Around town-days 13 & 14

As our trip to the Big Island draws to a close, it has been harder to write this on a daily basis.  When we first arrived, Tim stated to me that it seemed like we had been here a long time.  Now it seems like we barely got here and it's time to go.

Today is our last full day on the island.  Tomorrow afternoon we head over to Oahu for a couple of days and then head back home on Saturday. The bad part about leaving from Hawaii (besides the obvious) is the time change.  We leave in the afternoon and get home late Saturday night.

Yesterday, we headed back to the Captain Cook area, not to go snorkeling (heaven forbid!), but to purchase another bag (or 2 or 3) of the "Rock Salt Macnuts" dark chocolate covered whole macadamia nuts with rock salt (from the Kona Farmers' Coop).  The salt just adds that extra push in flavor.  They are really good and we wanted some to take home. But then we saw other things and, what should have been 3 items turned into 6 and ice cream for the 2 of us-sheesh. I also tried some new fruits they had out on their side board:

I don't know why this one showed up sideways.  But I wanted to you to see how tiny this banana is compared to the apricot. I didn't get to try the banana. I guess they figure most bananas taste the same.

Sour! I don't know why so many of these fruits are sour.

 

Named Sour Sop for a reason.  The consistency is really weird also-slimy and hard to pick up. They had made a quick breaed out of it and and banana. It was okay.

After our ice cream, we drove over to St. Benedict's Painted Church in Honaunau.  It is a historical site as well as an active parish. As you walk up, they have a table with various items you can buy.  They go by the honor system with a box at the end of the table for you to deposit your money.  We purchased a little handmade Christmas tree decoration (yes, we deposited the right amount of money).

The outside of the church is painted white.  It's when you step into the church that you get a whole new vista. The present church building was erected in 1899 by Father John Velghe. According to their website, "Without any professional training and using house paint on ordinary wood he beautified the church with his paintings. In those days few Hawaiians could read and so he taught with pictures-most successfully."

The ceiling.

Today (Wednesday) we visited 2 Farmers' Markets. We viewed and reaped the bounties they had to offer:

These are called pin cushion flowers.

This type of pineapple is called a white pineapple.  It's supposed to be acid free and much sweeter than a regular pineapple. We bought one to try later today.  Even if it tasted horrible, the price was was so much better than what we paid for our first from one Safeway-$2 compared to $7! Tim thought they were marked $0.99 but they were $0.99 a pound! And it wasn't even a good one.

We bought a mango to eat for lunch but when we got back to the condo, there was the owner with 2 of his mangoes for us.  Now we've got fruit coming out our ears!

Besides the mangoes, this was waiting for us also:

This is what we see everytime we walk up the breezeway.  Not a bad view.