2 days, 1 night. Lets Go!
We picked the BI because a few of our Iolani 4th graders missed out on their big class trip due to Covid. *note the bright orange trip shirts that never got properly used-until now.
A few dedicated Sunday friends decided to recreate a part of the original itinerary while integrating a few extras like pinball, volcano wandering and a dip in the sea.
After flying into Hilo airport early Saturday, the first thing we decided to do was a quick unscheduled geocache. Geocaching is a great activity you can do practically anywhere and it’ll take you to random places you would never think to go to, for example this place in the pics below which was on an unused dead end road with an abandoned parking lot hidden in the maze of streets leading out of the airport.
Get the car and Geocache!
: )
It’s always fun to see what lies within
Enough goofing off. Off to meet the other families for a bite to eat.
You know you’re kicking off a vacation well when you have a great first meal in your belly and you end up futting around in the front yard afterwards playing frisbee and swinging around wooden hammers.
The grounds of this restaurant felt old and well kept, it was crowded enough to know we were at a good place, but not enough to make you want to look elsewhere. https://www.kilauealodge.com/restaurant/.
For some reason Paxton always seems to order something fancy. Just wait until you start paying the bills, kid. Grilled Ahi and a hot chocolate. Hot chocolate for all the kids! (and Kimi) lol
KILAUEA
Kilauea is approximately 4000 feet above sea level
To think that the island is constantly growing is awe inspiring. At certain points while driving (not this trip) you can see the hardened long black legs of lava that ran down hill and solidified amid green bushes and trees.
Our first strategic stop was at the visitor center so we could ask about recent conditions-where to go and when for sunset or to get a glimpse of lava.
If your kids are the right age, this pass may be able to allow your entire family to enter for free! https://www.nationalparks.org/our-work/campaigns-initiatives/every-kid-outdoors
After checking out the Thurston Lava Tube we realized our group blazed through this monument a bit too quickly without stopping to examine, think and soak in. It was a good early reminder to balance doing items on the check list and simply doing nothing.
Thurston Lava Tube
Next we popped into Volcano House for its vantage point, a restaurant with a view of the crater and located right across the street from the visitor center.
Famous visitors in the past include Mark Twain, King David Kalakaua, and Louis Pasteur.
At different points along the rim of the crater we saw steam vents and the crater from different angles. No lava, but you could see the smoke wafting upwards in the mostly windless climate.
CHECK IN TIME
As we were fortunate enough to have a military affiliate leading the group, we stayed at the Kilauea Military Center, a recreational area with cabins, an arcade, a shoppette, bowling alley, and restaurant/mess hall. There’s a bar too, but it happened to be closed.
KMC is located within the national park, so it was a convenient hopping point for most of our volcano-related activities. Each cabin was basic but had space heaters and a fireplace to deal with the cool altitude. It was also rumored that there might be elusive pinball machines there.
Hackeysackers, unite!
So we decided to settle in, knowing that if we got too comfortable there was a chance we may not leave. We decided to fuel up, sych up and plan out a sunset and lava viewing. Sunset ended up getting ruled out by clouds and rain but we were willing to take our chances at the lava. After all, this is the Big Island.
We feasted on the finest offerings the bowling alley could provide-I think we tried every type of french fry available, a smattering of mediocre pizzas, chicken wings, fish and chips, tuna melt, and seltzers from the shoppete to wash it all down. Check out those prices!
If you boil everything down, one-if not the main reason to visit the Big Island is to catch a glimpse of the volcano, an island in the making! With rain predicted at 70-100% for our first evening, we waited until dark with rain jackets, snacks and high hopes of seeing how the lava flow had changed since the 2018 eruptions. After unsucessfully venturing northwest along the crater to 2 different areas and only seeing clouds with not even a red glow to hint at the presence of lava, we went back southward to the place the ranger at the visitor center recommended, which was located down old Crater Rim Drive — Keanakakoi overlook. We achieved success after a wet walk on a paved road to a lookout point lower in elevation than we were earlier, and below the cloud line it seemed.
Huzzah!
We call that there-molten rock! Not the best pic, but you get the idea.
Back to the Barracks!
…and relax. Day one was pau. Everyone was pooped and went to crash out. I got relegated to the pull out sofa bed which was conveniently in the same room as the fireplace. (Wood, starter log and lighters available at the shoppette.) Gotta say it was a new experience having a live fire indoors.
Although I wasn’t able to step close enough to the lava to melt my slippers, it sure felt good to check off seeing that red glow from Madame Pele. There really is something magical about glowing red natural molten rock.
Day 2-half the trip’s over folks.
Black sand beach, Akaka Falls, Imiloa Astronomy Center
After breakfast at the barracks, we took a slight detour down south before heading back toward Hilo to get to Akaka falls.
One dude takes your order, another makes it. It ain’t fancy, but you get what you ordered.
Here we are driving out…and ending up at Punalu’u black sand beach.
From shore, we could see multiple turtles in the water and there was a spot where lifeguards had built up a rock wall around where the turtles like to hang out at to keep people at bay.
I don’t consider myself much of an ocean person, but when we arrived at Punaluu black sand beach and I began to soak in the combinatiom of black rock, green coconut trees, and blue ocean, I began to feel the dark blue ocean calling to me to jump in. Although I wasn’t planning on swimming, I’m glad I brought my trunks, because I might have jumped in with my bibadees and ended up on someones TikTok. I had to let its beauty envelop me.
To top off, I can’t believe we haven’t visited this beach before!
On the way out, to avoid bad luck we dusted every bit of black sand from our feet and footwear possible and set off to Akaka Falls.
Onward!
Coming from Kilauea, this place was just past Hilo town and up the mountain. The foliage was amazing with huge bamboo, towering ferns, and mountain streams. You could see the fresh water prawns with their long claws hanging out in the clear fresh water. No one else was interested in the prawns but me though. Their loss!
Not sure why but the cat that was hanging out with the parking patrol people at the parking lot was more popular with the kids than the falls!
Hilo Town
On the way to the Imi Loa Center located next to the University, we split from the group and stopped off at the Hilo farmers market for some fruit and poke bowls. Hudson wanted to try the Big Island lychee to see if it was better than Oahu’s. I told him most of the lychee on Oahu probably comes from the BI! Didn’t matter because it was the wrong season for lychee anyway. Still there was a great variety of fruits, including long an, durian, and a bunch others!
At least we got to taste whatever this fruit was, plus a few guava and a banana to boot.
The poke bowls from across the street were a bit dolled up but tasted really good. Fresh fish. Sorry no pics. We were in a rush to meet the gang and also too hungry to take pics.
Imiloa
The ‘Imiloa Astronomy Center is located amidst the University of Hawaii Hilo campus.
We wandered through the interactive exhibits and sat through the planetarium show. The center explored space and touched on Hawaiian culture. It also had a polynesian voyaging section, yet I left feeling that overall it was missing something to tie it all together. Maybe I was expecting some kind of a follow up to Disney’s “Moana.”
Auwe, Lilo!
No Dwayne Johnson, but I did see Jason Scott Lee.
Last BI Meal of the trip
Thanks to Jay’s plan-on-the-go skills we were able to find a place that would accomodate the whole lot of us animals. The Hilo Burger Joint had a wide selection of burgers on the menu and the food wasn’t bad. My only complaint was that half of my families side dishes were wrong when they arrived. First world problems, right? Literally perhaps, because if I think back I don’t think I recall ever having a food order screw up while visiting a third or second world country. To be fair though, I’v eaten way more meals in my home country than I have overseas. Anyway at least it made me appreciate the excellent service we had at Kilauea Lodge. Highly recommend the Lodge.
Bye Bye Big Isle
And as usual, on the way to the airport after gassing up, dumping trash and reorganizing we tried to squeeze in one last mini adventure, another geocache-this time unsuccessfully. Pulling over on a main highway to look for stuff is semi sketch safety wise to say the least.
A hui hou, Big Island!
The WOO family page 