Monday brought another before sunrise early morning. Sleeping in the treehouse was loud, like camping loud. We weren’t too cold, but we did hear just about everything and we’re in a tropical rainforest basically, so there’s lots to hear. Matt fell in love with a bird song that now we think might actually have been a frog. Anyways, it wasn’t hard to wake up before the sun.
We drove 30 minutes to Volcanoes National Park in the hopes of seeing some lava glow, but no luck. We actually weren’t at the right lookout, but also there was no lava. The website said it had stopped on the 20th, but we met someone that saw it on Sunday, so the night before we were there. Whomp whomp. We did enjoy the steam vents everywhere! Matt even found one that he was enjoying warming up at, and by the time we got done with our hike they had roped it off because they’re actually pretty dangerous.
Pretty sunrise.
Pretty sunrise and steam vents.
We walked the crater rim, around 3 miles.
It rained off and on, so Matt had to use his cool poncho obviously.
This place is wild. Look at that huge crater!
Nene. They had one whole lookout closed to protect the nene.
Rain and sun.
I had looked up someone’s Volcanoes Park itinerary and we kind of followed that, so next up they had brekkie at the lodge, so then we mildly enjoyed a very overpriced breakfast at the Volcano Lodge.
But you can’t beat the view.
We also discovered that this is a hotel and also right across the street there is a military hotel. I swear I looked and didn’t find a military hotel on the big island, but there it was. That would have been so convenient.
Next we walked across the street and checked out the Sulpher Banks. They didn’t really stink, they kind of smelled like a mildly stinky bath, like the heat made it not smell bad? The sulpher makes the rock yellow, and there were signs all over warning us to stay on the path and avoid being scalded. So we did.
After that we parked at the Kīlauea Iki Overlook and made our way down to the trail to the crater floor.
It’s always nice to make a friend and exchange photography favors.
The Kīlauea Iki hike is a 4 mile loop that takes you down steps and hills into the crater where they have a path for you to walk right in the middle of the vast volcanic wasteland.
He got some good air! He kept saying the floor is lava, so I made him jump.
We had to stay within the trail of these rock piles. And then halfway through they started having numbers on them and we could go to their website and read about each of the features.
I’ve never seen anything like it, it looked like a sci-fi movie set. A lot of this island does.
At first we didn’t realize it was a loop, so that was a happy surprise.
After our long hike we made a few more friends - the retired LA detective and his long lost high school sweetheart that had been in Hawaii for 40 years were some of our favorites. We also ran into a family from Seattle that we’d seen earlier in the week at a chocolate farm, so we chatted with them once we got onto the Chain of Craters Road.
We drove all the way down and hiked out to the Sea Arch. Matt was fully ready to cliff jump again, but no one else was so he didn’t feel comfortable. he said he was a little relieved. 🤣
He made me pretend to be texting. 🤷♀️
It was a pretty warm day with the sun reflecting off the black lava rock and then the beautiful blue ocean right there taunting us - we were pretty hot.
This was a funny little oasis of palm trees, but there wasn’t really a path, and I really didn’t want to wander off any paths in the park, so we enjoyed from a distance.
After the Sea Arch we hiked another mile and a half round trip to the petroglyphs. By this point my Apple Watch was all like peace out because she’s old and when I’m super active her battery goes faster. Suffice it to say we walked a *ton.* When we finally headed to make our way out of the park I took my socks and shoes off and my poor feet had indentations from my socks. Can you tell the brand?
We decided on a Hilo side must eat dinner at Ken’s House of Pancakes.
We shared a beef teriyaki plate and their famous pineapple upside down cake with ice cream. Both were fabulous.
The big island doesn’t have a lot of great swimming beaches because of all their lava rock, so many are rocky and rough. I searched and searched and found a little swimming area that said it was great for snorkeling and that the locals love it called Carlsmith Beach Park, so I talked Matt into an evening swim before heading home. The water was cold, which isn’t that big of a deal, even though the sun was starting to go down and it wasn’t super warm anymore. The problem was that there were warm pockets in the water, so we’d be swimming in the cold water and start to get used to it and then we’d swim through a warm patch and then be super cold again when we hit the cold patch. It was weird. Also, tons and tons of reef. I got snorkeling over a reef and before I knew it, I didn’t really have enough room to swim over it anymore. I tried to get away without touching it, but I scraped up my hand a little. We swam around for about a half hour before we threw in the towel. Except we didn’t because we’d left our towels at the treehouse. Matt had a little shammy kind of travel towel that we both shared and actually worked pretty well.
We headed home and thankfully made it there before it got dark. Interesting treehouse showers and we got to bed around 9:00.
And because life goes on even when we’re in paradise, we got some sad news while we were at the volcanoes park. Christian texted that Jeanne’s mom passed away that morning. She had had some health challenges last year and had actually been in Alabama with them for several months in the hospital and then rehab. She had had pneumonia and was in a coma for several weeks, but had been able to go home and we thought she was doing better.
On Sunday she wasn’t feeling well and went to the hospital, and by the next morning she had passed away. I’m so sad for Jeanne and her twin sister. Katie just had her baby last month and Jeanne is due in June. They are so young to lose their mom.
I checked on them all throughout the day and told Christian I would help clean out her house and bring dinner when the family gets together and help plan a funeral or memorial. I just want to be there to help however I can. Thankfully we have an extra car she can use when she comes up and she’ll stay with us as long as she needs to.
This also helped us be ready to head home. We’re needed and we want to be there for our little crew. It’s hard to be so far away when tough things are happening.
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