What an awesome weekend! I initially thought our trip was going to suck when we first arrived in Kona last Thursday when my golf clubs didn’t arrive on our flight and the car rental agency ran out of cars even though I had a reservation! Everything turned out ok … my clubs arrived 20 minutes later on the next flight and the car rental company upgraded me to a premium car. After we got to the hotel, we even got upgraded to an ocean-front room! Things were definitely on an up-swing! I was on a roll until I opened up my golf bag to discover that TSA had inspected it … not only was my TSA-compliant lock missing, but several of my irons were damaged because they didn’t replace them correctly in the bag. Oh well … what goes up must come down!
Other than that, we thoroughly enjoyed the rest of our trip … we spent Friday just cruising around and had lunch at the new Lava Lava Beach Club in Waikoloa. Very nice setting and the food was good. That evening we drove up to Waimea and had dinner at Merriman’s with our friends. This was my first time in Waimea and I really enjoyed the cool air and the laid-back ambience of the town … must try staying at one of the bed & breakfasts on our next trip. The food at Merriman’s was delicious … almost everything there is locally-grown, and they even had a large herb garden right outside our window which gave off the most awesome fragrance throughout the evening! The drive was pretty short – about 20 minutes or so from the Mauna Lani – but you gotta be careful driving if you’re not familiar with the road since there are no street lights. Kinda reminded me of the drive up to Koke’e on Kaua’i …
Ok, gotta run to ‘IOLANI … I’ll continue my recap in tomorrow’s blog. Have a truly wonderful Tuesday, my friends!
Aloha, “D”