Big Island of Hawaii

Well we are back from our trip to the Big Island of Hawaii. Here are some shots I took.

Our interisland flight from Maui to the Big Island we flew through some rough weather and here is a shot of some towering Cumulonimbus clouds.

Punalu'u Black Sand Beach, hanging out with lots of turtles. We saw probably twenty or so turtles here.

Some nice palm trees at the Black sand beach.

A buddhist temple we found, the grounds were beautiful.

Volcanos National Park. Here I am toasting my butt on a steam vent. It was really hot here.

Kilauea Crater steaming. The closer to the crater you got, the worse the sulfuric fumes were. They were particulary bad at the time we were visiting, the USGS website states the fumes were three times as stong as normal. If you were out in it for too long it felt like your lungs and throat were bleeding, but it looked really cool :)

A Nene - State bird of Hawaii.

Some ropey lava.

Petroglyphs in Volcano's National Park.

Turtles swimming in the water.

The saddle road heading towards Mauna Kea. It is very narrow and bumpy but super fun to drive.

Cute shadow of Richard and I.

Acclimatizing on Mauna Kea at about 9,250 ft before we head up to the top.

Snowball fight on Mauna Kea.

One of the observatories at the summit of Mauna Kea.

The summit of Mauna Kea, 13,786 feet. The air is definately thinner up there!

Near sunset the observatories began to open.

A nice shot of the moon and an observatory near sunset.

Sunset shot at the summit.

A beautiful Hibiscus flower.

A shot of Richard and I together (gotta love self timers) at Puuhonua O Honaunau (City of Refuge).

A yummy fruity drink.

A shot of my shadow at Hapuna Beach.

A group shot at the bar that invented Mai Tai's.

Pololu Valley Lookout

Here we are at the bottom of Pololu Valley on the Black Sand Beach. I am watching Richard posing for the photo and laughing to myself as I see a wave coming that is going to soak his bum. hehe

Hahahahahaha, he came in from the water and was soaked.

Looking up the valley.

Oops did we take the rental car offroad????

Richard on a skinning stone. Where ancient Hawaiians would skin people alive for sacrifices.

Yep it seems as though we got our rental cars a little dirty.

A nice rainbow on the horizon.

La'aloa Bay Beach Park, one of the nicest beaches we found in the Kona area. Richard was out swimming and a turtle was swimming around his feet.

A nice palm tree.

Richard enjoying a drink in a Pineapple that we made at our condo.

Sunset on the sad plane ride home.