Continued from Hawaii Day 3 Part 2.

We are flying home today. It’s been a pretty good trip with the kids and the grandparents. Wouldn’t call it a vacation, but no vacation with kids really counts as a vacation. They are more like adventures and living vicariously through the kids.

I looked at the Kilauea eruption cam this morning and it seemed like the eruption has stopped for now. We were so lucky to be able to see the eruption in person. Definitely one of the highlights for me personally. As I’m writing this about a little over a week after coming back, the eruption has pretty much stopped completely for the time being. Again, so lucky that we just happened to be there during this short eruption period.

The waves this morning were crashing louder than ever. They were so loud you can hear the boom and feel the windows rumble while inside the house.

Kind of which our flight left much later in the afternoon so I could spend all morning just sitting here watching the waves. Quite powerful and peaceful.

There were some monsters here this morning.

Alright, last massive wave. Gotta go finish packing and get going.

House is all cleaned up and we are all ready to go. Beautiful house, beautiful grounds, grill could use a good cleaning though. Also would appreciate a better set of pots and pans. Overall, had a great experience here. Forgot to list the price, but it was $2141 a night to stay here…not cheap. There was actually a whole other studio bedroom available to us that we didn’t use in this trip.

Cool property to visit, but maintenance must be a nightmare with all the salt and moisture. Plus, everything is expensive in Hawaii.

We flew into Hilo airport but leaving the big island we are crossing the island to fly out of Kona. Original reason for this was due to better flights out of Kona, and as a result of that we also get to go on a scenic route through the mountains.

Mauna Kea Observatories can be seen almost everywhere on this side of the island. Apparently there’s also observatories on Mauna Koa, the other giant volcanic mountain in the center of Hawaii.

Turned onto Saddle Road heading right across the center of the island. I guess they call it saddle road because it’s between Mauna Kea and also Mauna Koa.

Excited about this scenic drive, and excited about heading home.

A fire raged through this area a while ago. Wild fire or fire caused by lava?

As we make this long climb up the road, the scenery changes pretty quickly. We went from full on tropical rainforest climate into this much dyer climate.

Where we are headed.

The climate zone keeps changing. The big island has 10 out of 14 total climate zones, all on a small island in the middle of the Pacific. Pretty amazing to see how fast the changes are happening right as you drive around.

Getting closer, and now seeing old lava flow.

Turned from Saddle Rd and heading up to the Mauna Kea visitor center.

And immediately we have a different flora in this one little section. Maybe a stream or something that feed these trees water?

All those domes are old volcanic craters.

They are pretty cute. I just want to go climb up one of them.

Climbing, climbing, climbing.

Always excited to go up to a high point for a vantage view.

Cattle guard, did not expect to see this here.

Much more beautiful than this picture would suggest.