More on Hawaii

I did not mean to drag out my vacation photos so long.  I meant to share them within one weeks time.  But I have been gardening and working full days so when I sit down and think about writing a post my mind just says no, and I  just want to sit here and browse all my friends blogs.

I am picking back up on the second half of day four.  Day four was one of our longest day site seeing so it will not take as many posts to share the rest of our days.  After taking a lunch break we were off and running again.  Next stop was Rainbow Falls which is in Wailuku River State Park.  Rainbow Falls is 80 feet tall and falls over a natural lava cave.

This next photo was the steps up to the overlook of the falls.

Because I bought a small booklet of Flowers of Hawai'i I am able to give you names of most of the plants we saw and took pictures of.  This one is a Rainbow Heliconia. 

This is a Banana tree flower with some baby bananas.

Our next stop was the Mauna Loa Macadamia Nut farm.  We were able to watch the processing of the nuts and taste the different flavors that they had for sale in the store.  Of course we all bought some to send home.

Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park was the next stop.  I so wish I would have taken a picture of the young park ranger that was giving a talk when we got there.  He was so fun.  He gave us so much history and was so animated the whole time he was talking.  His talk was the favorite part of the day for me.  The next picture is a steam vent.  The temperature dropped a lot as the elevation climbed and when we stopped at the stem vents my friends went over for the warmth so I stopped to take a picture of them.  

My turn!  As soon as I walked up my glasses steamed up and I could not see a thing.

The rest of the days pictures are some my best friend took.  My battery had died on my camera so she is sharing her pictures with me and I with you!  This picture is Kilauea Caldera taken from a lookout just outside the Jaggar Museum. It is the most active of the five volcanoes but unless you are there after dark you cannot see much activity.

Our next stop was the Thurston Lava Tube (Nahuku).  It is a 500 year old lava tub which we walked from one end and out the other. We walked through a beautiful rain forest around it back to our car.  This it the entrance in the next picture.

This picture was taken inside the tube.

Now we were all getting tired and hungry but decide to stop at PunaLu Beach to see a black sands beach up close.  Happily there was a sea turtle resting on the beach when we stopped.

Shortly after the beach stop we found Shaka Restaurant "The Most Southern Bar in the USA" we had a great dinner and had one more stop to make before driving the 2 plus hours back to the house we were staying in.

You will wonder what is this picture?  Almost totally black?  Well it got dark on us and when we stopped at Mark Twain's Monkey Pod Tree our driver parked as close as possible and shined her lights on it.

 Yes that is it!  We all had a great laugh. Want to read about the tree?  You can here.  And that was the end of day four. Whew!  It was a long day and because it was a long day, day five was a much needed beach day at Hapuna Beach State Park.

This is what the roadside looked like in the area we were staying in.  Black lava rock with messages left along the road written out using  white coral.

The end of day five!

How are you enjoying the pictures along with a little history lesson?  I will give you some more next week.

I hope you are having a great week! Blessings from our home in the woods.

Brenda