Hilo and round about it

Hilo is the biggest town on this side of the island. Even right by the town there are beautiful streams and waterfalls, if slightly less wild than some of the other rainforest areas we saw.

Clementine looked very darling in her tiny Hawaiian dress. Even though it was too big and the little bloomers kept falling off of her.

Beautiful, beautiful brown-eyes!

We had some very good food during our trip, which I chronicle here for Abe's sake. Abe made sure we never got so caught up sightseeing that we missed a meal! And he was our chief restuarant-finder when we went out to eat. He did a good job!

This shave-ice was super good. I've heard people talk about "Hawaiian-style Shave Ice" before, but I always thought "how good could it really be?" Sno-cones are certainly NOT my idea of a great dessert. But…

these were NOT sno-cones. As even Clementine could see! Doesn't that focused, eager look strike fear into your heart? Don't worry—we didn't give her any, of course!

This shave ice has ice cream inside! And condensed milk on top! And the flavoring is real fruit juice—passion fruit, in this case, I believe. SO GOOD. One of the best things we ate in Hawaii.

This was a Thai food place. Shrimp and scallops. Mmmm. There were LOUD tree-frogs chirping constantly outside the window here, and it was dark and the windows were open to the warm night air.

Some hamburger with a macaroni salad. Macaroni salad is a popular Hawaiian thing, apparently—who would have thought? It was good everywhere I tried it.

The last bites of some good sushi

This was called "Fried Saimin" and it was really good—sort of like Ramen, without broth? But it had hard-boiled egg and ginger and green onion and different sorts of meat in it. Probably spam in there somewhere too. And wontons! Little fried wontons. The spices tasted almost Japanese-ish…but different. We loved it!

These were really good too. Poke nachos. I wasn't sure we'd like poke (you say it po-kay, by the way, if like me you've seen it written but not heard it spoken before) but it was really good! Lots of restaurants had their own variations on it. This was a particularly good one.

Clementine being cute while we ate, as usual.

Not far from Hilo is Akaka Falls State Park. There is a lovely hike through the rainforest to the waterfall, although I didn't like the paved trail quite as much as I liked the wild and unexplored feel of some of the other rainforest areas we saw—but then again it was much easier to walk on, especially for Sam holding Clementine! And it was SO beautiful.

How do you feel about the vines totally swallowing those trees? I think it's only a little alarming, but also cool.

It looks like a botanical garden.

See that huge bunch of bananas way up in the tree? We saw so many bananas and banana trees everywhere in Hawaii, just growing off the side of the road or wherever. I kept wondering about them. Do people eat them? Are there just so many that no one bothers? Are some of them not as good as others, like we have crabapples that aren't good to eat? (Crabbananas?) As of yet, all my questions remain unanswered (though we had some really good tiny bananas which I will show you in another post).

A cool spirally vine or fern, ready to unfurl

SO much green! The yellow-stemmed stuff in the middle is bamboo—huge groves of it.

And the bamboo was TALL. See how it dwarfs Abe and Sam? (It's not impressive that it dwarfs Clemmie, of course).

More bamboo. We wished for some panda bears to eat it.

Here are the falls. They are tall and beautiful! They reminded me a little of Multnomah Falls in Oregon—but surrounded by a whole different type of greenery!

I love that so many of the trees just have extravagant bunches of flowers growing on them

A little hidden waterfall. These pictures don't show it very well, but this video kind of does:

I don't know why I liked this so much. Just because it was so tucked away behind the trees and ferns, I think.

Furry fluffy trees above a bridge

Looking back at the waterfall

Clementine enjoying her diaper change after the hike :)

Lemons and Pineapples. Or, should I say Lemontine and PineABEle?

We did a lot of driving on this trip, and Clementine…didn't love it. She seemed to take issue with her carseat for some reason, and Abe had to put up with a lot of screaming in the backseat. But, when she wasn't sleeping, and wasn't crying, she clutched her blanket and looked out the window quite sweetly!

Another pretty view of the drive along the coast. I love green land meeting blue ocean!

Rainbow Falls is another waterfall right in Hilo. It's almost too beautiful to be true. You don't even have to hike, but just get out of your car at a little park and there it is!

Clemmie was mildly impressed.

But more impressed with her Daddy (and stuffing her own fist into her mouth).

I love those trees with little flat platforms of leaves. What are they, I wonder? There were lots of them here. I also love the sun rays slanting through the humid air!

Another place we went near Hilo was Richardson Beach State Park. It has these pretty little pools and a black sand beach.

The beach sand was kind of coarse, almost like gravel! But softer to walk on.

While Sam was climbing around on the rocks, he saw some sea turtles! They like to swim here, apparently. Once we knew where to look, we started seeing even more of them. We saw 7 or 8 big turtles and even (we think) a little baby!

They were so cute!

I sat and nursed Clementine here and we watched the sun go down and the sky get dark. Such a peaceful, warm, and beautiful place!