Photoessay #1176 - Hawaii Tropical Botanical Garden

One day on my trip with my siblings to Hawaii last month, we drove around to the other side of the Big Island. Charlie wanted to see the volcano and on the advice of my cousin Lynn, we booked a house for one day near the volcano. The next day we finished the circle around the island including Hilo.

I had my eye on the Hawaii Tropical Botanical Garden outside of Hilo. I love gardens! I didn't care if it cost $15, neither did my sibs. The garden is located on a road off the main road, in a tropical jungle setting. You walk down a path into a valley beautifully landscaped with unbelievable tropical flowers and palms. All the way to the ocean. If you google the images, you will see many flowers you can't believe occur in nature but there they are...right in front of you.

I love all that green stuff, the more the better. One time at a UO softball game, I sat with a mom who lived near Tucson AZ. She went on and on how people were planting too many palm trees, made the air damp. I looked at her in amazement, I thought you would not want to live in Seattle. I admit that was a major goal for me when Dennis and I decided where to move when he graduated from Chico State was to move somewhere GREEN. No more semi-arid Sacramento for me.

But the carefully tended lush tropical scenery surrounds you in this garden.

I'm featuring two of my favorite shots from that day. The first of a small pond within the garden, the reflections of the garden and the sky, love it! And you can see the golden koi too! Light and dark, palms and vines...

Second taken by Charl at the bottom of the garden by the sea. A little bay. Water a little choppy. Right after we stopped at a local stand to have some tropical fruit smoothies and avocado sandwiches, we overheard people talking about the big storm coming. A lot less weather media there. The storm did hit the next day, the same storm which hit Seattle a day or so later and dumped 2 inches of rain or similar.

I could just stay there all day, couldn't you?

Turns out they had an option for old folks who didn't think they could get up that hill. For $5, they would take you up on a golf cart. Oh yeah, I went for it.