On with the tour

Waking up this morning I looked out the hotel window and saw a beautiful rainbow over the beach and out toward the island. I have sent the camera with Karen who is hiking the famous Diamond Head crator this morning, so no picture. The beach is already full of surfers and its 7 am.
We're headed to the timeshare today on the west side of the island. Should be less people and cars there. On the way over I think we are detouring to the Northshore to have lunch at Giovanni's Shrimp Truck. Wait till you see the pictures of this place. I'm not even gonna link it cuz I want to show you myself later.


So two days ago we went to the Big Island. We did so much it's taking me 3 days to type it all in between beach time. The highlight of the trip was making our way to Kilauea Caldera. This Caldera is still active as we speak, at an altitude is about 4,000 ft above sea level. We pulled into the park and had lunch at Volcano House, and it was my favorite kind of lunch, A buffet!!!!

In this picture you can see some steam coming out of the ground in many places. The ground is so porous the water drains down into the crater, get heated up by the magma below and sent out again.

This next pictue is of a steam vent near the 8 mile road that goes around the top of the crater. A few people were burned that walked to close to the vent, dummies steam is hot. Our tour guide said that he brings friends up to the crater and cooks fish in the vent. How? He places the fish in a fishing net and then lowers it into the vent. You can see the vent in the ground surrounded by a fence and just about see the steam in the picture.

These vents were all over the place and there were signs warning you not to explore off of the path. The vents can shoot out steam at any time.






As we traveled around the crater you could not believe that this thing was once full of lava. In the back ground you can see Mt. Mauna Loa at 13,679 ft. In the winter the summit is covered with snow. To the right, out of fram is Mt. Muana Kea at 13, 796 ft and is active. While we were at Kalapana a gentleman said that you could see the glow of surface lava on the mountain.





Another angle of the crater, the left side on this shot is a lush rainforest. On the right it is a desert. In the next photo you will see where a cone had formed and collapsed on itself.






This is the collapsed crater taken from the Jagger Museam right on the crater. There is also another observation location near the right side of the picture. There's a crack, not butt crack, that runs to the Pacific Ocean but it can't be seen from this picture.

There is also a very strong sulfur aroma when you ride around the crater depending on the wind direction. I thought someone farted!! You might be able to see some of the steam and other gasses rising out of the crater as well.



Our last two stops were of a Orchid Nursery and of Thurson Lava Tube. Thurston Lava tube is a real lava tube that was created when the volcano erupted. You can check out the link if you like to see some more pictures.


Here is one of me in the tube looking for Batman.





That is about it for our trip to the Big Island. We flew out again on Go Airlines right past Mauna Kea and could see the observatory dome shining in the sunset.



Whew..I need to go to the beack.

Later!!!