Caitlin and Mark

Big Island Day 3

A little late, but here is the last installment of our 3 day trip to the Big Island.

It started off once again with a nice breakfast with our hosts and other guests. We ate quickly and shuffled off into our jeep for a trip up north to Waipio valley with stops along the way to site see. This stretch of road is beautiful, high cliffs that allow you to see tons and tons of perfectly blue ocean.

When we made it up to Waipio, we got out and took a gaze from the outlook.

this is where most tourists end their visit to waipio, unless the want to hike down, or they have a trusty 4 wheel drive (like us). this isn't one of those "i'll risk it in my 2 wheel drive" you CAN'T go down or up the hill that takes you into the velley, it's that steep. and it was AWESOME. plus, once you are down in the velley, it's 4 wheeling the whole way. there are even streams you have to cross. it's was a blast just to drive.

after our stay, we slowly made it back up the hill, and went farther north into ranch country and stopped for lunch in Waimea. This is really the heartland of the island, lots of grass, lots of cows and horses.

after that, we didn't have much planned for the rest of the day, so we made our way back down the coast, stopped at another waterfall, and went into Hilo and chilled at a park for the remainder of our stay.

All in all, it was an awesome trip. a little tiring, but who says a long weekend should be relaxing?

-M

Found Phone

Got my phone back today.
someone found it and gave it to the bus driver.

so now i can not recieve calls but know that i could receive calls if somone ever called me.

-M

Lost phone

OK

so i lost my phone on the bus this morning. it must have dropped out when i got off. i put in a claim to lost and found, so there is a chance i could get it back (yeah right). so if you need to get in touch with me, please call our home phone at 808 239 4608.

-Mark

Big Island Day 2

Day two started with another lovely breakfast at My Island. we got off to an early start cause we had another full day ahead of us. but instead of walking the other 11.2 miles of our marathon weekend, we drove to Mauna Kea. This is the tallest point in Hawai'i at 13,780 ft or something like that. it was high. this was one of the main reasons we rented the jeep, even though the rental company said we were not allowed to a.) drive on the road to get to Mauna Kea (Saddle Road) and b.) drive on the Mauna Kea access road. They tell you not to go on Saddle road because it's too dangerous and that it is a long stretch of road and there are no gas stations. of course we paid no regard to either of these warnings and headed out. well, it's not exactly the worst road i've ever been on, and it's not that bad as long as you fill up before heading out. we figure they tell you this because they don't want to pay for a tow truck if you get stuck out there. the landscape around saddle road is pretty barren. lots of old lava flows, very little vegitation, but a spectacular view of both Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa.

so we get to Mauna Kea access road and start climbing. it's was actually really fun driving up the 16% slope to the visitors center.

we took a 5 minute break half way (6000 ft or so) up to get adjusted to the altitude. The visitor center is where anyone without a 4 wheel drive vehicle has to stop at. we stopped to grab some pamphlets and headed up the last 3000ft to the summit. This road was not paved the whole way and was quite steep and bumpy. pretty awesome if you ask me.

The summit is littered with like 13 different telescopes run by organizations from all over the world. This is known as one of the best places for observations of planetary and star research, and you can see why since you are above the clouds and in the middle of the pacific ocean.

even though we are in the tropics, it was in the mid 40's up that high... and windy. we parked our trusty jeep and had a quick lunch that we brought. we then looked around and did a quick hike to the real summit where they have an offering shrine, and a benchmark signifying the summit. just that little 1/4 mile hike was laboring though. at that elevation the lack of oxygen definitely hits you. but well worth it. this was actually my highlight of the trip, just looking over everything and seeing the landscape.

on the drive down, it was a little more treacherous. you have to drive in 1st so you don't pick up too much speed or overheat your brakes. lots of fun though.

after our amazing morning, we didn't have much enthusiasm to go hiking or anything, so we went to the zoo. it was a pretty run down zoo, but they did have a spectacular tiger.

we still had a little daylight left, so we decided to go back into volcanoes national park to see the petroglyphs and the sunset. a great day with lots of pictures

-Mark

Big Island Day 1

I'm going to do this in installments because there is just so much to write about and show y'all about our trip to the Big Island formally known as the island of Hawai'i. Lots of people are confused about this, yes there is an island called Hawai'i and no, Honolulu isn't on the Big Island, it's on Oahu. ok, now that we have that all straightened out....

We arrived in Hilo friday night, got our rental car (Jeep Wrangler) and drove the 25 minutes to Volcano villiage right outside of Volcanoes National Park where our B&B was. It was a lovely place with and extremely friendly older couple. The first thing we noticed about Volcano (4,000 ft) was that it was much colder than Hilo which was at sea level. we arrived at like 11:00pm and it's was in the high 40's! in Hawai'i!

We chose to stay in Volcano villiage because we planned on spending most of our time at the National Park, and I think we made a good decision. countless times we were able to drive back to our B&B from hiking and go right back in after lunch or whatever.

So after going to the visitors center, we started by driving around Kiluea Caldera, and stopping along the way to see the various sites. Steam plumes, Jagger Museum with a lookout, Ridge Vents and a 2 mile (or so) hike into the Kiluea Caldera. The landscape was so different from anything I have seen. Very bare, very black, you could tell that this land is young. the caldera hike was really hot, and it's extremely hard to walk on hardened lava. takes some time to get used to.

After a quick trip out to volcano to grab some lunch, we headed back in to hike some more and go into a lava tube. that was fun to go into a tube that once had hot boiling magma flowing through it. so at this point we have done about 9 miles of hiking. we were pretty worn out, but we still hadn't seen the actual lava.

we drove back out of the park one more time to stock up for our hike out to the lave fields at night to see the lava glowing. the drive down to the lava, which is flowing into the ocean was worth the trip in and of itself. driving from 4000 ft to sea level along lava fields was pretty surreal. then you start seeing the steam coming off the water and you know it's going to be really cool.

the hike is about 3 miles out to the lava from the road that has been blocked by an older lava flow. but it's not an easy 3 mile hike. it's a 3 mile hike over lava mountains practically. we started at about 6:30 and we prolly should have started at 5. by the time we got out to the a viewing area, it was dark and we were navigating with our head lamps. we ate dinner out there, and sat and watched the light show. we didn't know that we could have gotten closer, because it was so dark out, so that was a little bit of a bummer to only see it from about a mile away, but nonethless it was amazing.

our hike back to the car was quicker than the way out, we just wanted to get back to the B&B and crash. as you can imagine, we were pretty tired after our first day. all in all, we hiked about 15 miles. and extraordinary feat i must say. and of course we took a lot of pictures.

next post we will do the rest of the trip. just wanted to start you all off with a little something.

Mokulua Islands

Last weekend we went kayaking with our friend Britni. We went to the Mokulua Islands off of Lanikai. It's a bird sanctuary, but we didn't expect the birds to be nesting feet from our feet. It was so beautiful to look back at all the mountains. very picturesque, hence the pictures.

We are going to the big island (The island of Hawai'i) for the long weekend. it is also the first anniversary of our wedding. this will be our first (hopefully not last) trip to the neighboring islands. we can't wait to check out the lava and the amazing terrain.

we'll get back to you later. hope everyone's labor day weekend is good.

-Mark

music:
The Streets
Boy Sets Fire