Our Trip to Hawaii

We had a wonderful time in Hawaii (despite that my luggage was MIA for 4 days thanx to the airlines) along with my parents in Kona...that's located on the Big Island. Now I know why they call it the "Big Island" and that's because it is huge compared to the other islands around it and there is so much to do there. In fact, we ended up doing so much site-seeing and activities, that I came back from Hawaii without a tan! We simply did not relax and veg-out on the beach like your supposed to. So we are already talking about our next trip to Hawaii where we will plan absolutely nothing, and just fry our little bodies on the beach...sounds great! Anyway, here is a recap of the things we did this past week.

Day 1:
Well, since my camera happened to be in my MIA luggage at this time, there are no pictures to post, but on the first day, we got settled into our condo, we planned out our week of activities, layed out at the pool for a few minutes, went shopping and then had the most romantic dinner on the coast and watched the sunset while we ate. The perfect way to set the mood for the week.

Day 2:
Today we went on a boat that took us to a secluded cove to go snorkeling. Everyone had such a great time, except I got really sea-sick on the way back. I was trying really hard to hold my lunch in. :-P All my pictures were taken with an underwater camera, so I still need to get those developed. I'll keep you posted if any of them turn out well enough to share.

Day 3:
Today we traveled around to the southern part of the Island and did some serious off-roading to one of the most secluded beaches on the island.


What was even cooler than off-roading was that this beach is called the Green Sands beach. From the picture, it looks just kind of a muddy brown-green, but when you get down to the beach and hold the sand in your hands, there are zillions of these tiny green crystals. I wanted to take a sample home, but it's against the law, so I resisted.

Then we made out way to the most southern point on the island and what is also known as the most southern tip of the United States. Great view too.

This is John with a volcano crater behind him. This one has not erupted since the 70's but if you look closely, it is still steaming all over the place.

Then in the evening, we made our way to the National Volcano park and visited a actual flowing volcano that has been spewing non-stop for almost 22 years. I am standing where the lava has taken over the road and now this road has been closed because it is still flowing along this coast.
We stayed pretty late, and as soon as the sun went down, you could really see the lava flow glowing and making it's way down the hill. It was the most amazing thing i have ever seen.
When we returned to our Condo that night, I had a hard time sleeping knowing that there was an active volcano still on the island and that it could get out of control at anytime..in fact they say one of the 5 volcano's on the island is over-due by 10 years, so they are expecting something to happen anytime. I don't think I will be buying a time-share on this island anytime soon.

Day 4:

We all got up early to head to the North part of the island to do some ATVing along the coast. As we were stopped at a particular place, two whales just happen to break through the water and give us a 10 minute show. Supposedly the Whales are should have already been on their way north to Alaska, so the tour guide told us this was unusual. What great timing for us though to be right there to see it.
John and I also made it back to Kona in time to go to our first Luau. Since I have been to the Polynesian Center before, I was more than disappointed and the food was more like a glorified buffet, but we had a great time, we got to dance a little and then called it night.

Day 5:

Today we did some more site-seeing as we made our way around to the other side of the island to Hilo. We saw some amazing water falls and did a little more off-roading to a Black-sands beach. The road was really scary as we started down from the top of a cliff, down the side on a one-lane road that had a least a 30-40% grade....NO JOKE. It was the scariest thing ever. If people were trying to come up on the same road, it was interesting how we got around each car.



Then as it was our last day, we wanted to do something really fun, so we went on a helicopter ride that took us over the active volcano crater. This was the most amazing thing I have ever seen. We were literally hovering over the crater as we watched hot red lava gushing around inside. I tried to get some video of it, but my memory card in my camera only let me get about 2 seconds of it.


Then we flew around and found a stream of lava flowing. They say it's so unpredictable what you will see, and that we got really lucky that it had surfaced for us to see. Then on the way back, I got pretty sick again, and again was trying to hold onto my lunch. We made it in time, and took this picture of us right afterward. You can hardly tell that I am about to pass-out right?
Anyway, we had a wonderful time, but we missed our kids so much, that we were both ready to go home and have a nice fresh start.
Thanks a million to my parents for taking us around and enjoying the week with us. We can't wait until we can go again.