We’ve had a lot of fun just wandering around the island and paying attention. This island doesn’t look, to us, like a tropical island, not Honolulu, the business, the commercial islands. It’s a beautiful island, with three huge mountains, volcanos in the middle, this is the Big Island, from which the state takes it’s name.
Our first and favorite is what we call the ‘walking bird, probably a myna. You’re in a car, driving down a side road, this bird walks across the street, not fly, just walks, sometimes runs. It’s funny. Then there’s the yellow bird, the saffron finch. I had a TR Spitfire that was saffron. I Loved it. And there is the mocking jay, pretty when it spreads it’s wings.
But the funniest is the goats. They come in black
and brown, horned and bearded. They like the bushes around the barbecue between the two condo buildings. They trot in between the buildings in pairs, the oldest with the kids.
And the flora. 
The most interesting plants are the skeleton type trees, looking like hands coming out of the earth.
Some looking so windswept it’s like their leaves have just been whipped off the branches. And then there was the tree at the shops at Waikoloa Village, that was very much like the trees you see when you take the Safari ride at Animal Kingdom.
It looks like the roots are coming out of the top of the tree. And, today when we were 
up in Mauna Lani, for lunch at Tommy Bahama’s Tropical Cafe. They look like something that comes out of Disney, not really real.
Is this what you think of as tropical? Well, it is!
