Day 7: Aloha to Hawaii - Los Angeles is calling!

Departure Day - leaving the island paradise towards business as usual - from Kona to Los Angeles. We were awake early, thanks to roosters which started to make noise in the dark, at around 4 am, peaceful breakfast on the lanai, packing the rest of our stuff, bringing out garbage and loading up the car. Wish we would have had a day or two more to just relax.

Skies cloudy and rain showers on and off, also, on the drive towards Hilo and west towards Kona on Saddle Road. Name of the road indicates location already: between the two main volcanos, Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa, they built a road. Actually, it’s to my knowledge the only road where speed limit is 60mph - usually it’s 55 max, rather less. When we got higher up it became a bit cooler, and, suddenly the observatory of Mount Kea appeared out of the blue sky (2nd photo above, right top corner).

Landscape was first green, wooded, or rather macchia-like, later it became more barren, with old lava fields and not much green. Wild sheep (which we saw for the first time!), feral pigs and goats (they are everywhere on the island) are living a dangerous life along this street. Unfortunately, there are not many scenic points or pull-outs along the drive.

When we reached the top of the road, suddenly the Mauii Volcano, Haleakala, showed up again as well (left pic, in the background). With a drop of up to 8 % on 9 miles, the road went down towards the Kailua/Kona Coast, beautiful views! Haven’t been on this road before, but it’s well worth the drive. 

 

Arrived to Kona, with sunshine there, at around 10:15 am, it’s been a 2-hour-drive. Airport KOA is airy and spacious, all in the open, very laid-back. (left photo). We filled up gas, returned the car, took the shuttlebus - all a matter of minutes. Luggage was dropped, passed I.D. control and security, all done in a jiffy. That’s the big advantage of such small airports (same for departure, never lines on the runway!).

 

Flew in a rather old-appearing B757-300, without TV monitors at the back of the seats. Though we had emergency seats (only two seats in a row instead of three), it wasn’t really comfy. Seat backs were not reclinable, and, service was sparse. Fortunately, „just“ 5 hours flight time to LAX.

Landed about half hour earlier, received our luggage quickly, walked over to Uber pick-up and arrived to our convention hotel, the Omni in downtown, at about 10:30 pm - earlier than expected!