Hawaii

It has been over two weeks since we came back from Hawaii, and finally tonight I found some time to sit down on the computer and document our impressions and our adventures.

It was the first time for all of us to Hawaii.  We went to Kona, the Big Island, the island of Hawaii.  And it was perfect all around: not to crowded, beautiful nature, and beautiful weather.

We went whale watching and ocean kayaking.  I couldn't get any good pictures of the whales, and I couldn't take my phone along when we went kayaking.

We didn't spend too much time laying on the beach.  We all love the beach, but we are not really beach vacationers.  We like to play for a little bit, but you won't find us laying on the beach all day.  When we did go to the beach, we went outside of town, where there were few or no people.  Here are some corals that I really wanted to take, but couldn't.

And we went to a beach with black sand.  Psst...I did take a little bit of sand back with me.

Although the island of Hawaii is the biggest one of all you can drive around it in one day.  The bio diversity is amazing.  You can see beach, fog, rain and snow in one day on the same island.

One day we drove to the southern most point of the island, which is also the southern most place of the USA.  It was very windy, but not cold.  The cliffs were high, and there were people jumping off them down in the ocean.  In the short hour or so that we spent there exploring and enjoying the scenery, I must have had a hundred anxiety attacks trying to keep track of two little kids running and jumping.  I got them to sit still, only feet from an abyss, ha ha ha.  Here they are:

And this is the southern most tip of the USA.

The day we drove up to the volcano, Mauna Loa, my son got sick.  He mostly stayed in the car, while we took turns going out and experiencing steam vents and rain and marveling at a real volcano.  

The east side of the island, the side where Hilo is is mostly covered in lava.  The first time we drove through it was dark.  It was also foggy, and rainy, and it felt eerie.  We had just left Hilo, and the weather was nice.  So the sudden fog, and darkness were not expected.  And then out of no where there was the military base.  

The next time we were on that side of the island it was the opposite, it was rainy in Hilo, but once we left it, the 'scary' area we saw only a couple of days earlier was bright.  Except for the lava...and nothing but lava.

And the sunset was beautiful illuminating the lava.

The clouds were epic almost every day.  One thing that I didn't expect to see was scenes like this one below, with small hills and yellow grass.  This is what I expect to see in Nebraska, not in Kona.

On the east side of the island, near Hilo there were two waterfalls.  The picture below is of Akaka waterfalls.  It's a beautiful 30 min walk if you take the long walk, only 5 min if you take the short walk.  We took the long walk.  We also saw another waterfall. Rainbow Falls.  But that time my phone was dead.  However, the experience there was even more interesting because you can walk up (very carefully) on almost the top of it.  There too trying to enjoy the views and the experience while trying to watch two very energetic kids was a lot of work.  

I saw this plant during our waterfall hike.  At first I thought it was some kind of stake because it was just on the side of a paved trail.  I thought it was some kind of marker, a stick, a stake....until I noticed it's alive and real.  And I don't know what it is.  Do you?

Aloha!