The Kona Adventure - Part 3

Here we are at Part 3, and I'm still on Day 1 of our adventure. I am having so much fun sharing our fun with you. Every day we wish someone was with us to see and experience this beautiful place. We are amazingly fortunate to have gotten out of Colorado just before three days of snow and ice hit, and to arrive here just as the rain left this area. My foot feels great and my knee improves daily. I am truly a walking miracle.

Karen asked if that was cantaloupe on our first day's breakfast. It's actually papaya. When we went to the Farmer's Market the first day, before I hurt myself, we saw so many varieties of that one fruit, it was confusing. We bought some tangarines, grapefruit, and pineapple. That night we ate the whole pineapple - wonderfully delicious. Nancy gives us way too much food every day. In fact, we usually end up having half of it for lunch or dinner. We have bagels, scones, muffins, and/or croissants, along with the fruit, orange juice, and another more tropical fruit juice variety.

We also bought some Kona coffee that day from a local grower. We very much like to talk to people who live here and work here. There are two hot topics around here with those who make this their home. One is, as I mentioned before, the growth without adequate planning - they say the road work to the airport will take two more years. Reminds me of Denver's huge project called TREX that had things torn up for 3 years. The other controversy is around the coffee issue. Many of the coffee farmers are really up in arms because many companies blend coffee with inferior beans and call it Kona coffee - and do so with as little as 10% authentic Kona coffee. The place we stopped today to buy 100%, no blend coffee is a large operation - the aroma of roasting beans is pungent as you drive down the road. They all think I'm pretty weird because I don't want a taste.

One of our favorite places the first time here was the Painted Church. This little Catholic Church used to be on the coast, but they moved it into the hills because of salt damage. The walls are covered with paintings which were being destroyed. Ten years ago when we were here, we were privileged to attend their annual Christmas program. The most amazing memory is of the Christmas story enacted in hula - all with the hands. It was so moving. Unfortunately, they had their program really early this year and we missed it.

Since we're on the theme of churches, we were walking down the street where a wedding party was being photographed. The wedding took place at the oldest church on the island, built by missionaries in 1838. Later that day we went for a walk on the beach by the old airport site - there was the wedding party having their reception. The young girl you see sitting on the steps was running around, barefooted, on the lava rocks, still in her flower girl dress, with flowers in her hair. Really cute.

On Sunday morning we had the privilege of worshipping in a small church of our denomination. They were having their children's program. It was very small-church, informal, sweet. We felt so blessed to have been there.

Good-Night!!

TO BE CONTINUED . . .