Tuesday, March 29, 2016

Hawaii, day 1 and 2

0M1A7522

Mark and I wanted to go to Hawaii for our 10 year anniversary.  We’ve never been.  When I asked my parents if they would watch the kids, they said that they wanted to go too, and that they wanted to go in March vs June so we could whale watch….  So our 10 year anniversary trip involved all 3 kids and my parents.  Not exactly the relaxing get away I was hoping for at all, and I think I went in to this trip with the wrong mind set from the beginning.  I really wanted it to be a vacation, but when you have kids along, it’s not a vacation.  It’s a trip.  And it was a fun trip, it just wasn’t the romantic 10 year anniversary vacation I was envisioning.  Hawaii, at least the Big Island, in general wasn’t what I was envisioning, but we still had a good time.

0M1A75770M1A75860M1A76220M1A76270M1A7643

Jamison LOVES the birds that came on to our patio every morning during breakfast.  And the first morning I had a lot of fun playing with my 70-200mm lens taking pictures of them.  He would point to them and say “buh” when he saw them, which was cute.  We stayed at my parents Wyndham timeshare which was really nice.  My parents had a 2 bedroom unit and we had a two bedroom unit which worked out well.  Abbie stayed in my parents unit with them, and Ben and J stayed with us, Ben in the bedroom and J in the other bathroom.  It worked out well and we all slept pretty darn well.  It’s nice to have full kitchens in these places so we can cook meals and breakfasts and have some of the comforts of home.

0M1A76570M1A76630M1A7665

0M1A76670M1A7675

 

0M1A76770M1A7682

So I was envisioning Hawaii to be lush and green and flowery, and part of it were, but the majority of it wasn’t.  The island is an active volcano after all, so there was LOTS of lava trails everywhere, which was also neat to see.  The part that we stayed in, Kona, was kind of in the middle of the lava trails part, so you had the little town surrounded by lots of black, rocky landscape.  There were areas where the lava was older and vegetation had grown on it more and then the north and east sides of the island were a lot more green than the Kona side.

 

0M1A76870M1A76900M1A76960M1A7700

The island isn’t that big, but it takes FOREVER to drive all the way around it.  It’s only 2 way roads and the speed limit is usually 45 mph so it was so going.  It took us over 2 hrs to get to Volcanoes National Park.  But the drive did get prettier the further south we got.

0M1A77070M1A77100M1A7718

0M1A77250M1A77400M1A7742

We finally made it to the park and went to check out the active volcano and eat some lunch.  The lunch was expensive and not great, but the views were good.  I’ve heard it’s best to go to the volcano at night but that wasn’t an option since it was 2 hrs away and the kids were with us.

0M1A77580M1A77620M1A7765

0M1A77720M1A7768

0M1A77760M1A7777

0M1A77790M1A77870M1A7795

0M1A77970M1A7807

0M1A78150M1A7817

0M1A78290M1A7832

 

After lunch we headed to do a little hike of the lava tunnels.  This was the rainforest-y landscape I was expecting there to be more of.  The ferns were so neat and so was the tunnel.  I got left behind a little because I got caught up taking pictures, as usual.

0M1A78390M1A78410M1A7846

0M1A78500M1A78530M1A7863

0M1A78670M1A78720M1A7874

0M1A78750M1A7885

0M1A78810M1A7887

To be continued…