Day 6 LA to Hawaii Cruise January 2013

Day 6  Monday, January 21, 2013 Hilo Day on the Big Island of Hawaii. Presidental Inauguration, Martin Luther King Day
 High Temperature in the high 70s warm breezes
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We rented a car (reserved it first on line) . We were after a full sized SUV kind of vehicle. Base rate was 55 dollars a day. This size of car  makes it so much easier to load and and unload our manual wheelchair. It was advertised as a Jeep Grand Cheerokee- or equivalent . We got the equivalent. It was a light gold Chevy Traverse.Its a modern cross between a SUV and a staionwagon.  It was perfect for our needs. it had a large cargo area which made putting in the manual wheel chair or taking it out a breeze.

We waited at the cruise terminal as the first Dollar and Thrifty mini bus loaded. The second one came and we got on. It was not nearly as crowded as the first . Sue came with me in the shuttle and after some upsaling for insurance costs we got car and the navigational Garmen. It was most remarkable as it had plugged in all the local sights including where we wanted to go.
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 Volcano National Park

I talked Sue into going to the Volcano National Park on the big island about 40 miles South of Hilo. The car quickly hummed up the 4,000+ elevation. The park made Sue feel a bit cold when we got out of the car at this elevation so we bought a long sleeve shirt for her at the park store. We also bought some other science souvenirs. The National Park really knows how to make a perfect gift shop. We also drove over to the Jagger Observatory. It is perched on the edge of the caldera with a drop off of several hundred feet down into the bottom of the cone shape barren sand edge and was monitoring the seismic activity and the gasses. The caldera was putting out a decent amount of smoke the day we were there. Prior to arriving at the observatory, there were several pull outs that highlighted the volcanic tubes which were generating steam somewhat in the middle of the fields. The foliage was pretty stunted from the gasses coming out of the volcano. It was actually heating to cool air (high altitude) to hot and the steam was very visible.

The drive back to Hilo was pleasant. It was neat to see the foliage as Hilo is on the wet side of the island, and all the residents houses had metal roofing. Most of the houses were constructed with revealing area under the house. The houses were constructed on decks so that their was air that passed under the houses.

We made a stop at the Walmart in town to pick up soda and other supplies that are hard to get on the ship.
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The Hawaiian Tropical Botanical Gardens


When we got back to the car with the manual wheelchair, we used the navigation to get through town and it got us turning in the right places to get to the Hawaiian Tropical Botanical Gardens on Onomea Bay.

We got to see more beautiful plants and flowers this time because the sun was out.

Sean learned and practiced the focus first by barely pusing down the triggers than continue to keep pressing down to fire the shot on her cannon pocket camera.  I was taking photos with my Nikon 5100. I hope we got some great orchid shots between us.

I needed to do a lot of pushing to get that manual wheelchair back up the hill. We got up to the little plateau and the gas powered golf cart came down and we loaded on it and it took us up to the top of the hill. We still had plenty of time to do the Garden's gift shop and museum.

We used the navigation to get us back to the car drop off spot after we filled the car with gas in town.

We got checked off by the person working the lot. The shuttle came without much wait for us. The drop off spot was located a ways from the airport slot. We were first taken to from the airport. The shuttle driver when he picked us up said that we needed to drop the car off at this spot in the field not back at the airport kiosk.

When we dropped off the car, the shuttle driver that picked us up to take us back to the ship said that there were 17 more cars left to come back at 4:00. We were all supposed to be on board at 5pm.

It was as great day, and we had more fun than climbing on an excursion bus and getting out of it with 12 to 15 other people.

We both arrived back at the ship totally tired.
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Dinner:

Pats:
Appetizer: artichoke dip on brucetta
Soup: Cold green apple juice cold soup with Granny Smith Apples
Main course: Turf and Surf- Steak with big shrimp
Desert: Pineapple flambe with rum raisin ice cream 

Sue:
Crab quiche from the Piassa
Ham/prosciutto mozzarella cheese pannini

Coconut rolls and a fruit tart roundels