As I predicted, Day 9 would involve waking up early and being covered in sweat at some point.  However, this time we decided to also take a rental car along with us.  So we headed out and picked one up.

It was a Toyota Prius, and I will say, it was quite fun to drive.  The reason we needed the car was because we met back up with Luke, Mandi, and Clair to head out to the Makapu’u Lighthouse (that Ron and I were itching to hike) as well as the tide pools that Mandi and Luke wanted to check out.  Ron and I didn’t really mind checking out those too, as we wanted to pack as much into our honeymoon as we could, and the sex was disappointing.

We picked up Mandi/Luke/Clair from the best hotel ever (New Otani), and while there, I wanted to take a pic of the place that had housed us.

My room was the 3rd balcony up.

Also on the way out, I wanted to make sure to snap a picture of the Diamond Head lighthouse that I spotted a couple days before, just to make it a lighthouse packed day (my parents would be proud).

And as is my mom’s style, I had to make sure to take a picture of the lighthouse with crap in front of it.

We got to take that stretch of road that I took many pictures of on Day 3 again, but this time I got to drive it.  Holy cow was that fun.  I couldn’t help but think of how much fun Zach would have motorcycling it.

We made it out to Makapu’u, and went on our separate paths, Ron and I climbing upwards to the lighthouse

and Luke and Mandi heading down to the tidepools

And once again, as the sweat poured from my body, I had many pictures to take.

At this point we hit the end of the first leg of the path up to the lighthouse.  We could see Luke and Mandi down at the tide pools, so we took a couple of cool pictures (these are courtesy of Ron from ronveenstra.com.  Hopefully he doesn’t mind me stealing these.  Click for bigger images)

Then the trek continued, as well as the pictures.

It was apparently the offseason for whales.  I still stared for a little while, praying just one little guy decided to get there early.

That’s a whole bunch of cacti.

First peek at the lighthouse.

The lighthouse actually sits on the side of a cliff, and you can’t get right up to it, you can only see it from a distance.  I was disappointed.

However, the very top of the cliff (aka Makapu’u Point) was pretty spectacular.

there’s the lighthouse from above

After we realized we were taking the same pictures over and over, we decided to make the hike back down so we could meet up with Mandi and Luke at the tide pools.

In case it wasn’t obvious, going down is far easier.  That works as a metaphor for so many things.

The tide pools were on the other side of those trees.

I so badly wanted to dive into that water, and though I’d brought a swimsuit, I had not brought a different shirt, and the thought of putting my sweat soaked shirt back on was so disgusting.  So instead I just looked wistfully.

Luke had spotted various types of neat creatures, but I didn’t really see much, hence the lack of pictures.  It was still quite lovely though.

And of course we had to get a quick honeymoon shot.

Also, Clair in her little swimsuit was too cute to pass up.

Eventually we gave Luke, Mandi, and Clair a ride out to the airport, as they were headed back to the mainland.  Afterward, Ron and I had a car and freedom, and wanted dinner.  So we headed out to the Kona Brewing Company (the major Hawaiian brewing company) Restaurant for dinner, and to try all the rest of the Kona beers we had not had.  And just to make it even more honeymoon-ish, we got seated on a patio table overlooking the nearby harbor.

That was the best shot of the harbor I could get.  We also decided to get beer samplers

It was all quite delicious.  We also managed to find a nearby shaved ice place.  Now let me quick tell you about shaved ice.  All of us on the mainland have had snow cones, but I think few of us have truly had shaved ice.  It’s like eating a deliciously sugary ball of freshly fallen snow.  And at this particular place we went to, they offered a scoop of ice cream underneath the shaved ice.  If you know my love of ice cream, you can probably figure out that I was sold on this idea, and the texture of ice cream amongst a sugary ball of fresh fallen snow is absolutely heavenly.  We desperately need this technology on the mainland.

Unfortunately, all I had was parking lot light, so that was the best picture I could do.

Well only one more day to go, and it would prove to be possibly even more scenic than the previous days.  This place just doesn’t stop.