December 30 and 31, 2011
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December 30: Aside from the koi ponds near the house where we stayed, and the raucus sounds of Coqui frogs in the surrounding rainforest, we did not 'see' any wildlife. There were small colorful birds, yellow finches and red cardinals, that would dart in and out of the trees and underbrush, but nothing that would stay still long enough for a photo... until the day before we had fly back to the mainland. It was about a foot tall and landed on a branch eye-level with the upper porch. I grabbed my camera, snapped a few shots, when I realized I had forgotten to put the sim card back in... and my large lens was in the car down the outside flight of stairs. Anyway, the bird flew to another tree, I put the card in, went downstairs, changed the lens, and got my shot.

We spent the rest of the day in and around Hilo. Did the tourist thing and checked out the stores and shops, and had lunch along Bayfront Highway. Then it was back to the beach parks on Kalaniana'ole Ave. We drove to the end of the road this time, to Richardson Ocean Park. Not as many people. We climbed onto the boulders to explore, watched the crashing ocean against the rocks, created a few more rock ballets , and collected more shells...

And unintentionally ended up with eight more Hermies. We put them in a bowl, and promised them all we would take them back to the ocean on our way to the airport the next morning.

December 31: It was time to leave the big island of Hawaii. Our shuttle flight to Honolulu was at 10:40am. So we tidied up the rental house and left in time to fill up the gas tank of our rental car... AND drop off the Hermies.

Fortunately, I had a window seat on the west side of the plane. I looked down at Hilo and the east coast of Hawai'i... AND looked across, eye-level with the two volcano mountains, Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa. Until next time...
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Log entries: December 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31
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