So, while I sit here wishing I was back in Hawaii, I’ll recap my how I spent Thursday on the Big Island: touring a coffee plantation and shopping.

So, we planned to head to Parker Ranch in Waimea but somehow we took a wrong turn and went in the exact opposite direction.

Happily unaware of this, we first stopped to tour the Holualoa Kona Coffee Company in Holualoa. It allowed us to take a self-guided tour before meeting back with staff in the area where they package the coffee. It was pretty cool, although I hate coffee. The chocolate covered coffee beans were good though (side note: don’t try these until off the windy road.)

After the tour, we had to try some of the plantation’s apple bananas which were fabulous.

Finally, we made it eight miles south of Kona to Kainaliu, home of Donkey Balls. The store sells chocolates, candies, and coffee with coffee-related artifacts thrown about all over the store.

The aunts had to load up on coffee and other cutesy supplies before we trekked down the road to look around at the town’s other stores where I purchased awesome bottles made locally and saw other items I would have purchased if I could have gotten them home in one location.

We finally ended our trip with the discovery that, yes, we were traveling very slowly in the wrong direction. Less than 20 miles covered in about three hours. So we wrapped up our trip with a quick stop at Greenwell Farms To purchase coffee bags and headed on back.