Continued from Kauai Day 3.

Another perfect morning here in Hawaii. It’s however a travel day, so we can’t sit around and chill all day. Flying to the big island this morning with a layover over back in Honolulu.

The cafe learned of our chocolate croissant habits and had prepared enough chocolate croissants today.

Time to check out and head to airport.

I like this macaw the best.

Resort is super nice. The rooms could use some updating. The service was just average at best. Don’t feel like it was worth the very high price for the room. Prior to arriving in Kauai, many others told us that Kauai was their favorite island. We came here thinking that we would enjoy it the most as well. As it turns out, perhaps our expectations were set too high and Kauai was just ok in our experience. It was fine, but it wasn’t outstanding like we were hoping for.

Quite the pretty drive to the airport in Lihue though.

So many Pacifica rental cars here on the islands.

Back to the small 10 gate airport.

Cocktails you said? Lines were super short, got through security in no time.

Some food at the airport. So much Japanese and Asian food influence here in Hawaii.

Open air airport for the most part. Cool…except there’s bird poopoo on the seats.

Agriculture inspection. I mean…why can’t they just do this already at the regular TSA check?

I think every flight we’ve been on this trip has been at or almost at capacity. Holiday travels I guess.

And away we go.

There’s one semi loose screw on the wing. Someone didn’t torque correctly…

And in no time at all, we’ve landed in Honolulu.

While here, gonna visit the garden located inside the airport.

Pretty neat place to relax during a layover.

My girls called this Jeremy’s butt. I have no idea how they came up with the idea of this mythical person name Jeremy, but I believe it has something to do with Minecraft.

I got called back to look at the fish.

Interesting that they sell flower bulbs at the airport. Do I need to declare this when going through other airports?

A quick drink before our next flight. 6 days with the kids is starting to wear on us a little.

It’s Christmas Eve today. The flight attendant turned the cabin lights red with the exit doors green. I rather enjoyed them going the extra step to get in the holiday spirit.

Baba, stop it!!!

Nooo baba….nooooo.

BABA!!!! STOPP!!!!!! I forgot what I was teasing him about, but he probably deserved it.

Leaving Honolulu.

And in no time at all, the big island is in view. You can see the Mauna Kea Observatory telescopes on the top of Mauna Kea. Pretty cool to see.

Is that what I think it is? It looks like the plume from the recent Kilauea eruption. And by recent, I meant it started erupting yesterday after inactivity for the past 3 months or so!!!! When I checked the activity report this morning, it had started erupting again after stopping yesterday afternoon. Our original plan was to come to big island, check into our airbnb, then go visit Volcano National Park the day after on Christmas Day. With the eruption happening right now, and could be stopped at any given moment, the plan now is to get into the rental car from the airport and drive straight to Volcano National Park and see if we can see some lava!! I’m nervous and excited at the same time. Nervous that it’ll stop eruption and I’ll miss a chance to see red hot lava, but also excited that we were lucky that it randomly started erupting again while we are here. Fingers crossed!!!

The coasts here seems more cliff like and rocky.

Yup, for sure the smoke from the eruption.

Just landed in Hilo on the East side of the island, and we are heading straight for that. I’m really excited at the prospect of seeing lava. It’s been on my bucket list.

Everyone else waits for luggage while I go get the rental car.

Small airport, just walked from the baggage claim a short walk to the rental car lot.

3 for 3. Our third white Pacifica rental for the trip. Unfortunately, this one is our worst one yet. It’s got 46,000miles on the odometer, which is quite high for a rental car. It also smells mildewy, not a fan of this one.

Nerdy.

Cool.

Since we are switching up our schedule today, we stopped by a gas station to stock up on some to go food to keep us going. Spam musubi.

Going in the right direction. This van also had super dirty windows on the inside and outside that we had trouble wiping clean.

Look at it!! It’s like we are driving towards a disaster zone. I’m very excited.

Almost there!!!! I hope the line isn’t super long. I did some research and it seems like parking could be an issue during an eruption since so many more people come over to see it. Hopefully this being Christmas Eve will cut down some on the people who will come see it today.

Line to get in, not too bad. The park is open 24 hours a day 365 days a year.

My excitement keeps building. I’m not sure anyone else is as excited as I am about seeing an active eruption.

After some driving, made it to Kilauea Overlook and found parking. People were parking on the side of the road outside of the parking lots. Honestly, the parking spots are pretty lacking in this park.

Short walk to the overlook. We asked people who were walking to leave the area whether they could see the lava from here. They said no, just smoke and you could see the lava field. Then someone else told us that on the other side of the park at Keanakakoi Overlook by Devastation Trail, you can get an amazing view of the lava fountain.

We figured since we are here already, might as well take the short walk to the overlook and take…a look.

Hard to see in the day light, but that’s a whole field of hot lava. Occasionally the surface would crack and you’d see smoke and red lava appear.

Alright, we are here at the park and we are going to make it count. Leaving this area and heading to the other side of the crater.

It’s much more lush on this side.

Soon, we’ve arrived at the trail head of Devastation Trail. Lucked out and found parking in a very crowded parking lot.

Walking down Crater Rim Drive. I guess at one point they allowed cars to drive here, but I guess more recent lava flows had destroyed this road farther down so they’ve closed to road and you can only bike and walk on it now.

Very much a post apocalypse feel to it. It’s also getting a little cold and windy here. We gained quite a bit of elevation from the airport in Hilo to here.

Kids don’t seem to mind.

I’m so excited…please let me see eruption lava!!

Smoke from the eruption covering up the sun.

Finally after 15minutes or so of walking, we’ve arrived at the overlook that everyone seems to be gathered at.

Oh shit, that’s fucking lava!!

Look!!! It’s lava just erupting from the Earth.

Wow!!!! It’s unreal. I feel like I’m in an episode of National Geographics. It’s crazy because it doesn’t dissipate into mist like water, it’s just this fountain of gooey thick lava probably 50 to 100ft. So wild to see in person. It’s so amazing I’m going to over post pictures.

The kids were impressed for a little bit, then they got bored and started banging rocks pretending like the are mining….

I could probably sit here and watch it for hours and hours. It’s just surreal. After going to Costa Rica and seeing only thick clouds at Poas volcano, it’s awesome to see an actual eruption. We are so lucky in our timing to be able to see this. I didn’t expect this at all. Only expected to see some old lava fields, some steam vents, but never did I think I would see an active giant fountain of lava just pouring out.

Sad to leave, but we had to get going. It’s getting darker and colder. We still need to drive quite a bit of ways to our airbnb.

I keep looking back and taking pictures as we were ready to go.

What a wonderful day. This was definitely the highlight of the trip for me. We didn’t see Napali Coast, but we saw erupting lava. I think we are doing pretty alright.

Crazy volcano plume.

Alright, that was fucking awesome.

I’m so happy.

From volcano, we head straight to a grocery store. We are staying in an airbnb, it’s Christmas tomorrow, so we’ll need to stock up on some foood.

We bought so much stuff we just had to find space for grocery bags wherever there was room in the van.

Driving in the dark, we’ve arrived at the long winding driveway for our airbnb. Kind of sucks arriving in the dark unable to see much.

I hope the door code works without a hitch…and after a couple of tries, it opened up.

It’s late, we are tired, we are a little hungry, time to eat some ready made meals that we got at the grocery store and then bed time for the kids soon.

This is a very cool house.

My dinner.

I looked at the USGS webcam for Kilauea tonight and it seems like it’s still erupting. The lava field glow at night must be super awesome to look at. Too bad we weren’t prepared to stay late into the darkness.

Before going to bed, another kid with allergic reaction. This time it’s PL with an itchy back. What’s going on with my kids and randomly allergic to things in Hawaii? Zyrtec and Benadryl took care of this as well.

Been a day to remember. Eruption volcano…wow. Just wow.

To be continued at Hawaii Day 2.