The Big Island Trip (Part II)

Even though this trip was a mere five days, we packed in a lot of stuff and took a million pictures (way too many to post here) . . . so I decided to make this a three part series, posting as many pictures as I can, and then I will send ALL the pictures out on Snapfish when I'm done with these blog entries.

So where did I leave off . . . ah yes, the cell phone incident. Luckily after this whole debacle, everything else pretty much went smoothly for the rest of the trip. As soon as we left the airport, we decided to head into the town of Kailua-Kona for some lunch. As some of you may know, Kona is a pretty cool little touristy town with tons of restaurants and neat little shops. We decided to find as kid-friendly a place as possible, so we settled on Bubba Gump Shrimp Company, where we got a table right on the water.

After lunch we poked around a few little shops in the area, and decided to take a breather next to this guy. Charley thought he was cool, but Zander was a bit leery . . . I don't think he understood that the guy wasn't real, even though we kept knocking on the guy's arms and legs.

Once we were done eating and browsing, we got back in the car and made a game plan for the rest of the day. A very good friend of mine, Kate K., who I've known since way back during my grad school days at UW, actually grew up on the Big Island in the town of Hilo. Awhile back I emailed her and asked for suggestions on "must see" things during our trip, and she was kind enough to send me a very detailed email on some of the cool highlights of the island. We decided to follow her suggestions, and we took our time taking in the landscape during the 3+ hour drive to our first destination, the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. Just a couple hours from Kona, you can see that the landscape starts to change as black volcanic remnants starts to appear along the coast.

I had to include these pictures of the kids because of the small life lesson I learned at the moment I took these photos. As most of you know, we own a mini-van, which is our primary mode of transport when we drive around with the kids. And as you may also know, mini-vans generally do not have windows in the back that roll down. So here we were, on vacation in a new place with tons of exciting stuff planned, and the kids were simply thrilled because the back windows in the rental cars rolled down and they got to have "breezy" on their faces. Here they are trying to "eat the breezy" as Charley says. I guess that oftentimes it doesn't really take much to make them happy . . .


Our first major stop, per Kate's suggestion, was the Punalu'u Black Sand Beach Park, which as the name implies, is a black sand beach. Even though I've experienced many different colors and textures of sand, this was a new one for me. It was just like regular sand, but it was black . . . and I guess what surprised me most about this, was that it didn't leave any sort of black marks on our skin or clothes (which I thought it would for some reason), but instead it just brushed right off like normal sand. Go figure.

Next we drove the rest of the way to the Volcanoes Park, where we stayed in this cute little cabin at the Kilauea Military Camp right in the park itself. The cabins were one bedroom/one bath, had a nice little fireplace for evening fires, and they were also heated which was definitely needed at night since it easily got down into the 50's. It's been a long time since the kids had to wear pants and jackets, so they were a little resistant at first, but they eventually "warmed up" to the idea.

After getting all bundled up our warm clothes, we headed into the little village of Volcano in search of a Thai restaurant that Kate suggested. Since the village isn't that big (three restaurants, a gas station, a laundromat, and a post office), we found it pretty quickly, and it sure didn't disappoint. It was by far the best Thai food I've had since moving to Hawaii (thanks Kate! You know how much I love peanut sauce!). Once we finished dinner, we headed out to the rim of Halema’uma’u Crater, where the crater glows bright red at night from the lava underneath. It was breathtaking, but unfortunately it was impossible to get a good picture when it was that dark outside. When we got back to the cabin, we started a warm fire, made some popcorn, and drank some hot chocolate. It was a pretty perfect evening if you ask me.

The next morning we got up early, and decided to get a bunch of sight-seeing in right away, before the park got crowded with tour buses, and this rainbow seemed to be a good sign of a beautiful day to come.

As you can see, the kids were excited, especially Zander.

Here is a view of the Halema’uma’u Crater, which is pretty spectacular.

Just past the Crater, the landscape switches to more of a jungle area . . . very damp and green.

Next we hit the Thurston Lava Tube, which is a giant cave-like structure formed by the flow of lava. At first the kids were a bit nervous about the cave because for some reason they thought there would be scary animals in it. But once they went through the tube, they wanted to go back through and wouldn't quit talking about it for days on end. I couldn't get any good pictures of the tube itself because it was dark, but here is the entrance and exit of the tube.

Only a few miles past this jungle area, the landscape started to dramatically change again. Vegetation became very sparse as more and more old lava fields started to appear. Within just a few miles, the area became desolate, almost like what I picture the moon to be like.

This is the Holei Sea Arch, which was formed from hot lava that hit the cold ocean water.

Another crater shot . . .
These are one of the many "steaming vents" in the area, which is the result of rain water that seeps into the ground, hits the hot rocks and earth underneath, and comes back up as steam. As you are driving through the park, you will randomly see these steaming vents, which sort of reminded me of Yellowstone Park.


After a fun-filled day of sight-seeing, we took the kids on their first bowling adventure right there at the military camp where we were staying. The lanes came fully equipped with bumpers and the ball launcher thing, so the kids had an awesome time. The first few shots, Charley used the ball launcher, but then she decided to do the old school roll-the-ball-between-the-legs method, which means the ball rolls down the lane at about one mile per hour.



After bowling, we returned to our cabin for one last night of a cozy fire, popcorn, and hot chocolate because the next day we were hitting the road and heading the rest of the way around the island.

To be continued . . . .