Hawaii 3: Volcanoes on the Big Island

On Friday, January 24, 2025, after a morning at Hanauma Bay, we flew from Oahu to the big island of Hawaii.

I was surprised at how close together some of the other islands were as we flew over them. I believe we're seeing Moloka'i (left) and Lanai (right) here.

Once on the Big Island, we stopped by Costco for lunch and to pick up some groceries for the last few days of our trip. We got some ribeye steaks, and I was worried about keeping them cold, so I took 3 ziplock bags out of Linette's backpack, filled them with ice, and commandeered a box from that cart over there, thus fashioning a rudimentary refrigerator out of ordinary materials.

We drove a few minutes to see the Kona temple. We had heard that it was closed for renovations, but when we got there, it was pretty much completely gone! Apparently they decided to kind of start over so that they could increase the size from 9500 square feet to 12000.

As we drove along, Jim was our D.J., and he picked a nice mix of mellow, jazzy songs.

I was getting pretty tired, so Linette took over the wheel for a while.

The west half of the Big Island of Hawaii gets very little rain, so it is mostly lava flows and dry grass. As we drove along, the gals said, "Welcome to southern Idaho!"

But as we drove north, it got greener. The sunset also started turning the clouds fun colors.

We took a detour to see the Pololū Valley Lookout. It's a pretty great view, though it was starting to rain and get dark by the time we got there.

It was also cool to hear all the jungle noises of birds or frogs or whatever they were.

Our VRBO was on the east side of the Big Island, where it rains a lot and is thus lush and green.

Our rental house was round, made largely of cedar and redwood, and had a deck that went all the way around the outside. I loved how the ceiling looked upstairs.

The stairs were outside.

The house sits on 4 acres, so it was very secluded. There were a lot of jungle noises at night, including one bird that whistled "Da-beep!" over and over every couple of seconds, all night long.

The house collects rain water using the pipes like those shown above, and passes it into this cistern. It then goes through 3 filters (4 if you get water from the fridge), so we had our own self-sufficient water supply. It also had solar panels.

Here's what the house looks like from the outside.

Sandra & Dave's room had Hawaiian Tiki things in it. (Ours had a funky Buddha picture in it).

 

On Saturday, we drove an hour to Volcano National Park. I was happy to use my national parks pass for the second time to get in for free.

When we went to the Steaming Bluffs, we got to see some actual hot lava spewing out of the volcano! I had never seen that before!

Here is a 20-second video of the hot lava spewing forth:

I overheard someone saying that it had erupted 6 times since November, so it sounds like we were lucky to be able to see it.

We were actually quite a ways back from it, so it actually looked more like this, when you weren't using a good zoom on the camera.

From another overlook, you could only see the smoke.

We decided to do a half-mile hike through a lava tube. It was raining by then, so we wore ponchos. (A kid asked her mom what those were, and she had to explain them).

The lava tube was pretty cool, and an easy walk.

Then we hiked back to the van.

We drove down "Chain of Craters Road" and pulled over at maybe half of the overlooks.

One place had a lava flow from 1979 or something, and it had lava in all directions.

Finally we got to where you could just see the ocean. This island is actually growing in area as lava flows go out into the ocean and add more land mass. This island is the "youngest" one, so it is still actively growing and changing, while some of the others have had more time to settle down, erode the mountains, and cover the lava with forests.

I FaceTimed Mikayla while we were there to ask her about the rocks.

This lava was more smooth than some of the sharp stuff elsewhere.

With that, we drove back up the road and over to Hilo, where we found a highly-rated restaurant called Pineapple Island Fresh Cuisine. Lori & Jim got a drink in a pineapple (it only seemed appropriate).

We did, too, and it was lovely. (We got the nonalcoholic piña colada). After the drink was gone, I scraped the inside and got some good fresh pineapple and juice from it.

My burger had two onion rings on it, and I wasn't sure how to approach it.

Kalyssa told us we had to get shaved ice while we were in Hawaii, and there was a place called "Wilson's by the Bay" right across the street. For $2 more, you can have them put ice cream in the middle, so I did, just to get the full experience (though I didn't actually eat the whole thing).

The shaved ice gal was very friendly, and when Sandra & Dave asked her for suggestions of what to do, she recommended that we visit the Liliʻuokalani Gardens, so we did! These are free Japanese gardens with ponds and bridges.

As we approached, these trees were amazing.

And these.

The ponds were really pretty.

Here's a picture of our group on a little bridge. (I had a complete stranger take it for us.)

This stone bridge was really cute, too. Sandra & Dave took our picture.

And I took theirs.

Everywhere we looked, it was amazing.

Here are Lori and Jim on the bridge.

We walked over a short bridge to Coconut Island.

Apparently a family used to live on this little island and ferried people over to it on a boat, until a tsunami wiped out their house.

It looked like these guys were playing chess. (Not sure if they were).

As the sun started to set, we took a few more pictures at the gardens.

Then we hurried home to try to get there before it was completely dark, because the driveway was pretty steep and crazy (kind of like the one I grew up with, but much longer).

We were able to get some purple clouds as the sun finished setting.

In the next episode, we attend a local church service and explore some great waterfalls.