Kiholo Bay

So far, so good! Three goals down.

1) I started my cooking inspiration board and made the pumpkin pancakes yesterday. They were...eh. Thank goodness I tossed a ton of chopped walnuts in there or I would have been tempted to chuck 'em (since we're usually spoiled with sweet, delicious banana pancakes). Even though I like the idea of sneaking a few extra vitamins, minerals and antioxidants into an otherwise nutritionless meal, I'm not sure it's a keeper. Still glad I tried it though!

2) I started my craft binder! I don't think I'll ever be one to enjoy arts and crafts, but I still want my son to love them. So the plan for tomorrow is to make corrals for his plastic zoo animals with popsicle sticks. Yay.

3) After being on my bucket list for about a year...we finally went to Kiholo Bay!!! And it was soooo worth the wait.

The plan was to run 13-14 miles and have the boys pick me up before continuing on out there, but it was soooo scorching hot that I quit at mile 12. :-) We asked my dad to come along and serve as Tour Guide since I'd asked him to hike out there months ago & scout the area for us. Spoiled? Yes! But I didn't want to get lost in the hot, stark lava fields looking for the collapsed underground lava tube pool while shlepping around a beach bag and an exhausted three-year old. And I'm so glad he was able to scout it out, because we never would have noticed the unmarked entrance to the road (fyi...it's about a half mile past mileage marker 83). The roughly mile-long gravel road was surprisingly well paved, which allowed us to drive all the way down to the ocean in our 2WD sedan. Here's a picture of the sign that greeted us at the lava tube-

From where we parked our car to the lava tube pond was about a third of a mile north. The beach itself was very unique- a black sand beach covered with smooth black pebbles. And we couldn't believe how many people were (illegally) camping down there! It was like going to Pine Trees in that there was tent after tent pitched under the kiawe trees, but there was a slightly different vibe. It seemed a bit more peaceful, blissful, slow, serene and relaxing. We loved it. So we're definitely going camping there this summer once Rich is done with school!So check this out. Is it awesome or what?! As I'd mentioned earlier, it's a lava tube filled with natural spring water that has collapsed in a few places, allowing sunlight (& people) to come through! It's like heaven on earth, really.

The mostly fresh water pond is very, very cold compared to the ocean. And the rocks and ladder are very, very dangerously slippery, but once you acclimate yourself to the temperature, it's very refreshing! Look Ma! No waist! :-) It felt surreal to be walking around inside the tube...Ryan was chilled, chattering and shivering within seconds of hopping in, but like me, he couldn't wait to explore.
The length of the entire lava tube was maybe only about 25 yards across, but because we happened to come right in between waves of people, we got to enjoy it all to ourselves. My father had originally gone on a weekday and said it was totally empty, but I get the feeling that weekends bring a steady stream of campers, hikers and tourists there to cool off and explore.
Our tour guide/scout dutifully handing us the camera from up above!
Once we were done, our little Snack King had some taro bread and arare (rice crackers) on a warm stone above the tube so he could warm up his little body.
After the tube, we hit the black sand beach! Grandpa tried to teach Ryan how to skip stones, and later, how rocks can be toys (they made a village below).All in all, Kiholo Bay was a mixture of classic, old Hawaii (we saw a number of wild goats on the way down, primitive roads and animal corrals from the paniolo days) and new (Loretta Lynn's condemned house, the Paul Mitchell owner's Bali House, and Earl Bakken, the inventor of the pacemaker's house). I don't think Keanalele was really a known entity while I was growing up (or if it was, it certainly wasn't well known), and there definitely wasn't any public access road (you probably had to hike), so I'm glad to see it so easily accessible to the public. We didn't get to hike north to the old fishpond and snorkel, so we'll leave that on the to-do list when we return to camp in a few months. :-)