About the time she left, I saw this really OLD guy and he asked if we were taking a day trip to the Big Island. He noticed us standing around, but didn't know if we were on the tour or not. Delma and I had both noticed this old guy walking in, but there wasn't anything distinct about him. Oh well, I had to text Delma to come back because he was taking us to the ticket counter to get us checked in. Got the check-inn done, then we went back up to the smoking area one last time before going through security.
Everything was going great. We got to the gate, boarded our plane, and, boy were we surprised. We were in row 26.....which is the LAST row on the plane. It was horrible; no window and couldn't recline our seats. Fortunately, it was only a 45 minute flight.
We got to the Big Island, met up with the tour guide and climbed aboard the bus. We found out we had to wait for 5 more people flying in from Oahu. We went to this really pretty park where we waited an hour for these people to show up.
So we are finally on the road. I couldn't wait to see the volcanoes. Well, I was going to have to for a bit longer. We first stopped at this little beach area so we could see the famous 'black' sands on Hawaii. That was actually pretty cool. It wasn't a very big beach, but it was really beautiful.
We probably stayed at this location for 20 minutes; not long. We then drove a bit further and stopped at Rainbow Falls Lookout. That was really beautiful as well.
Check out the falls.
We may have had 30 minutes are the falls. Then back in the bus for a stop at the Mauna Loa macadamia farm. We took a self-guided tour (which consisted of looking through windows) at the various production stages. Not bad; actually rather interesting. We may have had 40 minutes at the macadamia farm. Again, not long at all.
It is now around 12:30, and we are stopping for lunch at a little resturant in Volcano, Hawaii. Isn't that a fabulous town name? Anyway, we had preordered lunch, so it shouldn't take up much time. On the way into the restaurant, Delma and I noticed a quilt shop --- a QUILT shop!! Oh boy, I knew I would be eating a quick lunch and to the shop I was going. The bus driver gave us an hour, so I was set.
After about 20 minutes, off to the little quilt shop I went. I was happily picking out some patterns and checking our some other merchandise, when a fellow passenger told me the bus driver was wanting to leave. Everyone had finished lunch and he wanted to move on. WHAT!!! Fortunately I had picked up a couple of patterns and was OK with that. Who was I to keep an entire bus from leaving early. Delma had a couple of choice words for the bus driver, but we left anyway.
It's now 1:00pm and we are finally heading to the Volcano National Park. Yea!!
We went to Kilauea Mountain, which has an active volcano crater - Halema'uma'u. Check out the steam in the background.
We left the active crater, then drove past a couple of old lava flows (from 1969 and 1974). It's really amazing to see the aftermath of the major volcano eruption. I hope the pictures do it justice.
Our next stop was at an actual lava tube - which we would be able to walk through. It was fantastic. Delma elected to skip this part, but I had to check it out.
It was the best part of the day. I loved it.
We had one more stop to make.....and a local orchid farm. We had probably 20 minutes there, but, wow, saw some gorgeous flowers. Here's my favorite:
That's it for the day trip. We got back to the Hilo, Hawaii airport at 5:30pm. Remember those people we had to wait for (an hour)? Well, apparently they had an early flight back to Oahu. They had a 6:10pm flight; we had to wait for a 7:45pm flight. We were not happy campers.....and my AAA travel agent will be getting an email from me!
Oh well, all-in-all, it was a terrific day. It was a good flight back to Oahu and we made it back to our room my 9:30. LONG DAY!
I'm calling it a night.
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