apparently really fresh and really good!

From there we got some Gelato at the place our youngest and I had tried the first night after our pizza. Tomatico and my wife both tried some interesting flavors they really liked, including a chocolate flavor infused with jalapeños. Needless to say, I passed on trying it…

From there we drove about 15 minutes to the Kaloko-Honokohau National Historical Park. This park had miles of trails over ancient lava fields that lead to the ocean. By the ocean, there are several areas that sea turtles gather so you have a good chance to see one. We had also read there were some petroglyphs from some of the original inhabitants of the island, though we didn’t see any during our hike.

The 25-minute hike down to the ocean in the oppressive heat was not for the faint of heart. While it was relatively flat it was an uneven trail rather than a paved path. We brought several bottles of water with us and the visitors center at the start of the trail had water fountains so you’d need to stay hydrated.

The boys weren’t all that excited about the hike and we heard our share of complaints about the heat, but we finally made it to the ocean and their opinions changed. They enjoyed climbing on the rocks and looking out at the gentle waves. There was a beach area off to one side and we migrated over there. There was a large A-frame building (just the roof, no floor or ends) and it was amazing how much cooler it was inside. The ocean breeze made things much more comfortable out of the oppressive heat.

The boys took their shoes off and got into the water. There were several sea turtles in the water, though we never got a good picture of them. There were several signs on the beach warning you to stay at least 20 feet away from them and that disturbing them was a state crime. We made sure the boys kept their distance.

After about 20 minutes at the beach, we decided to head back to the car. The signs at the visitor center and in the parking lot were clear that the gate closed at 4:00 pm and we didn’t want to cut it too close and have the car trapped overnight. It took about the same 25 minutes to get back, though it felt longer with the heat building up. Climbing over the black lava rocks under the full afternoon sun was pretty brutal for us. We made sure to drink all our water and filled them up again when we got back to the visitor center.

Back to the Hotel

The boys were surprisingly quiet on the way back to the hotel. The hiking and the heat must have taken a lot out of them. Tomatico was pretty focused on getting a rematch in foosball, though my wife was pretty exhausted. She decided to take a nap in the room while I took on both of the boys in a few games in the game room. They beat me pretty handily 2 out of 3 games.

We checked out the lounge to see what was on the day’s menu and found it was Mexican day. Tomatico was excited, of course, and got his fill. Back in the room, my wife was awake from her nap and Tomtico went with her from seconds in the lounge while I took my youngest into town for something more to his liking.

On the way back we stopped to top off the tank in our rental car. It was almost $30 for a quarter tank and at $4.00 a gallon for regular it’s quite a bit higher than on the mainland. No wonder the prices of everything was so expensive on the island!

When we got back to the hotel we caught the tail end of the Luau that was playing. From the walkway to our room we had a perfect view and we got there just as they were doing the fire show which is my youngest’s favorite (of course). It was great being able to see the show without having to pay for it 🙂

From there we headed back to our room where it was time to go to bed. It had been a long day that started early with the morning workout. Tomorrow we’d be trying to go to the volcano again and wanted to be rested so we could get an early(ish) start.