hi from HI

 Im pretty danged spoiled if ya ask me... two summers in a row visiting paradise. Hawaii is truly one of my favorite places, but this time around I visited a different island (ive only ever been to Oahu). Ive had a certain excursion on my bucket list for quite some time and Ive done enough research to find that it is literally only offered on one Island - the big island. SO between that and some cheapish flights I found to Kona... boom my summer vacation was born. Madi and Kelsi were my traveling partners per usual and neither of them have been to Hawaii since they were kids so it was fun for everyone. 

To begin - when I booked my Hawaiian flight some "error" occurred and I was never sent a confirmation email with my confirmation code or anything. I had called the airline as soon as this happened and they said it wouldn't be a problem ladidadida... well the day of the flight came and I was unable to check in and so forth so I was not 100% sure if I was even going to Hawaii or not that day. Well like they told me, everything worked out and this is the "I'm headed to Hawaii" pic I sent my mom. You would think being one of the last to get checked in right before the flight would lead to me having a terrible seat, but they hand chose a super nice seat for me with one of the only empty seats on the flight being next to me. Anyways... traveling was all smooth and good. 

I slept half the time there and the other half the time was just chilling listening to music. It flew by honestly. Once we got to Kona we picked up our rental car and headed two hours across the island to Hilo. Kona is the more touristy side and Hilo is more local (We didn't know this before hand, hilo was just way cheaper to stay in compared to Kona). But overall I would recommend staying in Hilo anyways. Our drive was... if Im being honest... literally ugly. I seriously started to have major regrets about coming here because the island was straight desolate, dead, volcanic rock. And yes, that is true for the middle of the island, but the outsides of the island are almost more beautiful because the green trees and blue waters are up against the black sand beaches. Let me just show you...

Not your typical beach, but I thought it was so dang pretty. The rocky shorelines made for sketchy ins and outs of the ocean (lots of stubbed toes), but amazing snorkeling. This was our go to beach as well as one just right around the corner. Turtle haven. It was fun seeing Kelsi (who has never seen a sea turtle) follow the turtles around and get so pumped. Hmm I'm trying to think of what we did day by day, but this blog might just be out of order because I don't remember. 

This pic was taken at the beach shown above (Richardson's beach). We were all snorkeling around and this little guy was hiding, really well actually, amongst the reef. Took this rad pic, Im pretty proud of it. 

Rainbow Falls

Snorkeling all morning calls for a nice turkey sandwich and Doritos lunch. 

Snowcones on the big island were subpar. But those few bites on top of sweetened condensed milk always slaps. 

I think it was only day two of the trip that I got sick. I had woken up with a sore throat the day before, but that night developed body aches and I know not to mess when it comes to body aches, so I headed to bed early and stayed inside the next morning. I was able to finish up some school - 98% on my final and a 94% overall in the class - and mostly just lay low all morning. My friends brought me back some meds so I could head back out that night for our epic excursion! There was no way I was going to let anything stop me from going on this excursion that night. 

Dinner to start out our night in Kona - I ordered a sirloin steak 28 bucks and they accidentally gave me a NY strip 45 bucks. It was a nice little accident and a pretty massive steak. Also some free birthday dessert and a nice sunset. 

Next up - what I came here for. Manta Ray night snorkeling. We all got these cute little wetsuits and headed out on the dark ocean. It was about a 20 minute boat ride out to the spot. Got to learn a lot about Manta Rays which was cool. This whole thing started with some construction workers that were working on building a hotel on the coast. They noticed their lights at night would attract manta rays. Well come to find out the lights attract plankton, which manta rays eat. Other fun facts, Mantas never leave the area which they were born and that is why Kona is the only Hawaiian island with mantas. They also have no predators I guess - which is good because they have no defense mechanisms either. The ones we saw were 5-8ft long, but the biggest one they know of around Hawaii is 15 ft long, big bertha is her name. They told us all these facts as the guides were getting the water ready. When we got the go ahead there was about 40-50 of us that jumped in the water. People screaming (out of excitement) in every which way whenever their first manta swam by them. Im telling you, it was epic. We all hold onto these surfboards that have lights underneath them, then the guides come around and put our legs up on pool noodles so we don't have to kick our legs around (it scares the rays). Then you just lay floating in the water, mask down, enjoying the show. A literal Manta show under water where they would just glide bellies up right by you. It was unreal. I had high hopes for this excursion - and the standards were well exceeded. It was that cool. Also side note - the time in the water was an hour!! so worth the money. 

Ive been wanting to swim with these guys for a freaking long time and Im still stoked about it. highly recommend. Next animal I want to swim with: manatee

Two very solid pictures of me haha

HI on life

Jumping into the ocean at night usually seems sketch, 

but this night it was just awesome. Then for the two hour drive back to Hilo...

Sunday was church and Volcano National Park. Honestly wasn't all that special - fairly ugly like most volcanoes are. 

Pretty rainbow though. 

One of the cooler parts of this NP was all the steam vents everywhere. I looked it up and it's pretty much rain water that is heated up from the volcano and turns into steam. They call it natures facial. It was rainy and windy this day so the warm steam felt so nice. And it didn't smell as bad as most sulfury thermal places smell. 

Random picture of me sticking my head out the window. We stayed at a pretty nice place, but to get to this place was this long hilly road. Im talking the kind of hills that give you that drop in your stomach feeling when you drive over them. It was a highlight for sure driving this road a couple times a day. 

S'mores at night

Our last day - Monday - my birthday - we woke up nice and early for sunrise. 

We tried heading to a nearby waterfall, but the state park was closed so we explored a little random jungle river area

And my only request for the day was to get some Lilikoi butter ice cream. We had gone to this local place earlier in the trip and they served a little sample of ice cream with the lilikoi butter and it was delicious. So we went back just for the ice cream this time. It was so good. We then had some pizza on the beach and spent the rest of the day swimming with turtles. 

This place was so fun because the area where we were was pretty shallow. A lot of just walking around following turtles. And it was nice because for being a rocky shoreline, the sand was actually super smooth. 

The turtles here were the biggest I had ever seen. So dang pretty and they were so friendly. Instead of swimming away they would literally swim right up to you. That night we started packing up in preparation for our travel day starting the next morning. Traveling was smooth - we did have to stay the night in Vegas ...

And made the mistake of staying in a freaking Casino (it was cheap). I took this picture to send to a coworker who loves gambling. I definitely don't see the hype of losing money, but whatever. anyways, got home today around 1:30pm and Im so dang happy to be in my own bed. My body was ok on meds the last few days of Hawaii, but I think traveling has either made it worse or it's just my body knowing that now I'm home and can really be sick. So I did some napping today and am about to hopefully get some more good rest tonight before I return to work tomorrow night. Oh how I love Hawaii. I fell very blessed to have the means to pretty much go where I want, when I want and do pretty much whatever I want while Im there. I think it's funny because about 99% of the time while Im at work I just wish I could quit my job and live on the beach full time. Well after maybe four days in Hawaii, as much as I was loving it, I was ready to return to work and to my routine life. I don't consider myself a type A person, but maybe I am because I sure do love having a planner and for only being off school for a couple days now (I'm taking a two month break) I miss having my planner full of homework assignments. Call me crazy. But I am looking forward to this little break from school, especially so I can start setting up clinical placements. Well glad to be home safe and sound, grateful for vacation time, happy to get back to work, but luckily not for too long because LP baby next week. Ok goodnight.