Scary stuff...

Today we drove to Hilo, the largest city on the island. (Well, "city" is probably a bit of a stretch...) It was about a two hour drive from our hotel, on the eastern side of the island -- also known as the "rainy side" of the island. At least that's what we're assuming... the weather here at the hotel (on the western side of the island) has been great -- but start driving east and the sky eventually darkens, welcoming visitors with spotty, scattered rain showers. But the rain is obviously what helps to create the lush green landscape, completely different than the lava rock fields around the hotel. This island, just like Maui, is a concentrated study in contrasts -- dry and sunny one minute, rainy and green the next... balmy and humid at sea level, chilly and arid in the mountains.

One of the interesting things we discovered today is that the big island is home to lots of mongooses (mongooses?? mongeese??). I haven't managed to get a picture yet, because they seem to be a bit skittish. But the many many mongooses/geese WOULD explain the decided lack of cobras on the island...

After wandering around Hilo (which is really rather unimpressive, to tell the truth), we started driving back toward the hotel and saw a sign for the "World Botanical Gardens and Umauma Falls." We turned in on a whim, and after a drive down a narrow, bumpy, winding road, we were rewarded with a view of the falls. We were also rewarded with a much-too-close view of an unusual spider that was hanging out on some bushes near the waterfall overlook. That thing looked mean... I needed a mongoose to protect me...

So here's some pictures from today:

Fish in a pond at the hotel...

Cloudy, dreary Hilo...

Purple flowers at the botanical gardens...

This kitten was hanging out on the porch of a little gift shop at the World Botanical Gardens and Umauma Falls... the kitten, by the way, was MUCH cuter than--

This horrible, horrible spider!! Argh!!

While we were there, the spider caught itself a nice, tasty fly... it had that thing wrapped up in a web in about ten seconds...

Strange tree on which people have carved names and initials into the leaves... I can't imagine that's good for the tree...

Umauma Falls...

Driving back to the hotel...

Sunset reflecting off the ocean...

And here I am showing off my already-obvious Hawaii tan... (I think I'm so white I'm actually glowing... well, some of that might be the camera flash...)

Tomorrow we're planning on sticking around near the hotel, and maybe swimming and hanging out on the beach. So there's hope for that tan yet... maybe...