I mentally was preparing myself for a hard ride. Climbing 3k feet pretty much nonstop sounded intense!
We woke up a bit early and got ready quickly. Amazing how you can do that without kids around. The only concern was Ty sounded really sick. All night long I could hear him coughing. But being Ty he said even with congestion and a sore throat he was ready to ride!
–
We left Hapuna and turned up the road to Waimea and we were blasted with the sun right in our eyes.
–
Beautiful by blinding, hot, and it made it difficult at times to see exactly what was on our very narrow shoulder.
https://hamptonsonholiday.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/img_3271.mov–
I was so thankful we didn’t have to take the chariot on here!
It was just a long steady grind up the, curvy hill.
–
Ty was still kicking my butt no matter how sick.
https://hamptonsonholiday.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/img_3273.mov
–
It took us about 2.5 hours to get to Waimea. We were so happy to finally reach some level ground! The grandparents soon arrived with the kiddos and our gear. We went to a playground to unload it all and then we had to say good bye. They’re off to another island, to relax.
–
We sure will miss them. We don’t get enough time with our Lower 48 family.
The kids played for a while, Ty and I tried to repack our bags. We were both pretty wiped from the morning ride and his cold was really depleting his energy. I finally decided we needed some food, so we found a great local place just down the road.
–
Then off we rode for the last 15 miles to Honokaa. The first road we were on was ok. The shoulder was hit and miss but there seemed like a lot of traffic and at one point we had a semi almost blast us off the road. (Why?!) We also went through this construction patch.
https://hamptonsonholiday.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/img_3278.mov https://hamptonsonholiday.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/img_3279.mov–
We were able to turn off onto a side road soon after that. It was so nice not to have any traffic around us. We probably had a handful of cars pass us the whole time. It was rolling hills up and down but beautiful farm land.
https://hamptonsonholiday.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/img_3282.mov–
Ty took a lot more videos this day. I was pretty pooped by this point so taking photos was beyond me.
https://hamptonsonholiday.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/img_3284.mov–
Then we started the decent down to the town. It was super long! It started out great. I had R behind me on the trail-a-bike and we were zooming along. Till I hit a bump and it started raining on us. She got freaked out by almost being thrown from the bike, understandably and I was freaked by the rain. I wasn’t sure if it would make the road slick.
https://hamptonsonholiday.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/img_3294.mov–
We made it to the bottom safely, drenched, but glad to be almost done for the day.
–
Total for the day was 29.1 miles with a total elevation gain of over 3,200 ft! 😬
Honokaa was a small historic and touristy town. There weren’t a lot of places to stay so we needed up in the boarding house from 1924 in a studio bedroom with a shared bathroom. Definitely a bit odd of a set up but it was clean and worked for the one night.
–
We walked to get breakfast items from the grocery store and picked up dinner on the way back. Good thing Hawaiian rain is so warm.
–
Early to bed for all of us.
