Pele...We Aren't Scared of You!!

July 2-4 - Our 2 1/2 days at Hawaii Volcanoes National Park

We arrived after a 3 hour drive across the island to Volcano Village Lodge.  I found this BandB on Tripadvisor.com and it definitely far exceeded all the reviews that I read.  It was beautiful. We stayed in Mauna Loa - there are 5 different little cabin/lodges and each is it's own building in the middle of the rain forest.  We were up at 4,000 feet and it basically raineed or misted (fairy rain as Barb and Edgar call it) the whole time. We had times of no rain, but it was still in the low 70's for our whole visit.  Vastly different from near 90 on the other, dry side of the island.

 Here are some shots of our lodge, Mauna Loa:

We then headed up to the Volcano Park - about 1 mile from our lodge.

I am posting pics from all 3 days and will try to explain some of it.  It was awesome and amazing.  The most recent active lava flow that we saw was from 2008 and went across the road.  We also went back at night and could see some of the glowing lava that is down in a lake in the middle of one of the craters.  It's not visible during the day, just looks like a big steam vent.  We also found ancient petroglyphs - 400-700 years old and created from the native Hawaiians.

Thurston Lava tube - lava hardened on top and continued to flow like a river through a tube towards the ocean.  This was discovered in 1913ish and you can now walk through the tube that the lava flowed through

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see the sign....and notice where Don is......

He's the one far up on the hill  way beyond where the sign says you are allowed to go! :)

Devastation Trail - another area where lava flowed very fast and hardened in pumice like lava stones.  It was like big lava dunes - very sand-like....very cool!!  All the vegetation in this area was killed and is slowly starting to grow back.

That first evening we headed up to where we can see the glow of active lava:  

Here it is at night: (Don's pics are much better)

and the same spot during the day - notice the steam vent - that is the pool where the active lava is:

Just what the sign says.....

 Then we headed down towards the ocean to the most recent lava flow - it went right across the road towards the ocean in the 2000's - most recently in 2008.  Though there are some spots further down - not visible that were flowing actively in May (yes, just 2 months ago). Crazy!!

It's really neat, from far away it looks mushy...but obviously (from the pics) it's not!  Really neat!!  My pics don't do it justice.  Don's 1,000 or so will be amazing!!

We then walked back and found the sea arch made from lava entering the ocean.  Another neat phenomena...

I'm going to stop here and continue with the petroglyphs and our side trips to the Hilo Farmer's Market and Akaka Falls in the next post - maybe tomorrow or might not be until we get back to San Fransisco.
 

During this part of the trip, I became very interested in Pele, the goddess of fire.  Her picture is everywhere in the park and her story is really interesting.

My two new interests: King Kamehameha and Pele.


I hope I'm not boring anyone!! :)

Water Sports and King Kamehameha!

July 2 - We woke up and decided to play at the resort a little before checking out to head to the other side of the island and conquer Volcanoes National Park.  We got a breakfast snack and then went down and watched the dolphin feeding for a while.

The Hilton has an on-site Dolphin Quest program, where you can pay big bucks to play with the dolphins.  We didn't pay to play, but you can just hang out at the right time and watch them without paying.

Then we headed over to the lagoon to do some of the water sports activities before we left.  Don wanted to try Stand Up Paddle Surfing- this was a great place to try it out because there were no waves!  The girls wanted to do the double water bike.  I was nervous for them because Katie's feet barely reached the pedals, but the guy working said they were good to go, so the three of them were off.....for 30 minutes of fun.

I was the official photographer for this event.

After playing in the lagoon for a while, we headed back to the room to shower, change and check out.  All the luggage packed and off we went in search of King Kamehameha in the mountain region of the big island.  When Don and Car went zip lining, they saw the statue and weren't able to stop, so this was our first destination on our way to the volcano.

And we found him!!

After visiting with the king for a while, we stopped across the street for lunch - very cute place - The Snack Shack!

Then we were off....for our 3 hour journey to the other side of the island and our next resting place - Volcano Village Lodge - a highly recommended Bed and Breakfast about 1 mile from the Volcano Park.

This was the way that Carleigh and Katie spent the drive:

They have been real troopers through all of our adventures, and this was a great time for them to recharge their batteries!!

Katie and Mommy do the Hilton (while Car and Daddy zip-line)

July 1 - Don and Carleigh woke and left by 7:30a.m. to travel to the jungle for Big Island Eco Adventures 4 hour zip line adventure.  Car had to weigh 80 pounds and we had been weighing her for the past two weeks and she has eaten better than she ever has before just to make sure.  On the home scale she weighed 82 pounds, on the Mountain View scale she weigheed about 81 - we even considered putting her on the baggage scale at the airport just to see where she was at that point.  While we were at Barb and Edgar's house, they even offered to give us 1 or 2 pound dive weights for her to put in her pocket.  But all turned out well, and she just inched by with exactly 80 on their scale.

They had a great time.  When they arrived back, Don appeared a little traumatized and said, "he did things that human beings shouldn't be allowed to do."  Carleigh on the other hand, just jumped right in the pool and started playing with Katie after telling me, "it was awesome!"

Don's pictures are top secret until after we get back to Purcellville, so you'll have to wait for the pics and video of their day. :(

Katie and I on the other hand, had a very relaxing day.

We started off with coffee and pastries at the coffee shop downstairs from our room.

Then we walked around the hotel taking pictures of the beautiful artwork and sculptures that they have lining the many, many long hallways and walking areas.

One of the views from the main lobby, down the grand staircase to the lagoon

The resort is 62 acres and has 4 separate buildings, so to get around you either walk and enjoy the museum-like hallways or take the tram or boat.  I had read that it was very "Disney World" like and that part was true.

The tram and the boat approaching at the same time.

 
After a bit, we took the shuttle bus to the Queen's Marketplace and wandered around the shops for a little while and then back for lunch and the pool.

Lunch for Katie consisted of one of her strange favorite foods: sushi

Then to the pool.  We stayed in the Lagoon Tower and that is where the biggest pool area was.  The other towers (Palace Tower, Ocean Tower) had smaller pool areas and were more geared to adults or older kids.

Here's the view from the Kona Pool at the Lagoon Tower:

Katie loved playing in the pool.  Through the big waterfall, on theother side is a huge water slide that she and Car also loved going down!

And more artwork and sculptures around the pool area.

Finally around 2:30, Don and Carleigh showed up and we hung out at the pool for another hour or so.  More slides and fun.  Then back to the room, but first everyone had to take a ride on the shiny, (hot) rhino.

Don't know if we were supposed to do that or not, but it was there....so.....

When we got back to our room, there was a friendly security guard walking around....he asked if anyone had taken a picture of our family on our Lanai (balcony/porch) yet?  He offered to come into our room and do that for us.  I of course said yes, and after the fact...Don couldn't believe we let this man into our room with his gun, etc.  He appeared very nice and really was.  Thank goodness!

Dinner that night was at Merriman's Bar and Grill at the King's shops (right next to the Queen's Marketplace ;)

It was good, but very expensive - as I am finding out everything in Hawaii is.  Oh welll, trip of a lifetime...we'll pay it off later.  Then back to the room for bed and getting ready for our big road trip tomorrow.

Life on the Big Island

We left for the Big Island from Maui on Tuesday.  It was a very uneventful day.  Woke up, packed, headed to the airport with a stop at UPS to send home a box of souvenirs and heavy Volcano clothes that we won't need any more.  Hopefully to make room for more souvenirs and fun on the Big Island.

We flew Hawaiian Air between islands.  It was a great experience!! A 30 minute flight on a beautiful plane and we were on the next island.  Our GPS told us it was 83 miles from Barb and Edgar's house to our hotel, so definitely a quick flight.


We landed, got our luggage and car and then we were on our way to the Hilton Waikoloa Village.  Found the hotel without a problem, after travelling through 20 miles of LAVA rock.  Very interesting and desert looking.  We came across this sign and Don got excited, but haven't found any yet.


We got checked in and found our room - then went exploring and had dinner.  Back to the room for an early night.  Big day tomorrow!!

We woke up Wednesday to Katie's birthday and our big snorkelling adventure.  We were going out on a huge catamaran for a four hour trip to a reef that is full of exotic fish, and sea animals.  Not to mention that the boat had a two story high dive and two 15 foot slides into the Pacific.  The girls were in heaven.

After a great day of snorkeling, sliding, jumping and sun -we headed back to the hotel pool to play in the artificial waterfalls and go down the huge water slides.

We then showered, changed and ate at the Lagoon Grill - a restaurant on site, and then we walked over to the tip of our resort (62 acres) to watch the sunset from Buddha point.  Beautiful!

Bye, Bye sun!!

A great way to end a beautiful, fun day!!

Katie with her birthday chocolate chip cookie and milk after sunset!

Aloha!