1. Arrive and walk out into the glorious heat. Goodbye foggy cold Bay Area summer!
2. Hapuna Beach! Great waves, warm water, lots of boogie boarding and wave jumping. Because the water was so warm nobody built sandcastles, everyone was in the ocean!
3. Sunsets! Beautiful sunsets in Hawaii of course, we watched them from A Bay. Rob and I saw the green flash, all we needed was a table and a couple of mai tais!
4. Punalo Black Sand Beach. We drove down to the southern most tip of Hawaii (and the southern most tip of the U.S.) to see the sea turtles and the black sand beach. It was a bit cold….but it was neat to see the turtles swim in from the ocean and crawl up and around the beach.
5. Hilton Waikoloa’s Waterfalls. Swimming under the man made waterfalls at the Hilton and going on the water slide. Fun Fun Fun!
6. Waipio Valley. Gorgeous, isolated, lush, quiet, wet. We drove down a very steep road in our SUV rental and forded some streams. The kids got a kick out of driving into the rivers, but we eventually turned around because I couldn’t handle it!
7. Hawaii Botanical Gardens. Amazing collection of gorgeous plants, only a few of them actually native. We walked a path that took us down to the beach and up to the waterfalls, all while seeing lovely tropical flora. A few pics:
Lena at the elephant leaf or elephant ear plant.
8. Hiking the lava tube at Volcano National Park. Cole and I walked the lit portion of the path then he and Rob went back with flashlights and walked the rest of the tube that was pitch dark. You can see the exit – it’s pretty small and it’s in the middle of the picture. I had Cole stand next to a light because my flash alone wasn’t enough! Lena was taking a nap in the car.
9. Staying at Kapoho and snorkeling in the tide pools. This is a picture of the view from the house we stayed in. You literally step outside and start snorkeling. I didn’t get any pictures of snorkeling, because, well, I was snorkeling too! (hey, it’s not always about taking pictures!). I wishI could have photographed the coral – lots of large fan, table and brain coral. Many smaller coral in lavender, red, pinks, seagreen, blue, etc. Many small colorful fish and spiny sea urchins as large as basketballs (both sharp and soft spiny, yikes!). Lots of crabs, of course, and sea slugs and something Rob and Lena think were sea spiders.
10. Watching the lava explode! We drove out to the end of a road that was covered by a lava flow about 10 years ago. Then we walked/hiked over lava fields for about 20 minutes to get to the viewing area. The lava was flowing out of a tube that was obscured by a cliff, but at night you could see lava exploding outward from the tubes in arcs and sprays. The steam would flash orange and red. It looked liked the fiery pits of hell. Very awe-inspiring. Unfortunately, I didn’t bring a tripod on this trip nor an adequate zoom lens or even manage to focus the lens so this is all you get (still pretty cool, though):
Walking on the lava field out to the viewing area.
