Tourism

Kona is obviously dependent upon tourism. This morning another tour boat pulled in, that makes 4 in 5 days. They stay for the day and are gone by sunset, speaking of which here is a sample from two days ago. In the evening you can have a Mai Tai at Bongo Ben's or Lu Lu's and watch the sun go down.

More Kona

If the country is in a recession it is not affecting the Kona Brewing Company. Business was good tonight and according to the hostess tonight was typical.

I'm surprised at the amount of traffic on this island but then public transits is nonexistent. Nevertheless there is a large amount of traffic everywhere we go. Question, why have a four wheel drive? There can't be many off road areas, the lava would shred the tires and I'm sure the island has never seen chain control.

Gas prices are approaching $4 and have surely been there before. I would think more fuel efficient cars would be the norm, not so. Kona has more than it's share of big four wheel drive trucks and SUV's. I have only seen a couple Prius. I guess I expected to see a more European style of auto. Oh and we rented a small compact vehicle.

A couple additional observations, we have not seen any travel trailers or motorhomes and there are no out of state license plates.

Kona

A few thoughts on Kailua Kona, we are here for our anniversary week, 40 years today. While the weather has been pleasant we haven't seen much of the sun. That was cleared up today when a local said it is the volcano. Apparently the volcano is creating fog and cloud conditions which depending on wind direction affect Kona.

Today another tour boat is in and the waterfront area just got grayer. This is the third tour boat in four days. It livens up the waterfront street of restaurants and t-shirt shops but the clientele is mostly over 50. The waterfront area remind me of Key West and a little American Graffiti with the locals dragging the main. Yesterday evening the red dress run came through town, females and males all wearing red dresses out for a run. "And it seemed like such a good idea when we were drinking."

This island is mostly one big lava rock, some of which look like recent flows. In the north the lava fields look very old with a cover of grass or trees. As we drive down the west shore there are lava fields with a scattering of trees and then others are just black craggy landscapes. The lava provides plenty of material for walls which are everywhere. They can be very old or recently built and they come in only one color, black. A couple days ago we walked around a wall that was 15 feet thick, 10 feet high and a couple hundred feet long. Someone spent a long time building that one.