Kilauea

Off to see Kilauea Volcano at Hawaii Volcanoes National Park.  Always excited to use our National Parks Annual Pass and save $25.  We used it over at Haleakala as well.

Just as a reminder.....steam vents (from rainfall finding their way through cracks in the ground) are found every once in a while.

And our first view of the current Kilauea Crater.

Yes, there is lava down there at the bottom is the Halema'uma'u Crater of the Kilauea Caldera, but we can't see it from this vantage point.  A road goes around the entire larger crater rim, but has been closed.

The highlight of our visit to Kilauea was a chance to hike the Kilauea Iki trail.  It's a smaller, former, and now dormant, side crater that you can hike down into and walk across.

Follow the Ahu (rock piles)

After the hike, we drove the Chain of Craters road down to the sea.  This is the site of where you see those pictures of lava entering the sea.  The lava goes where it wants.

Pa'hoe'hoe lava

This road is a dead end...it's where the lava covered it up.  To see active lava coming from the ground requires a five mile hike in over the lava fields to see lava coming out of the ground, but not actually traveling all the way to the sea.

Palm trees that didn't get "eaten" by lava.

Luckily, the end of the road still allows for us, the public, to see the Holei Sea Arch!  A perfect way to end the day.

Time for the long drive back to Kona.

Kohala Coast

After two short days on Maui, and a quick flight to Kona, we arrived on the big island.  Too early to check into our hotel, and a few hours at Hapuna Beach (no pics, we drove north to explore Kohala Coast.

I always think of Hawaii islands fringed with beaches.  Turns out that there are few sandy beaches and it's mostly rocky coasts.  There seemed to be only 30 sandy beaches on the whole island.  But rocks? Hawaii has rocks.

Onions got so excited to see fish!

In our guidebook, there was a picture of this shrine that looked cool at the northern tip of the Big Island.  So we drove and it became this dirt road.

So, at the rental car agency, we were offered a Hyundai Sonata, or a 4x4 truck with 800 miles on it.  We immediately took advantage of the trucks high clearance.  I have to admit I only drove through a couple puddles, on this first day...

Here we are at the northernmost tip of the Big Island.

We hiked (but could have 4x4 driven) the last mile to one of the King Kamehameha's supposed birthplace.  It was a square wall of rocks.

Like many things, you go and see something that kind of underwhelms and then you are surprised by something unexpected.  For us, on this first afternoon on the big island was driving the Kohala Mountain Road.  We decided to drive back to Kona a different way than along the sea and this is what we saw.

Just as the sun was setting, along this mountainside with green grass and the extinct volcano in the distance, it was the kind of drive that you have to stop and just take tons of pictures.

A perfect end to the first day on the Big Island.  It set the tone for the great days of exploration to come.

Maui 2018

After Christmas 2017 in a winter wonderland that was Seattle, Onions and I took advantage of the extra week I got off from school and spent the first week of 2018 in Hawaii.  First two days were on Maui and we drove the Hana Highway.

The famed 52 mile drive is full or curves, one-lane bridges and waterfalls...but we were "meh."  This was one of our favorite overlooks along the way.

Onions was feeling sick this first full day, so we didn't get out and hike much.  This is a red sand beach in Hana.

On our second day, we drove up to Haleakala Crater.  If Hana was supposed to be the highlight, Onions and I were awestruck the first time we looked into the crater.  We were so high, we were above the clouds.

There is a fantastic trail that allows visitors to walk down into the crater.  And yup, we went down about a mile.

And now, the long hike back up.

SUSHI BOATS!  Actually, the sushi on the rotating bar was not so appetizing, so we ordered off the menu.

Maui Sunset!