December 29, 2011
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Didn't venture past Hilo. On the way, we revisited the mouth of the Hakalau stream. It's located under a bridge on Highway 19. Anyway, it's one of the better spots to find shells. We also struck up a conversation with a local fisherman... who told us to steer clear of an area nearby along the water. He said he had been there a few days before and saw a large, wild pig that had washed ashore and had been covered in sand since. Although the pig could not be seen, there were thousands of maggots wriggling in a piled frenzy on the sand in one particular spot, indicating, presumably, the location of the buried pig. Pretty disgusting. Then, as chance would have it, we were driving back up to the main road and saw a couple of live pigs rooting about in someone's yard.

Let's see... after making a few other stops along the way, we drove into Hilo and wanted to have lunch at Miyo's, a recommended Japanese restaurant in the guidebook. So did everyone else, so we walked around in Wailoa River State Park along the main drag for a while, and ended up having a burger at a burger joint that only served, that's right, burgers.

If you're ever in Hilo and the sun is out, the popular area to hang out, tide pool, surf, and swim is at a series of beach parks along Kalanianaole Ave near the international airport. And that's where we hung out, too, for the next of hours... volcanic boulder-hopping looking for stuff, saw some more green sea turtles (called 'honu' in Hawaiian), created more rock ballets, and watched the relentless and ever-changing surf rolling in and sending up spumes of spray against the rock...

Oh, and about collecting shells... did I tell you about Hermie?
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Log entries: December 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 and 31
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