Hawaii - Day 3

Today we left the beach resort and drove to the other side of the island. Though the resort is green and beautiful, it is on the west side above Kona which in general is very dry. As soon as you drive off the property, all you see for miles around are barren lava fields in various stages of breakdown.  As you drive north, you begin to see tufts of grass, then more vegetation as you climb to higher elevation, where we rode horses yesterday. When you cross over to the east side everything is completely different with tropical vegetation and beautiful blooming flowers. For the next two days we will be in a bed and breakfast, the Inn at Kulaniapia Falls, near Hilo.  On this side we are in a lush rain forest, our rooms overlook the falls. 

Larry's brother Don tells us that the big island of Hawaii has 21 of 22 world ecosystems. The only one they don't have is frozen tundra. 

Our activity today was zip lining at Umauma Falls and Zipline north of Hilo.  

All of us participated, though Lukie was a bit bleary eyed and Larry wasn't up to par either. We went on 9 different zip lines. At least three of them were over deep gorges, with forest, streams, rocks and waterfalls. Everyone but me dared to turn upside down and zip hands free for a ways. I wasn't quite up to that but did enjoy the ride and the view!  

Now we've checked in to the B&B. It is in a remote area several miles out of Hilo. There is a beautiful view of the falls from our room. 

None of us felt like driving back into town, and since Dominos delivers, we are settling for pizza tonight.  We will just hang out. The children are ready for a relaxing evening and so are we. Larry and I are in a room in the main building, Fran's family is in a three tiered pagoda, a little two story cabin that gives them space to spread out and gives a semblance of home. It has a tv and computer so the kids are in fat city. At the resort Larry and I were in a spacious suite and Kratz' were crammed into a regular room. Not sure how that happened. 

Ok, that's it for today. Tomorrow is a volcano tour.