Goodbye Hawai'i

Fancy dining room table at which we never ate.

Open lanai with table at which we always ate.

A few parting shots of our Kona residence.

Hawai'i Day 6

Best. Food. In. Hawai'i.

It was a great Sabbath. We found a little church in Captain Cook to attend. Then, as you might have guess, back to the beach. For a final vacation treat, we returned to our favorite restaurant. If you ever go there, make sure to get the baked brie and perhaps the chocolate lava cake.

Hawai'i Day 5

Some residents of Kalapana insist on staying around.

Jess finds the door she wants on our next house.

Definitely suffering from the sunburns today. We didn't really realize that our backs were getting toasted when we were snorkeling, because we HAD lathered on the sunblock. Alas, we spent the morning checking out the gift shops. We kept trying to get over to Walmart yesterday, but the police had the whole place cordoned off. We finally got in today and I guess there had been a bomb threat there.

Next we headed out across to top of Hawai'i and on over to Hilo. We got into the lava viewing area a little after dark and hiked out to the ocean where we had a pretty good view of the lava, but taking pictures there was next to impossible as you can see. It was breathtaking to watch the lava pour into the ocean, the waves beating up against the molten rock and dissolving instantly into steam.

On the way back we drove the nearly impassible Saddle Road. It was completely dark and the stars were like nothing I've ever seen before. When we got back I started reading in our guidebook and discovered that only crazy people drive the Saddle Road at night, so there you have it.

Hawai'i Day 4

Robb diving down the edge (about 3 atmospheres in this shot).

Robb explores an underwater cave entrance.

Can you spot the "evil spirit" of the Kona sea caves?

Snorkeling Day! We headed out early to meet up at SeaQuest for our snorkeling adventure. We got to see all manner of tropical swimmers, sighted spinner dolphins and even swam with a turtle. We also got a pretty good tour of the sea caves and checked out the Captain Cook memorial. When we got back in at noon, we headed back to our favorite beach for an afternoon of glorious Kona sun.

Hawai'i Day 3

Robb loves ferns.

Posing in the center of the volcano.

Yep, we just crossed that!

Into Thurston Lava Tubes

Today we stepped into an active volcano. We originally planned on a 4-mile hike to Pu'u O'o (the heart of the current active eruption), but the current volcanic activity has that trail closed off, so we did a 3-mile hike at Kilauea Iki instead. We descended through a fern forest down onto the floor of the venting volcano. Next we checked out the lava tubes and ancient petroglyphs.

Hawai'i Day 2

Another beautiful day. We started by checking out the fishes at Kahalu'u Beach Park. It was pretty good as snorkeling goes, we saw everything from Angelfish to Humu­humu­nuku­nuku­apua'a. Then we headed to the pristine Ka'elehuluhulu Beach. Robb swam around with yet another sea turtle and found coconuts for us to eat. For a special treat, this evening we dined at the amazing Ke'ei Cafe.

Hawai'i Day 1

On our long trek across the a'a fields.

Of course we wanted to get to the beaches right away. We got a great tip on a beach that could be accessed only by crossing a lava field, so headed there—Makalawena Beach. Robb swam with the cutest little sea turtle. Then we did a bit of beach research. At Wawaloli Beach we found perfect conditions for my first snorkel lesson. To end the day, we took a sunset drive up the mountain, it was perfect.

Alaska to Hawaii

My own sleepless in Seattle moment.

Basically a very long trip. We left Kotzebue Sabbath evening and spent the night and next morning on airplanes and in airports. Bahh. By the time we touched down in Kona, we were pretty wiped, so drove around a bit to get a lay of the land then had a quick bit to eat at Lulu's.