Hawai'i The Big Island

When we arrived in Kona on the Big Island of Hawaii, the first thing we noticed was that we had just landed at the coolest airport in the world. The entire thing was outside, and we even got to walk down the stair platform to get off the plane, out of the BACK of the plane, no less! We were, however, quite disappointed that nobody lei'ed us once we deplaned. In addition, the entire place smelled like a flower shop (with a little jet fuel mixed in for good measure). All in all, it was a very memorable arrival.



When planning our trip, we had to jump through numerous permitting hoops in order to stay at various places on the islands, including this one, Waipio Valley. We quickly learned that this was all completely unnecessary. No permits were ever checked in almost all the places we camped, which meant that for the most part, we got to camp for free. The one time on the Big Island when a gaggle of four cops did ask for our permits, we lied. Anyway, you have to hike down an incredibly steep road to get down to this valley, which was well worth the effort. We spent our time down there making sandcastles, chasing wild horses away while trying to take their picture, getting pounded by the big waves, and laughing at all the weird old naked people.


This is Halemaumau Crater, which is actually inside the Kileuea Caldera. Up until the 1930's it was actually a lake of lava, which Mark Twain describes in his "Letters from Hawaii" (we saw his tree, too...and I think several of his rocks, but I couldn't be sure).




We had to jump really high to get this picture. That big hole at the bottom is the Halemaumau crater. The entire lower half of the picture is the Kilaeua Caldera. About halfway up you can see another big hole. This is the Kileuea Iki Crater, where in 1979 there was a big lava fountain over 1900 feet high. We didn't get to see that, but we did walk across the floor of the crater. There was still smoke and steam venting from cracks in the hardened lava. Near the top is a big black spot that looks like it's on fire. That's the Pu'u Oo vent, where all the lava has come from since the late 80's.




We thought it was really cool how you could see all the different flows that came down this hill in the past. That's all.




This is as close as we actually got to the lava flow. We were really lucky to even see this, since most of the time its all underground in lava tubes and stuff. We had to hike three miles back to the car at night over rocks that were less than 5 years old, and still very sharp and jagged that crossed over old lava tubes that could collapse under your weight and send you falling into the depths of Pele's firey heart! (I read too much)




A turtle.

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