Hawaii Vacation, Day 4!!: Thursday, March 3rd

Thursday was our day to drive around the entire Big Island taking in some sights. So we got up at 5:30 a.m. and were out the door by 6:30 to drive the 2+ hours to Akaka Falls. It was beautiful!!

Here's Jesse in front of a smaller waterfall on the hike to Akaka Falls.

Much of the path to the falls was stairs and it was all paved so that made it easy. The rain forest surrounding it made us feel like we were in the movie Avatar:)

Gorgeous!

From Akaka Falls, we drove a little over an hour to Volcano National Park. First we went to the Visitor Center to get advice on where to go for the amount of time we had. It would have been really cool to drive from the Visitor Center to the ocean to see the active lava coming out but it was an hour to the ocean and an hour back and we didn't have that much time. So, we opted for driving by the steam vents (Jesse wasn't real interested in getting out of the car to inhale all that sulfur and I was cool with that!) on our way to Jaggar Museum which has a ton of educational displays about the volcano, a gift shop, and an AMAZING view of the crater!

Jesse in front of the crater. The day after we visited here, the volcano erupted more than it had in a long time so we were thankful not to have been there!

After seeing the crater, buying a cool puzzle for the kids, and walking around Jaggar Museum, we drove about 15 minutes to walk through a lava tube which was crazy! I kept feeling like a bat was going to fly in my hair because it was like walking through a creepy cave. I guess when the lava came through, there was nothing on top either but over many years vegetation began to grow, thus forming this tube. So weird!

After visiting Volcano National Park, we drove 30 minutes to Punaluu Beach, aka Black Sand Beach. The "sand" was basically like gravel, not real comfortable to walk on. But it was cool to see black sand. I guess it's black because of a volcanic eruption (learned that at Jaggar Museum;) I was really hoping to see sea turtles on the beach and maybe a hump back whale here but we had no such luck. However, there were a bunch of sea turtles in the water so it was a least fun to watch them for a while, even if they weren't up on the beach. Mostly, I just wanted to see how huge they were and get a cool picture but I survived;)

Jesse and I at Punaluu Beach.

You can really tell how black the sand is in this picture.

From Punaluu Beach, we drove 45 minutes to South Point. This is not a real touristy spot but it is the southern most point in the United States so Jesse really wanted to go here and it was AMAZING! We drove on a one lane dirt road the last 20 minutes of our drive and felt like we were totally in the middle of no where and about to drive right into the ocean! When we got there, there were a ton of cars parked in the dirt and even a port-a-potty (didn't need it but good to know it was there;) There were several local fishermen there; we heard the fish are great there. They used garbage bags to float on their lines which was interesting to watch. And there were a couple of tourists jumping off the cliff which is something we'd read people like to do at South Point just to say that they've done it:) Neither Jesse or I jumped but we were happy to watch the crazy people who did!

Gorgeous South Point view!

I found a really beautiful black sea shell here.

We left South Point at 2:45 p.m. and drove the 3 hours back to our resort- LONG day of driving around the Big Island but cool seeing all those amazing things! When we finally made it back to our room, we were so tired that we just ordered Room Service again. Jesse got gazpacho and had to take a picture of it to show Corban since it was "in a pan" and that's from one of his Veggie Tales books. After dinner, even though I was in my PJ's, Jesse talked me into walking around the resort. Mostly we wanted to walk under the waterfall at the resort (man made) because we'd seen it from afar and hadn't gotten over to it yet.

Jesse under the resort waterfall.

And me under the resort waterfall, too:)

This is an awesome picture of some steps at the resort. It's the backside of the lobby.

And here's just one of the resort's pools.

Walking from the lobby to our hotel room (since we didn't feel like waiting for the tram most of the time) it was a beautiful stone path, some of it covered in elegant Hawaiian rugs and we felt like we were walking through a Polynesian museum because the whole pathway was artifacts, statues, etc. So I just had to take a picture of this door that was along that path because I thought it was so beautiful.

On Thursday, Grandma took Corban and Malorie to Toddler Gym in Hilton and they played with Janet, Joel, and Brianna. Then in the afternoon, Joanna, Hannah, Lydia, and Isaiah came over to play and eat dinner- tacos! (Corban told me all about the tacos:) Here's Hannah playing on the slide.

And here's Corban counting down the days until we come home- this was a great idea Jesse's Mom had! I think it really helped Corban while we were gone knowing when we'd be back.