Reflections of My Travel

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We slept until daylight this morning (after a 0400 work-related phone call). It was nice to feel like I had slept in a little. It wasn’t the most comfortable sleep. Everytime I moved or rolled, my back/shoulders/neck screamed at me. But I woke up feeling refreshed. We went back into the park to do some hiking. We stopped at a lookout for the caldera, which was neat. There were steam vents all over it. And we were able to get a good, close view of the Halemaumau crater, which also had steam vents and sulfer banks. It was a little smelly but I didn’t say anything. You don’t want to offend something with such an explosive temper. With some photo stops along the way to better view the lava fields, we made our way down to the Puu Loa Petroglyph trail. It was a 2 mile round trip trail over lava fields to an area where early Hawaiians drew petroglyphs into the lava. They were actually very good. Very well-defined. While taking pics of the drawings, it decided to pour on us (I’m so pleased that we carry our raingear with us on hikes). We finished looking at the rest of the petroglyphs and made our way back to the car over the now slippery lava field. We then did the short walk through the Thurston Lava tube. I was pleased with how nicely the pics show the inside of the lava tube. The last walk we did before leaving the park was the smelliest. We walked about 1 mile round trip to get a nice, close look (read: whiff) of some sulfur banks. They had some really pretty sulfur crystals which was neat but the smell was really foul. We left the park after that and made our way around to Hilo where we had reservations at a little B&B. It’s a pretty comfy setup with a kitchenette so we stopped at the grocery store to get a few commestibles. I’m displeased that we have to work again starting tomorrow. It’s been such a nice few days. Not that I’m complaining, mind you. A workday in Hawaii is still better than a workday in Georgia.

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After work this morning, we made a quick snack out of some microwave frozen dinners and headed to some waterfalls. We first went to Rainbow Falls located right in Hilo. It was a very pretty waterfall. We didn’t see the rainbow looking at the falls but when we walked up above them, we could see a rainbow spanning from the foot of them over the pool at the bottom. It was a beautiful area. And I was apparently there just in time for lunch judging by all of the itchy welts all over my legs and arms. Our next trek was to Akaka Falls. This was the first time the GPS has led us astray. And really, I hesitate to blame the GPS since I believe that, at one time in the not-so-distant past, that road did go all the way through. Anyhow, the GPS led us out into some little podunk pigtrail in the middle of some abandonned sugarcane fields. I’m still impressed that it knew that was a road because I never would have guessed it. After getting about 2 miles into this nowhere, we were blocked by a gate that someone had thrown up across the road. Clearly, they did not bother to update the satelites when they did this and it caused our poor GPS to suffer some humiliation. We snaked our way back out of the fields and found an alternate route. Akaka Falls turned out to be a twofer. It led us on a little loop through some gorgeous rainforest that started out with Kahuna Falls which was pretty but far away and ended with Akaka Falls which was pretty but disappointing. It is supposed to be a 420′ fall but I wouldn’t know it since the vantage point did not allow us to see the bottom of it. They claim that they are the most photogenic falls on the island but I just didn’t see how. The trail through the rainforest was very nice but the falls were only so-so. Rainbow Falls was so much nicer, even if it was quite a bit shorter. While driving back through some more rainforest along the coast, we drove over a bridge and noticed that there was a small waterfall pouring out of what we believe to be a lava tube. We pulled over to take pictures of it and when we walked back up to the bridge, we looked down in time to see an old nekkid man walking down to the water and jumping into the pool to swim around. I was a little surprised to see a nekkid person on the side of the road like that. I did my best to pretend like I didn’t know he was down there while I took my pics of the lava tube/waterfall. Don’t worry, I’m pretty sure the pics are all G-rated. Randal and I had a good laugh walking back to the car. We stopped for some dinner before coming back to our room. I’ve been working on getting pics ready to post. Hopefully I’ll get some of them up tomorrow.

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Today was mostly a rest day. Since we are apparently on this side of the island during monsoon season and it’s just been endless rain, and we stayed up until after 2100 last night trying to get pics together, it was a good day for being lazy and napping after work. Later in the afternoon, after the sun decided to come out for a few minutes, we went to a couple of local beaches to walk around a bit (waves are just too choppy to snorkel on this side right now) and then grabbed some dinner and came back. Time for bed.