Day 6; Monday December 23rd was the day we were leaving Maui and heading to the big island of Hawaii. Our flight with Hawaiian Airlines was around 11 and we still had to drop off our rental car and navigate the crowded airport so we left our rental early in the morning just in case.
It was a very short flight between islands but we still had to check bags, pick up our bags, drop off one rental car in Maui and pick up another in Hawaii so we treated it like any other arrival/settle in day.
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| my new favorite Hawaiian snack! (we tried one other brand but it wasn't as good!) |
Leaving Maui, I had a window seat!
Already spotting the big island on the horizon.
You can see huge lava fields from the plane; the ground is all black and cracked and dried looking.
After picking up bags and the rental car we headed to The Big Kahuna Beach Grill. The food was yummy and we had a pretty view too.
It rained a bit but we had to go get groceries anyway (at Wal-Mart with what seemed like everyone else on the island doing some last minute Christmas shopping). At least Wal-Mart's food prices weren't as high as the grocery store we found on Maui.
It cleared in time to watch the sunset from our back deck.
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| I loved listening to the sounds of the waves |
Christmas eve day we drove over to Volcanoes National Park (2 hours away) and spent nearly all day exploring. The drive there was a long one, but very pretty. We actually drove by the largest macadamia nut orchard in Hawaii.
The night before when we were still in Maui my husband had read that the volcano on the big island had started erupting and I responded with "oh good! I was hoping it would!" He thought I was crazy and that the volcano erupting would be a bad thing for our trip but I assured him that it was something we really wanted to see.
We went to the visitor's center first and then walked over to the volcano house to see the lava that just began flowing a day or so earlier.
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| As you can see the eruption is pretty small and far away so we were safe |
We went to the first overlook and looked into the crater, then walked over to the Thurston Lava Tube.
It was a disappointment to us after having toured the Hana lava tubes but we didn't know what it would be like. It was rather short and very dark and just looked like a tunnel.
We went to hike a bit of the devastation trail.
We drove the rest of the crater rim trail down to the petroglyphs and then hiked out to see them (ancient carvings in the lava rocks).
Then we went to the sea arch.
We drove back up to the visitor's center and went back to see the lava flowing even higher.
From there we walked over to the Volcano art center to look at all the beautiful artwork and then took the trail to the sulfur vents.
Evan and I enjoyed zooming in on the sulfur crystals.
We saw lots of vents and steam too.
The park was S-U-P-E-R crowded (probably because the volcano was erupting!) but we got their early and seemed to avoid most of the crowds for most of the day.
Others in this series:
Maui:
Wonderful pictures!
ReplyDeleteThank you!
DeleteFabulous shots from the air and also such a gorgeous sunset. Thank you for sharing your trip with us. #MMBC
ReplyDeleteI was so thrilled to get a window seat for that ride!
DeleteSuch beautiful shots- especially those in the air- what an incredible destination!
ReplyDeleteThank you!
DeleteThe views from the plane! Wow! I am embarrassed to say this but you prompted me (from your earlier post) to do some research and I had no idea Hawaii had so many islands. I would find the grocery very interesting there. Walmart does it again! lol!
ReplyDeleteThe pictures are so pretty and glad you were able to avoid most of the crowds.
ReplyDeleteWhat amazing views from the plane and how wonderful to be so close to the ocean.
ReplyDeleteSeeing the volcano and the lava sounds so interesting.
Wow! Incredible. How lucky you were to see the volcano erupt.
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