Hawaii 2019 - Day 6

Today was Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park day.  Our plan was to get to breakfast early.... but that got derailed quickly when we couldn't find T's headphones for the car ride.  After a long search, we still couldn't find them.  Eventually Lola packed up her headphone and away we went. Since this took longer than we expected, breakfast was a longer wait than we expected, and we got to the car over 30 minutes after we wanted to be out of there.

Loading the van, and getting the kids set up with their entertainment, we started our journey to the other side of the island. There are 8 climate zones on the big island and there are only 13 all together in the world. There is no roads on this map, but we went through 4 climate zones including, dry-semi-arid, Summer-dry warm, summer dry-cool and continuously wet.  The drive was very neat as you go over the hills and find yourself with different vegetation as you get to the other side. 

Interesting things along the drive, we passed the army base, that didn't look like much, just a lot of barren ground and shed like buildings all in a clump.  We passed through the protesters along the highway that don't want a telescope built, w drove through Hilo and its neighboring communities, and finally arrived a volcanoes national park.

Once arriving at the park we went to the visitors center to check out what we wanted to do.  We headed to the Sulfur banks where everything didn't go well after that.  The two kids were very scared, as there are danger signs and warnings throughout.  Adults kept the kids safe, but they didn't enjoy it.  And to our surprise T didn't like the smell at all, but he did love a sign that said a guy got burned from getting too close to the edge and fell in the hole.  He talked about that for the rest of the day.

Next stop was the steam vents.  This turned out to be even worse that the sulfur bank hike.  The kids were not happy, especially B.  She was terrified.  Later we found out that she thought it was fake, but once we got there the volcano was real and that was scary.  Her stomach was in a knot and she just turned sour.  Thinking she was going to vomit was the end result.

We got to the steam vents, and to the adults surprise don't remember being able to see the crater from where we were.  It is so beautiful, and we can't wait to get home to look at the photos from that last time we were there as it was 7 years ago, and it has since erupted.  So since the eruption, 10% of the park is still closed, including the all famous lava tubes that MBM and Lola thought were terrifying the last time they were there.  I guess we will have to come back when they open them up again (it might be a while if they were damaged from lava...  We think the crater is bigger than it was before, but I guess that will have to wait until we get home to look at the photos.

We hiked a little to a viewing point, and then headed our way back.  The kids did ok on the walk back, but B still wasn't doing well.  We stopped at the Volcano house for lunch.  MBM and Lola had the best fish we have ever had.  To Lola's surprise once asking the waiter what protein she could have as all the lunch plates had a "it contains gluten" symbol, it was just the macaroni salad that she couldn't eat, all the fish was coated with rice flour.  B had a little nap at the table and then ate a few bites of lunch, but wasn't having it.  The view was amazing out of the restaurant.

After lunch, Lola went to the gift store and the rest walked back to the van, and stopping to go inside the visitor center as we didn't go inside the first time, just looked at the signs on the outside.  It began to rain a little, so we got back into the van, and headed down the Crater Rim Road.  We stopped at the first viewing point.  This was Lolas favorite part.  It was a crater filled with harden lava rock.  People were hiking down in the bottom, next time Lola and MBM want to do that, as it looked so cool, but it was a "challenging" hike and the kids wanted nothing to do with this experience.

So we kept going to Devastation Trail, where a full forest was covered in lava rock (in mounds) in the 1950's.  To our surprise T came on this hike with AA, Lola and MBM.  He really wanted to see a NeNe (which looks like a Canada goose).  Unfortunately we didn't see any NeNe, but he did super on the walk, telling AA and Lola to stay on the path, as he could hear us walking on the rocks....

Back at the van, B and DD chilled waiting for us to do the 1 mile hike.  We headed out of the park and on our way back to the Hotel, B couldn't wait.  It was raining.  The kids both had a short nap, the adults stopped for Starbucks in Hilo (about a 30 minute drive from the park).

The drive was pretty peaceful.

Once we got back to the hotel, we headed straight to the Lagoon grill for some food.  We had way too much food, but the burgers and hot dogs we had were good.

We headed back to the room to put the kids to bed, which went very well.  The adults played some Overcooked on the Switch, and with MBM we are getting really well.  We can't wait to try again tomorrow.

Till tomorrow, Lola.