Big Island Days 2 and 3

We spent Day 2 running from the rain. Our successful strategy: horseback riding tour in the Waipio Valley and then to the beachy side of the island for an afternoon of beach lounging.

I always forget that horseback riding requires you to be on a horse, and that horses have personalities, and that any group of horses that a company uses for horseback riding have their own little horse politics that can disrupt a peaceful ride through a valley. My horse was angry at all the other horses and tried to bite them all the time. When I didn't let her bite them, she got really mad at me.


Dave's horse, on the other hand, was named Smoky, and he was just lazy and wanted to eat all the time. This meant that Dave and I were very far from each other the entire ride. My horse was racing to the front of the pack (and biting any horse that stood in her way) and Dave's was happy in last place, chewing on trees and finding avocados on the ground.

But we did manage to get them together for a photo.


After the ride, they fed us fresh oranges and avocados that fell from the trees during the ride.



The rest of the day was devoted to beach lounging. This beach was cloudy but luckily not raining.
On Day 3, due to the continuing rain and our consequent inability to do the hikes we had planned, we moved our tickets to Honolulu earlier in the day, stopping to see one last sight before leaving the Big Island.

We returned to Oahu, heading over to Dave's mom's place. That's us below:

Where we tinkered with mai tai recipes, until we had what we thought was pretty good. Notice the dark rum float on top.