Coming to Hawaii

[Loren]

Dude, I've become totally worthless at work, obsessed with this trip. My wife is even worse, she's like a little kid waiting to go to Disneyland! Good thing we're leaving Wednesday.

We've got a handful of "must do" things and a long list of possibilities for anywhere that we happen to find ourselves on the island, but we're mostly going to try to take a casual "island" approach and just take it as it comes. If you know of any really cool places inland that don't require 4WD to get to, lemme know. I think most of the inland stuff we're doing is waterfall-related except for a trek up to Mauna Kea.

Might rent a 4WD for a day or two to hit the summit of Mauna Kea if we deem it worthwhile, plus a couple other out-of-the-way places down south I'd like to see. But, with the horror stories I've read about people getting screwed over for "damage" from the rental companies, I'm leaning toward skipping that. Again... taking it as it comes. If it seems like the thing to do, we'll do it!

Hey, here's a question for you... we're going to be on the island for 9 days, but only one weekend. What high-traffic areas should we try to hit on that weekend to avoid crowds as much as possible? Read somewhere that weekends are dead in a lot of places because people tend to arrive on Monday and leave on Friday. Is that true? If so, I was thinking we should probably hit the busy Kona area on the weekend... but the wildcard is, what if the locals spend their weekend time there, and it's actually LESS busy during the week? I just don't know. Thoughts?

So far, we know we're devoting Thursday to seeking lava. (starting the day with a boat tour, and most of the rest of the day exploring the area east of the current lava flow) Friday, Cathy wants to do some Vanilla farm lunch thing and we'll roam the area north of Hilo taking in waterfalls and botanical gardens and whatever. Nothing beyond that is set in stone.