Hawaii: Rainbow Falls, Caves, and Hapuna Beach (Day 10)

After we woke up in Hilo, we got our day started with some crepes:

Then we went to Banyan Drive in Hilo, which is a street lined with banyan trees. For those who have never seen a banyan tree, it's a tree that looks like this (this is a single tree):

The roots grow down from the branches to the ground, and then grow back up again into more branches. What results is a big nest of vertical, thick roots that form one large tree. What's neat about Banyan Drive is that all of the banyan trees there were planted by famous people. We got to see trees planted by Babe Ruth, Amelia Earhart, Louis Armstrong, Cecil B. Demille, and presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Richard Nixon.

After we leaving Hilo, we visited the last Lost-related location on our trip, called Kaumana Cave. The cave was used as the setting where John saved Eko from the bear. Here's what the entrance looked like:

The cave is an underground lava tube, so the walls were glassy smooth in spots and the floor was rippled like a river.

We brought flashlights, so we were able to explore about 1/4 mile of the cave. It continued for a total of 2 miles underground, but we chose not to walk the full distance because we were the only ones anywhere in the cave and we kept walking over chunks of lava that had fallen from the ceiling (probably years earlier). We didn't want to be there when another chunk fell. Here's a video where I walk toward Alisha with my flashlight:

On the trip back to the other side of the island (Kona) we visited Rainbow Falls and made an impromptu stop at a local cookie store:

We were excited to check into our final hotel, the Hapuna Beach Prince Hotel. We'd actually organized our trip to Hawaii around having this place be our grand finale before heading home. Luckily Alisha found a 50% off deal for the room to make it much more reasonable. We checked in a little early and prolonged our checkout as long as possible, because it was so pleasant being there. It was the nicest place I have ever stayed and was a great way to end the trip. The rest of our day was spent enjoying the beach, pool, room, and atmosphere of what is the nicest man-made place I've ever been:

View from our balcony

View from underneath a beach umbrella

View of the beachside pool

View from the beach chairs

That night we watched the sun set from our private balcony: