We flew into the Kona, HI airport on Wednesday evening. Warm winds welcomed us as we stepped off the plane onto the airstrip (and yes, we did actually step off the plane onto the airstrip, not into terminals, and no, we were not greeted by flowers.) We slept in a 5 star hotel the first night called a KIA Optima. Look it up, it's a great hotel, it offers first class beds with a console in the middle! And to top it off, our 5 star hotel is portable, we only had to move it once due to.....unusual, curious, maybe even suspicious eve
nts around us. Here is a picture of our second hotel location of the night and pictures of flying into HI.
Thursday, our first full day in Hawaii we woke up to do some exercises on the beach, yes, it was all that it's cracked up to be! It was warm and we had the ocean right next to us! It was beautiful! We then headed over to the Hilo side to pick up our tent and sleeping bags that we bought. After obtaining those we took off to tour that side of the Island as well as to find another 5 star location to sleep! While exploring this side of the Island we went over to where some older lava flow areas and not only was the sights pretty neat (it had wiped out the entire road and a town about 20 years ago) we also found a lot, and I mean a lot, of squatters hangin out in the lava fields as well as some people that decided this was prime Real Estate and built houses here, not my idea of a great investment in some of the areas, but hey, whatever works for them!
That night, we cooked some delicious food of chicken fried hamburgers and really watered down pork and beans (not quite as good as I had imagined!). Then we went to sleep with the sounds of frogs....croaking, I guess would be the term, but it was more of a chirp, and the ocean in the background! We woke up to the ocean and some beautiful sounding birds chirping! We then did some exercises on the edge of cliff that overlooked the ocean, and we were able to catch the sunrise as well!
Friday, after packing our stuff we headed to the Volcano National Park to catch a glimpse of the volcano and some lava....we didn't exactly get to see any lava because two weeks before we got here the flow had went to a different vent that we couldn't access. But the volcano was pretty neat, it doesn't look anything like Dante's peak, but I was expecting something like that to happen at any moment! The volcano is kicking out a lot of steam right now, it's quite the event, and if you look around the land, there are steam vents everywhere! After marveling at the steam blowing volcano we decided to do some hiking. We found a hike to a lava tube that is absolutely amazing! It's huge, but the best part is that the park left a good chunk of the tunnel untouched, but they let you go down and explore the rest of the tunnel if you want! Flashlights are definitely needed, but it is neat! It goes back for a long ways too! So after some hiking it was getting decently late so we headed to a camp ground near the volcano and set up for the night.
Saturday we took some more hikes and explored the volcano area a little more in depth! We did a 4 mile crater hike that was really neat. It started in the rain forest, then we hiked down the side of the mountain to the bottom where the lava is and where one of the craters is, then we hiked back up the other side of the mountain through the rain forest to get out. It was great, but definitely not a hike I would want to do in the middle of the day because the bottom can get pretty toasty! We also did a drive down the coast through some more volcanic paths. We also took a short hike to a historical sight where there are petroglyphs from native Hawai'ians.
Saturday night we stayed at a really pretty botanical garden type of campground in Hilo, it was so pretty, they had several different camp spots plus a little lodging house too.
This is me trying to stay calm and take a picture when there are tons of spiders and spider webs around this area of the garden we stayed at! Other than the spiders, beautiful spot!
Sunday we went to a church ward in Hilo, we met some great people there! We met a guy that was going to let us tag along with him when he took the zone of missionaries to a really pretty valley (Can't spell it or I would name it!) Monday, but unfortunately that didn't work out, but when they do go he is going to give us a call and see if we are around! So Sunday night we headed to the North East tip of the Island and camped out by the ocean, going to sleep with the CRASH of the waves to keep us company all night long! This place used to be a town, but the tsunami of;46 completely wiped out the town. It is now a beautiful park with a monument to the town and the people who lost their lives. Since the tsunami, the town has been moved up the hill more out of harms way.
Monday we headed across the tip of the Island, explored some caves, did some whale watching, hiked to some waterfalls and camped at a nice camp spot, but it had no water due to an earthquake in 2006...but it was beautiful and the whale spotting was plentiful!
We may, or may not have spent a LOT of time in a dark cave trying out different things to get these types of shots! I have a lot more pictures like this, only funnier! If you need some blackmail on Casey, just talk to me! This picture sure is cool though, there are four poses in this one!
This one is kind of creepy right? By this time, we didn't have to spend as much time figuring out how to do things to get this cool shot, we had already been taking pictures like these two for about half and hour!
I think we may have taken more pictures in the cave then out of the cave!
Today we spent time coming down the west side of the Island, we stopped at a national park to learn a little more about a temple the first king of Hawai'i built. We also stopped at a more secluded black sand beach! We had to go through a gated community to get to it, but it sure is a pretty area! Tonight we hunted for a camp spot, but the pickings are slim where we are now. We are on the south west area of the Island and there are about two camping sites, the first was EXTREMELY busy, and the second was a VERY uninviting spot, we had to drive 5 miles down a VERY winding, steep road, and we drove through something that resembled a community, but it is, what our guidebook would call a "local beach". According to the author it was not too taboo to go to during the week, but it was best to leave it alone during the weekend, I would say just leave it alone period! I kept having the feeling that we might get mugged! Luckily, we didn't, but needless to say I put my foot down and we are now staying in a very nice hostel in Captain Cook. We hope all is well back home, we also hope, dearly, that everyone is enjoying their COLD weather, and we will sleep easy tonight knowing that we are about 70 degrees warmer than all of you! We love you all and good night!
Here are a couple of more pictures from our trip so far!
I saved this picture for last because it is the best picture EVER! After seeing the whales for the past two days we had the perfect opportunity to sit and watch tons of them in a bay area, this is the best shot out of MANY shots that Casey took, we were on shore when they were frolicking around, but Casey got zoomed in just enough to get a great picture.
Casey's castle did survive the waves up until we left!
Oh Yeah, this is on the road to Spencer Beach, nothing like parting a vehicle on the highway...if only we needed something!
