The Hawaiian Adventures of Dad & Nancy - Day 9 & 10

Tuesday & Wednesday, March 10th & 11th

Hang on to your knickers... this one is going to be longer. So we went to Hilo on the Big Island to check this out!

We went for two full days and one night, and it was a jammed packed trip. We left on Tuesday morning, took the 50 min flight to Hilo and started sight seeing right away. It wasn't a pretty day, it fact it was down right pouring. Our first stop of the day was at Akaka falls. Kind of reminded me of my first childhood trip to Mt. Rushmore where it was so foggy we didn't see a thing!This is what it's supposed to look like
We only had two umbrellas with us, so whoever was holding a child got to hold it. Heather obviously got one with Jax and Dad and Nancy split on the way there and back. I just got wet. It's okay, they don't call me the MAN for nothing. Or was that, I don't call myself the MAN for nothing... oh well, that's not important.After Akaka falls we went to Rainbow falls. It was more like septic tank falls though. Still cool though.And again, this is what it's supposed to look like:
After that we saw what led up to Rainbow falls, and then went to the local grocery store to pick up some supplies. We then headed southeast to Pahoa where we stayed in a vacation rental called Hawaiian Retreat. We quickly dropped off our stuff and jumped back in the car... oh wait, here's our car! Sexy... I know.But our last stop of the day was Ahalanui Warm Springs where the water is naturally heated by the volcano. It was quite nice... Plus, Dad went swimming?! Yup, here he is.. can you tell he hasn't gotten sun yet?
Poor Ash was so tired, we put her in her car seat to head back and she was gone, cracker in hand and all.

When we got back to our place we whipped up a hearty meal of Kalbi, veggies and pan fried potatoes. It hit the spot.Here's where we stayed, it was really nice, and not much more expensive than a hotel room would've cost. But instead of a room, we had almost 1700 square feet to hang out in. It's just too bad we all crashed really early.
After a good night's sleep, we got up relatively early, made breakfast, did a little lounging, but decided to get out early so we could spend the day at Volcanoes National Park. Oh, but have you ever seen a shower set up like this? No need for a fan I guess... hopefully there weren't any "fans" either!

Oh yeah, and have you ever seen chickens in the trees? Well, they were at the Hawaiian Retreat... I even found a rooster in the van after I left the door open while loading!So off we went again, but first a quick stop at the Lava Tree State Park. Trees here are covered in Lava, and it's kinda cool I guess.But finally, we made it the place where we had planned for a couple months. You can't really tell, but that's a lot of sulphur dioxide being spewed out of Kilauea behind us. You couldn't go any closer though, for safety reasons. In fact Rangers told us people used to pass out from being too close, so finally they just closed the roads. Silly tourists.

It's kind of one of those trips that you can't really show in pictures or blog posts, you kind of just have to go. But we had a lot of fun, Ashlyn kept us entertained.Since the road around Kilauea was closed, we had more time on our hands than we thought, so we hiked through Thurston Lava Tube. It's a tunnel like path where the lava used to flow through. Hmmm.. didn't import a picture, guess Nancy will do that :) but here's us on the trail! (Couldn't of been that hard if we're wearing slippers/flip flops though!)
We drove down the entire chain of craters road and at the end saw the Holei Sea Arch.However, time was going fast and we still needed to make one last stop, to see the Lava enter the ocean. It wasn't as cool as we thought it was going to be, but it was still fun.We had to hike over lava rocks, and Ashlyn was on my back while Heather toughed it out with the chubby guy. You can see pretty clearly where the lava is hitting the water.We couldn't get as close as we wanted, but the real show began when the sun started to set.

However, because we had to catch our flight back to Honolulu, we couldn't stay as late as we wanted! But it was still a sight worth seeing, it's just too bad we couldn't get closer! But before we knew it, it was time to fly back to Oahu. It was a memorable trip though. I'm sure NANCY is planning to update her blog soon with more too.... :)