Hawaii March 2011 - click pictures to enlarge

Saturday

We flew in late Friday night and stayed at the Royal Kona Resort, it was an ok place to stay for one night.

The hotel is on the water, downtown.

After checking in to our place for the week, we went boogie boarding.

We also checked out a local car show

Sunday

We went snorkeling at Kahaluu Beach park. This is a must visit on the Big island!

Racoon Butterflyfish

Moorish Idol

Rollin fish

Note: GoPro cameras are great for video, but stunk for trying to take pictures under water unless the fish are very close.

Monday

Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park

Torturing Heather and Rollin at a steam vent.

Kílauea Caldera

Mauna Kea to the northwest.

Pano

Rollin on the Devastation Trail, giving his best devastation pose.

This Kalij pheasant was not afraid of people, he was waiting to be fed....sorry.

Chain of Craters Road is just that, a bunch of craters.  Unfortunately, we missed the eruption by one week and the lower part of the road was closed.

Thurston Lave Tube

Kilauea Iki Crater trail was a 4 mile hike from the fern rain forest down (400ft) to the crater.

This is the start of a new fern branch.

This is the eruption that occurred in 1959, it took out part of the crater road.

The sunset on Monday provided the best sunset of the week.

Tuesday

Back to the beach.  We headed north on the west coast of the big island and started at Hapuna Beach

Hapuna Beach is a mile wide of sand and great waves.

As you can tell, Rollin and I were all smiles at this beach.

We headed up to Spencer Beach park for lunch and a little bit of snorkeling (no pictures)

Then we headed back down to Mauna Kea Resort beach.  Mauna Kea is private, but they have 40 parking spots for beach folks and we got one.

Rollin figured out the boogie board, he was catching every decent wave.  If we lived in Hawaii, Rollin would be at the beach ALL the time.

This pano of Mauna Kea Resort explains the the $700/night room rate.  This is the place to stay if you want to go to one resort for the week to have the beach and golf.

Wednesday

A tour of climate zones. The plan for the day was to drive up Mauna Kea (the mountain)  and then to Hilo (east coast) and back.  We started in the coastal climate and drove through rain forest as we climbed out of Kailua Kona. Heather's folks got us an awesome book, Hawaii The Big Island Revealed and I read it on the plane.  The author mentioned that the big island has 10 of the 14 climates in the world.  I really didn't pay too much attention when I read that, but the drive to Hilo via Saddle road is the perfect route experience the climate zones of Hawaii.

Above the rain forest, there are green grassy hills.

High desert above the grassy hills, Mauna Kea in the background.

At about 5,000' the high desert reminds us of Colorado. This photo is looking north at Mauna Kea.

Looking south at Mauna Loa (13,677').

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The clouded Kohala Mountains, north part of the big island and with Kaunu o Kaleihoohie (5,480'), the extinct volcano. Maui in the background.

The W.M. Keck observatory (twin dome) on Mauna Kea.

The hike up to Mauna Kea, yes we cheated , we drove to 13,700' but we completed the summit in sandals, so that should count for something.

Another pano of Mauna Loa.

My favorite sign of the trip.

Not enough snow to ski...bummer...I considered glissading it but was told to stop those thoughts. :(

Ran out of time, I will post the Hilo pictures next weekend.

Thursday

Snorkeling at Pu'uhonau o Honaunau - Place of Refuge