Welcome to Hawai'i! First day on the Big Island

Cue the ukulele, blend the pina coladas and bust out the sunscreen; David and Paul are heading to Hawai'i! Paul has been wanting to go to Hawai'i to rack up state number 50 since last fall's trip to North Dakota. Well, check "visit all 50 states" off the bucket list! Hawai'i is state number 44 for David, which is not-too-shabby, but still a ways off the prize. Oklahoma and Alaska, watch out.

For our trip to Hawai'i, we've planned out about 9 days of activities across three of the islands. First stop is three full days on Big Island (Hawai'i), followed by four days on Kauai and two on Oahu to visit Honolulu.

We both like geology, so our visit to the Big Island was mostly focused on the active and previous volcanic activity, right down to where we elected to stay on the island... in the town of Volcano. We found a cottage using AirBnB within a few miles of the active Kilauea volcano and Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park. One of the advantages of staying in Volcano is the altitude. Daytime temperatures didn't rise above 80*F and overnight lows were in the upper 50s*F - beautiful sleeping weather for a state that is light on air-conditioning (electricity is expensive here).

The Big Island is a little bit smaller than Connecticut. We visited most of the eastern half of the island.

We arrived in Volcano after 9 PM Hawai'i time, which is around 3 AM Eastern. Despite being exhausted, instead of going to bed we drove over to the National Park and checked out the nighttime view of the Kilauea crater. The crater has an active pool of lava so the steam glows red in the evenings. It was a breathtaking start to our tour of Hawai'i.

Kilauea Crater at Night

The next morning we got up and drove to the Hilo Farmer's Market before a 9:30AM scheduled helicopter tour of the volcano. Due to our late arrival the night before, the rental car agency was low on stock and hooked us up with a convertible! Glamour shots abounded. We never would spring for a convertible on a trip, but we'll admit that in a place like Hawai'i, you might almost get your money's worth!

Volcano cottage...with convertible glamour shot! Our cottage was in the rainforest.

Gratuitous convertible glamour shot

The farmer's market was right in downtown and was filled with beautiful produce and Hawaiian goodies. Hawai'i is such a melting pot of Polynesian, Asian and American heritage. It's really interesting to see how local food and crafts reflect that diversity. We couldn't help ourselves and picked up a couple steamed pork buns and fresh spring rolls for breakfast.

Hilo Farmer's Market

So much produce...

Mango, Pineapples and Bananas! Oh my!

We just throw these into a blender to make a pina colada, right?

After the farmer's market, we went back to the Hilo airport for our helicopter ride out to the volcano. Right now, this is your only real chance of seeing lava in Hawai'i (short of illegally walking through the jungle for miles off the beaten path and possibly asphyxiating or lava-ing yourself to death). We'd highly recommend the ride to anyone visiting the island. We passed over macadamia nut farms en route to the active lava flows. Here we could see where the lava was currently burning the forest on its route down the mountain. We also hovered over a partially exposed lava tube where there was a crack in the ceiling exposing the flowing magma beneath. Finally, we ascended high over Kilauea crater and looked down into the lava pool we had seen the night before. From way up here we were even able to glimpse the summit of Mauna Kea (the highest peak on the island at nearly 14,000ft) with its array of around a dozen telescopes. Very cool! On the ride back we passed by a cascading waterfall and then followed the coastline. Hawai'i is lush, green and beautiful!

David's calm demeanor hides an intense anxiety of being inside this flying deathtrap!

Paul's rearing and ready to go! The yellow pouch is a life jacket. I guess it would keep us afloat in lava?

Volcano 1 - Forest 0

This is what a huge swath of the southeastern side of the Big Island looks likes. Multiple lava flows have killed the forest.

A big steam vent

Steam vent on Venus....nope! Looks like it could be though!

You can see magma flowing underneath the surface of this collapsed ceiling.

Here's an old crater. Craters come and go frequently over the Hawaiian hot spot.

Badass 

Kilauea crater from way above.

You can see the lava pool in the crater from above.

Bonus Waterfall! There was a chain of beautiful waterfalls to the northwest of Hilo.

Big Island shoreline north of Hilo

Helicopter ride off the bucket list! That's our pilot, Koji.

After the volcano helicopter tour we visited the Imiloa Astronomy Center to prep ourselves for our afternoon drive up to the observatories on Mauna Kea. The center has a new 3-D planetarium as well as exhibits on space, physics and cultural exhibits on how Polynesians came to reside in Hawai'i in the 5th century AD. It's a great museum and if you happen to be in Hilo you should drop in. The planetarium show on the night sky over Hawai'i was helpful for stargazing later that evening.

3-D planetarium glasses at the Imiloa Astronomy Center

After the astronomy center, we stopped by a local dive for some lunch. Cafe 100 is known for its multiple varieties of "loco" cuisine.  Basically, "loco" just means a dish with rice, gravy and a fried egg. Paul tried the local favorite, "loco moco" which is a hamburger patty as the base. So far, Hawaiian food has been interesting. You can tell it has roots in the fact that getting fresh fruits, vegetables and grains used to be a challenge. Many of the "comfort" foods use processed meats, are deep fried and don't really come with much of anything green. Hawaiian food is like southern food without the vegetables! Prices are high, overall. Maybe 25-40% above what you'd pay for something similar on the mainland. This applies to grocery purchases as well.

Loco Moco - hamburger patty with gravy over rice with a fried egg on top.

Unfortunately, we aren't allowed to take our little convertible to the top of Mauna Kea due to steep rutted dirt roads near the summit, so we traded in our car for a 4WD SUV for the afternoon and took off towards the stars! The Big Island is really neat in that the elevation changes are so gradual you hardly know you're climbing. You start off near the ocean at 80*F then all of a sudden you're up 9,000 feet and it's around 60*F outside.

Just outside Hilo on the way up Mauna Kea we stopped at an old lava tube from an eruption of Mauna Loa (the other great volcano on the island, just about a hundred feet shorter than Mauna Kea but nearly 100 times the mass) that threatened to destroy Hilo in the late 1800s. The tube is called the Kaumana Cave and features incredibly smooth walls and really great coloration.

Paul likes to climb into things...the camera flash lights up this room well, which is otherwise very very dark.

The lava tube collapsed in the middle exposing the tunnel

The cooled lava was very smooth to the touch and full of obvious flow patterns

In Hawai'i, life always find a way of creeping into the darkest of locations.

After the lava tube, we continued our drive up Mauna Kea. We stopped at the visitor center at 9,000 feet to acclimate a bit before driving up the final almost 5,000 feet to the summit at 13,803 feet. When measured from the base of the sea floor,  Mauna Kea is the tallest mountain on Earth (take that Mount Everest).

As we climbed, the scenery changed dramatically, from lush forests to plains and finally to alpine tundra. The high plains reminded us a lot of the Peruvian landscape outside of Cusco. All said and done the drive takes about an hour and a half. It's pretty amazing to think you can cover that much of a difference in terrain in such a short time. In the winter, the road can be closed due to snow. Fortunately for us, the high temperature up on the summit that day was around 50*F so it was cold, but not unbearable.

Low altitude forests

High altitude plains...not the image of Hawai'i most people have in mind.

Here's the monstrosity of an SUV that replaced our little black convertible. No glamour shots here, people.

Are we in Peru?! No! Hawai'i!

Old volcanic craters on Mauna Kea

This is why we needed the 4WD. Fun unpaved tundra-like road through the clouds. No snow, thankfully.

The main reason people summit Mauna Kea is to watch the sunset then star gaze a bit on the way down. The scientists don't like you hanging around on top messing up their observations, so shortly after sunset we were shooed away by a park ranger. Mid-way down to the visitor center at 9,000 feet, we pulled over and did a little stargazing. We have never seen so many stars! David even saw 2 shooting stars! All-in-all, not a bad first day in Hawai'i!

Telescope on top of the world. The clouds often pool below the summit of the mountain.

We packed warmer clothes for this one few hour trip in Hawai'i.

The clouds look like crashing waves

David was only willing to jump once or twice at this high altitude.

Sunset over the telescopes

Sun setting behind the clouds in the distance

Clear, crisp, dry air lets you see forever!

The mountain in the background is actually on Maui!

Here come the reds and pinks - a beautiful sunset.

This picture does it no justice, but if you click you can see the Milky Way.

Steam vents, lava tubes, waterfalls, sunset from a giant volcano - our first day in Hawai'i did not disappoint! Stay tuned for more volcanic adventures on the Big Island and some fun in Kauai and Oahu.