Volcanoes National Park (The Big Island)

The first thing I will say about the Big Island is, well, it's big.  We spent a lot of time in the car; more time than I would have liked given our short stay.  Nonetheless, we enjoyed our trip.  The Big Island is much more sparsely populated than Oahu, and we passed a lot of country.  It was significantly different from Oahu, with its gradual sloping mountains and rocky coastlines.  It was also much cooler at night. Of course, we only saw the southeastern part of it.  We will have to visit Kailua-Kona another time.

On our first day, we arrived in Hilo and drove to our cabin at Kilauea Military Camp.  I can't say enough about KMC.  It was lovely, the camp had everything we needed, and it was affordable.  Plus, it was right in the middle of Volcanoes National Park.  We visited the active volcano after dark and saw the lava glowing from the crater. This lead X to call the volcano "the big fire." At this time, if you asked him if he saw a volcano he will say no. Ask him about the big fire, and he'll speak up.

We saw a full sky of stars that night, a treat since we live in a fairly populated--and light polluted--section of Kaneohe. The next day, we traveled around the park, seeing various parts of the volcano. My favorite was Devastation Trail, which is right on the edge of the section that is closed off to the public. You can feel the heat coming from the ground, which is otherworldly. It's very bad juju to take the lava, which belongs to Pele, the supreme goddess of Hawaii, so I had to keep taking rocks from X, who is a bit of an amateur geologist.

We drove down Chain of Craters Road and visited a fairly new lava flow from 2003. New lava is shiny, light to carry, and makes a tinkly sound when you drop it. X had a blast clambering around, picking up big fistfuls of lava rock, and throwing them. When it was time to leave, he plopped down and said, "Goodbye mom. Goodbye dad." We had to drag him away.

That night, we drove to Mauna Kea where we could go stargazing. It was cold. X threw a fit over every piece of clothing we put on him--pants, socks, shoes, jacket--so much so that Bobby ended up foregoing the stargazing to hang out with X in the car. He never got over the jacket. He also squealed whenever a gust of cold wind hit him. I got to look through a few telescopes that are provided free to onlookers.

The next day, we drove to the black sand beaches, which were also full of black rocks, to X's endless amusement. We saw turtles there. The sand was coarse and very hot, and the sea looked like slate. We then drove to Akaka Falls, only to be rained out. We retreated to Rainbow Falls, which was lovely enough. We stopped in Hilo, which reminds me a lot of Asheville. It's got a quaint old hippie feel to it.

Our trip was short, and we left the next day.  I hope we can revisit Kilauea one day. It was quite an experience.

He sat there saying, "there goes the airplane! there goes the airplane!"

The best shot I have of the big fire. Stupid iphone camera.

The big fire by day.

The side of the mountain was smoking.

Dried up lava lake.

Devastation trail.

Another crater. There were tons on Chain of Craters Road.

Hamming around.

The endangered Nene.

Big crater.

Lava flows that go down to the sea.

On Chain of Craters Road.

Sea arch at the end of Chain of Craters Road.

Lava flow over the old end of Chain of Craters Road.

Bobby pointed out that it may be useful one day to know that road signs survive lava flows.

Black sand beach.

Looking in the tide pools.

Turtles soaking up the heat.

Rainbow falls.

Huge banyan tree.