Our morning was largely dedicated to food  (actually, that might describe a good deal of our vacation).  Our leisurely morning began with Dusty eating The Great Papaya and Tina eating an Ice Cream mango.

Yum!  Then we headed into the small town of Kilauea.  Our first stop was Kilauea bakery, for some mediocre pastries.  After a quick meeting with Daphne the cockatoo, J and T got distracted briefly by some shopping (purchases: dress for J; softest scarf in the world for T).

Our next stop was the Kilauea lighthouse, where we watched red footed boobies at rest and great frigatebirds and tropicbirds in flight.

The unintentional food quest continued with a stop at a natural food store, where J bought macadamia nuts.  We then had lunch at the garden café, which serves the largest portions of kale salad I’ve ever seen.  J ate more kale than one might imagine possible.

Today’s shave ice stop was at Tege Tege, which serves “Japanese style” shave ice (layering the ice and syrup) with delicious natural flavorings out of an old mail truck.  Coconut was a huge hit; brown sugar, which tasted like molasses, was less so.

We finally made it to our real destination: Secret Beach.  There were no fish to be found (so much for the “good snorkeling” promised by the guidebook), but the waves gave us wonderful rides for a couple of hours (Dusty also played “leap off the rocks into the ocean,” which looked both scary and fun).

Our attempt at finding the secret lava pools was largely a wash; our best guess is that they only really exist in the winter, when the surf is much larger.  So we headed for the Kilauea farmer’s market, where we got more fruit and veggies, and Dusty bought J a beautiful-smelling lei.

Our trip home involved a surprising number of stops, including some errands, delicious frosties – frozen banana and pineapple extrusions — from Banana Joe’s, and ice cream at Lappert’s.  Then we made it to our cottages for de-sanding (a particularly challenging project for Prescott and Dusty).  Here are a few more pictures of this fabulously landscaped, filled-with-bonsai property:

Another relaxing evening at home (except for J, who went running):  dinner in, Bananagrams, and O Hell!