One last day

It's 8 o'clock. I've been back in Honolulu since about 4:15. What a fabulous vacation. And it went by far too quickly.

We only had a few hours to kill before our flight this afternoon. Plan A was to bum around Kona for a bit. Take our leisurely time packing and napping. A short walk out to breakfast around 10 am revealed that like most other small towns not much would be open on a Sunday. So onto plan B. Check out of the hotel about noon then northbound for a look at the petroglyphs. Ancient Hawaiian stick figure graffiti.

My navigational skills continue to be somewhat vague, so it took a bit of poking around and a short stop at the Puako general store before we were heading in the right direction.

The Puako Petroglyph Archeological Perserve ended up be just the right size excursion. It involved a short hike to and from the viewing area. I got my hike afteall. It was an interesting route, through soft, dry red dirt smelling of sunbaked straw, gnarled sparsely leafed trees, charred trunks and baked lava rock. The petrogylph viewing area was a lot smaller than I expected. A flat area of red baked rock spread before us with the faded drawings etched in their surface. Part of me thought we'd walk across an expansive field of lava rock searching for the images, like a scavanger hunt. Or perhaps even petrogylphs dotting both sides of a marked trail. It was still a treat to see these simple etchings.

And before we knew is we were back at the airport, waiting for our flight. All too fast.

All in all it was a fabulous vacation. How often can you sat that in a five day span you swam with the turtles, saw a volcano, stood on the summit of a mountain and walked on a black sand beach.

The highlight of the trip: coming back afianced. That is a hard thing to top. And I couldn't be happier!