Big Island - Part 2

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so I'm going to recap our day on the Big Island mostly with pictures today.

First we went to the Jagger Museum on the western rim of the volcano.

View from the Jagger Museum

There was a seismometer in the museum. I walked in from checking out the view outside to find the boys dancing and jumping up and down to get the seismometer to register.



Turns out, it really was moving when they moved. I tried it, too...


After we left the Volcanoes National Park, we started the long drive clockwise around the island. Driving south on Route 11, we drove through the plume from the volcano, and it was like driving through really thick fog.

Driving through the VOG on Route 11 Southbound

Next stop: Black Sand Beach

YB with his feet in the Black Sand

The boys really enjoyed walking around the tidepools and seeing the fish and crabs in the water.

ES and YB checking out the fish and crabs in the tidepools.

Ahh, my Lovely Wife :-)

Family Portrait on the Black Sand Beach

Of course, we had to stop and grab a geocache near the black sand beach.

ES holds up the geocache he found.

Next stop: South Point

We took the long, bumpy road to the very southern most point of the United States of America. Why? Well... to say we'd been there? To admire the view? Oh, and to get a geocache, too.

This is what the bumpy, single-lane, wind-swept road looks like going to South Point (note the way the trees are all leaning).


Here I am at the navaid on the southern most point of the United States.


The boys said it was too windy, so they stayed in the car while I got out and grabbed the geocache.


On our way back up from South Point heading toward Waikoloa, we stopped for lunch in Ocean View. Based on a recommendation in the Hawaii Big Island Revealed book and on TripAdvisor, we stopped at the Desert Rose Cafe.


This place isn't very fancy or expensive, but the food was good and the service was friendly. I had the kahlua pork and LW had the Korean chicken. The boys had a burger and chicken nuggets (big surprise, I know), and the fries here are hand made and really good (on par with In-and-Out).

This is the specials menu (the dry erase board) and the drink menu (the top shelf).

It turns out, the lady who founded the Desert Rose Cafe is a fabulous BAKER. This is the glass display counter inside the restaurant.

I had an extraordinary raspberry coconut strussel for desert.

Next Stop: Waikoloa Marriott

Other than the Desert Rose Cafe, there really wasn't much to see between South Point and Kona. We decided not to stop anymore and just proceed onward to our hotel in Waikoloa. We managed to make it to the hotel in time to enjoy the pool for the last ten minutes of the waterslide being open, and then for an hour more before the towel-stand closed up shop for the evening.

ES got to test the underwater capability of his new camera. Here's one of the shots he took of me and YB underwater.

I got to witness a wanna-be, future Darwin Award Winner DIVE into the pool from THIS VERY SPOT. I think the guy was drunk. He subsequently slipped while trying to get into the hot tub. Then he tried diving again from the hot tub into the shallow end of the pool (right next to another "no diving" sign), but some lady I assume was his wife yelled at him not to do that.

ES relaxing on the balcony after his bath and before going to dinner.

We didn't want to spend any more time in the car today, so we had dinner in the hotel restaurant.

This was the sunset view from the hotel restaurant.

This was my first mai tai on the big island...

And this was LW's first cosmo. :-)

To wrap things up, there are a LOT of BEAUTIFUL flowers here. I won't inundate you with hoards of pictures, but I'll just leave you with this one.

On the agenda for tomorrow: Relax by the pool. Ride the water slide five gajillion times. Maybe check out a kayak or a water bike for a ride with the boys.