Drinking in the Air

So here's some news: I went to the Big Island for 10 days.  You know, Ironman World Championships?

Yeah, so I was there and saw lots and lots of runners and cyclists, and I also listened to a 10 hour Ironman finisher speak (that's why you should always go to church).  I also did some running myself.  And thought that I was going to drown in the humidity.

I ran 5 miles and 3 miles.  The place that we were staying was up in the hills outside of Kona (trivia factoid, it was formerly Dog the Bounty Hunter's house, according to the neighbor).  And you lost 500 feet of elevation in the half mile run down from the house, to the running trail.  And that's always a fun way to end your run, right?  Running straight up?

Here's a view from the end of the driveway - that blue is the ocean, not the sky.

And here's look back at our vacation house.  The pool is on the other side of the driveway.  It wasn't heated, so it didn't get used very much.

I had been to Hawaii before (my husband and I went to Maui with my parents in 2008) and we very much fell in love with the Big Island.  It wasn't as touristy, there were turtles at almost every single beach we went to (where as in Maui we only saw turtles twice), the island is beautiful, with a different look/climate almost every 20 miles you drive (side note: those people that do the Kona Ironman are so crazy - that lava rock gets so freaking hot!).

But the best part?  I swam with dolphins.  Seriously.  And not just like, when you pay $500 to sit in a swimming pool and have a trained dolphin let you give it a kiss, but really swimming in a middle of a pod of 20 spinner dolphins that are rising to breathe around you and then diving under again and you chase after them with your snorkel mask.

See?

It. Was. AWESOME.

I'll share more pictures later.