Aloha 2012! Days 5, 6, and 7

On our fifth day of vacation, we took the morning to find a white sandy beach and went boogie boarding. As you know, I'm a Californian who grew up quite near the beach, so I've boogie boarded plenty of times as a kid. And I've body surfed when I couldn't be bothered with a board. But, just as a reference, Avila Beach has cold water. Not so cold that a brazen kid can't handle the surf in a swimsuit... but cold enough that our moms would call us back to shore every 15-20 minutes to warm up.

Hawaii, however, has warm water. All I can say is... wow. I boogie boarded as long as I could, despite being pretty tired. Again, no pictures, but it was so fun to boogie board and hang out in the surf with Mark, Steph, and Julia. And the surf was INTENSE! No baby waves you can jump over. You either ride the wave or it gives you a ride on the sandy floor. If I lived near surf like that, I would certainly pick up surfing. Take the cold out of it and it is amazing!

The next day we went and toured a coffee plantation., Greenwell Farms. I LOVE COFFEE. You see how many choices we had? We were encouraged to try them all. What can I say? I did! YUM. My favorite was the chocolate macadamia nut blend. I bought two pounds of it to bring home, and even with the strict rationing my k-cup allows, I am sorry to say it is now gone :(

Considering how much I love coffee, I was surprised by how little I knew about it. I didn't even know the "beans" are actually little cherry pits. Silly me, I thought Jack grew them on a beanstalk because they are so magical!

I highly recommend a coffee plantation tour to anyone visiting Kona. But I especially suggest it for coffee lovers, and I especially suggest Greenwell Farms! Seriously the coffee was so good I drank it black. I never drink black coffee!

On our last day in Kona, Mark and I were on our own as we had a red eye home. We toured the town of Kona, watched a football game at a bar (with some incredibly potent mai tais...) and had a dinner date. And so our great Hawaiian adventure ended! We're already dreaming up what we would do on a future trip, probably to different islands, but for sure to include snorkeling!

You can see all of the pictures we (Mark) took on our trip by viewing our Picasa albums, dated 12-28 thru 1-2. And if you check those out, you can get a sneak peak of our NYC trip!