Hawaii Diary
Monday, March 30 - Hilo with the Olsons
Talk about busy days. This was one of them for sure, but one that Eileen and I will long remember and treasure.
When you travel to places far from home, you often are faced with one of two options, either to strike out on your own and explore the area or to sign up for some type of formal tour. Both options have their pluses and misuses but neither is really the perfect answer. The perfect answer is one that we were fortunate to experience today. There is no better way to see and experience a place than by having a personally guided tour by residents of the area. When those residents truly love the place in which they live you are guaranteed a wonderful day.
Our Guides to the Hilo area today were Bob and Gayle Olson, both former About.com Guides.
Bob and Gayle moved to Hilo from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, about a year ago. Both share a deep love for Hawaii and the Hilo area in particular and both have quickly become important members of this community as well as driving forces in the efforts to revitalize the economy of this area of Hawaii.
Eileen and I kinda played havoc with Bob and Gayle's plans for the day by our own day trip yesterday to the Puna region, so a few changes in today's itinerary were made on the fly and we ended up visiting some really exciting and beautiful places. Let me say right of the bat that many of these places that I will touch upon today have been written about in great detail on Bob's Island of Hawaii site here at The Mining Company and where applicable I will be providing links to his related feature. Please check out those links for much more in depth information that I can provide in this diary entry.
We began our day with a drive down Kalanianaole Avenue past Reeds Bay and Onekahakaha Beach Park in an area frequented, especially in the summer, by many Hawaiians in an effort to escape the heat of summer in their homes. There are some beautiful beaches in this area of Hilo.
We then took a brief drive through downtown Hilo on the way to our first stop at the Lyman Museum and Mission House. I will not be spending a lot of time detailing downtown Hilo mainly because Bob has already done that far better than I ever could in his really super feature, "Hilo Town - A Jewel on the Island".
Let me just add my brief impression by saying that downtown Hilo is an area that is clearly trying very hard to struggle to survive and indeed thrive in times of a poor economy and against the development of upscale suburban malls on its perimeter. For every business that has failed or appears to be failing there are new enterprises springing up, such as Bytes and Bites Internet Cafe, Hilo's Connection to the World. In this respect Hilo is facing many of the same issues as many larger urban cities on the mainland. Somehow, however, I have a feeling that this a battle which Hilo will win with the efforts of people like Bob and Gayle.
Our first stop of the day was at the Lyman Museum and Mission House located at 276 Halili Street in Hilo.
We were very honored to have a personally guided tour by Alan K. Iwasaki, the curator of the museum. Since hire several years ago, Alan has undertaken a massive undertaking of bringing the museum into the 21st century. In that vein the museum is undergoing a major renovation scheduled to be completed by the year 2001. Now don't worry, the museum remains open and the exhibits are all there for your enjoyment.
The truly exciting thing is to envision what the museum will look like in 3 years. Alan gave us a tour not only of the present museum but also of his plans for the future. These plans include a much more user-friendly, hands on type of presentation as well as a major redesign of the layout of the museum which will trace the history of the Hawaiian Islands from the time of their formation right up until the 1990's with emphasis on the geology of Hawaii, the ancient settlers of Hawaii and the native Hawaiians, the immigrants to Hawaii and their roles in the culture, as well as features on the role of Hawaii in 20th century astronomy and the art of Hawaii.
Following our tour of the museum we took a guided tour of the Lyman Mission House. Originally built in 1839 as the home of the Rev. and Mrs. David Belden Lyman and their seven children, this New England style home has been beautifully restored and includes many of the Lyman's original furnishings. We will be doing future features on the role of the missionaries in the history of Hawaii and we will include information about this home which is now listed on the National and State Registers of Historic Places.
