Mostly busted day

Yesterday was the big day: our first real adventure since getting here. The plan read like this:

Head out earlyish and drive north. Stop at the Waimea Coffee Company (http://www.waimeacoffeecompany.com/) for liquid sustenance before pushing on towards Hawi. In Hawi a right turn would take us out to Pololu Valley and a short hike down to a black sand beach. After an appropriate amount of beach time, significant browsing in my fave book shop on the island, Kohala Books. To top off the day, dinner at Sushi Rock (http://www.yelp.com/biz/sushi-rock-hawi) in Hawi before the drive home.

Driving out of Kona we congratulated ourselves on deciding to leave town, as the vog was pretty nasty. Unfortunately, the clouds descended and the rain began to fall as we neared Waimea. Unperturbed, I vowed a clearing of the gray once we'd climbed up and over the mountain north of Waimea. At the peak of the climb the sun did come out! On the backside, we descended back into the gray. The rain was coming down fairly heavy in Hawi but I drove towards Pololu Valley anyway. Since no break was forthcoming we stopped at the bookstore to content ourselves with hours of browsing instead. Out of the car, through the rain, and down the boardwalk under cover to....an art gallery? At first we thought we were in the wrong place, but nope. The book shop had closed!

Exasperation began to set in. I drove out towards the valley thanks to delusions caused by over-caffeination. Finally The C's sense won out and I turned the car around. Our last resort, sushi, was to salvage our day. Or so we'd hoped. Showing up at noon the wait until they opened at 4pm was too long.

We turned around and headed home, this time by way of the coast instead of the upper highway. Hoping against hope, we moved south looking for breaks in the increasingly gray skies. Tension seeped out the cracked windows, hauled away on the falling rain. The speakers we bought for the iPod tried vainly to crank out jolly tunes at a loud enough volume to hit our ears.

And then, there it was. A break in the clouds! Down to the beach we cruised, laying out for a couple of hours in the semi-sun on a not-so-crowded beach! Aahhh, out of the car, resting. On a beach 20 minutes from where we're staying.

At least I got to splash in the waves and get some sun before the rain chased us away.

We'll try again another time.