My first trip to Polynesia! We booked an AirBnB in Honolulu with Leila, Lydia, and Casey arriving a couple days ahead of me, leaving from Denver. I flew out from Kansas City, but had a ten hour layover in Los Angeles so I decided to rent an e-bike while I was waiting for my connecting flight and I ended up riding up into the nearby mountains. Although we were staying in Honolulu, Leila and I took a short flight to the big island and for a single overnight before heading back to adventure with Casey and Lydia on Oahu. While on the big island we took a helicopter tour of the active volcano, drove halfway up Mauna Kea, and explored an ancient lava flow trail.|We stayed in Hilo which had an island small town feel to it. The shops in town were quaint and boasted a lot of unqiue items. The best place to eat had to be Ken's House of Pancakes. They're open 24 hours a day and have an extensive menu far beyond just pancakes.Although Mauna Kea rises only just below 14,000 feet above sea level, since it has its base on the ocean floor it has a dry prominence of more than the height of Mt Everest above sea level. We didn't have a 4x4 (or the guts) to drive to the tip-top of the mountain, but we did drive up to about 9000 feet and hiked another 500 or so. The view up there was incredible!Back on Oahu we had lots to do, including exploring the island's north shore, visiting the Pearl Harbor memorial and Dole Plantation, and just checking out the Honolulu scene and Waikiki Beach.
