Hilo

There are two airports on Hawaii (Big Island). We flew into Hilo yesterday (eastern side), and we're flying out of Kona on Saturday (western side). This morning, we started our day by driving to the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. The visitor center is currently closed as they are building a larger one, but we were able to get Junior Ranger booklets and badges and a magnet at a temporary welcome station. I'm counting today as our second day of school for 2025-26. We saw steam vents, hiked through a lava tube, and then hiked the Kilauea Iki Trail, which is 3.3 miles long and is a pit crater created through an eruption in 1959. This volcano has erupted many times this year. We would have liked to watch it erupting, but it hasn't erupted for the last four days. It wasn't raining while we hiked those trails, but it started raining a bit later. I had left the umbrella back in our Airbnb. Thankfully it wasn't raining when we parked to see the Holei Sea Arch, but it started raining again so we skipped the Petroglyph hike and the Desolation trail hike. It was raining when we viewed the Kilauea Overlook. I didn't include the larger volcano (Mauna Loa) in our plans. We do plan to visit one more volcano (Haleakala) when we are on Maui next week. Paul and I have been to several volcanos over the years (ex. Mt. Etna and La Soufriere), but the only other ones the kids have been to before are Mt. St. Helens and Mt. Rainier. Mount Rainier is one of my most favorite national parks in terms of natural beauty, but I have to say that the hikes we did on Kilauea were phenomenal - very unique. Today we spotted one mongoose and three wild pigs. I enjoyed seeing some beautiful flowers. We also saw a mongoose on Oahu. 

Our next stop was in Punalu'u where we visited a black sand beach and had dinner at the Punalu'u Bake Shop. At the beach, there were palm trees, and someone was selling them for $10. Paul and I enjoyed one in the Caribbean back in 2021, and when I told Oliver that he wanted to try one. I'm not sure if it wasn't ripe or what the deal was, but neither the liquid nor the solid part tasted good at all. It's a risk you take when you try something new. Oliver wanted to try a poke bowl. He ordered one at the beach on Oahu yesterday and discovered he doesn't like to eat raw fish. Thankfully he usually likes the new foods that he tries. Once we were back in Hilo, we made a five-minute detour to see Rainbow Falls. We weren't there at the ideal time to see a rainbow in the water, but we did get to see a rainbow last week on our first hike of the day on Oahu. 

In the first several months of the year we saw 48 of the 50 states' license plates. We haven't made any progress since May in finding the last two (Wyoming and New Hampshire). When we toured Cedarville in June, a woman in the admission's office said that they had students from 49 states. She was very surprised when I correctly guessed that Wyoming was the state they don't have any students from. She said usually people say Alaska or Hawaii. I made that guess due to playing the license plate game, ha ha! When we were in Ecuador it surprised me that we only saw license plates from Ecuador. Here in Hawaii the vast majority (I'd guess at least 99%) of the license plates are Hawaii plates, but I have seen some from Texas, California, and Oregon. I'm doubtful that this trip will help us find the last two states. We did a fair amount of driving today, but at least the driving wasn't stressful for Paul like it was on Oahu. Neither of us like driving in city traffic, and although Honolulu is very small compared to Chicago or NYC, it still has far more traffic than we're accustomed to dealing with. 

The swimming pool at our first Airbnb was closed due to renovations. It turns out the pool at our second Airbnb is only open from 9-6, and we weren't around to swim at time yesterday or today. The last seven days the kids will have plenty of opportunities to swim in the ocean, and maybe they will swim in a pool at the Holiday Inn in Kona. We're accustomed to eating a free breakfast at the hotel when we're on vacation, but because 8 of the nights of this trip we're staying at an Airbnb, we are only getting a free breakfast five mornings (at the Holiday Inn). 

Many years ago, I bought five t-shirts that were either Larry or Bob (the tomato). We wore them when we were at Sea World in Florida. For the second time in my life, I bought us each a t-shirt. I wanted one that recognized we have visited all 50 states. I would have picked a slightly different style, but I let Nadia pick one on Etsy. When it was time to start packing, I kept reminding everyone to pack their 50-state t-shirt. Ian told me he had packed his, but it turns out he didn't. I was very disappointed. So the pictures today just have four of us. Sometime in Pennsylvania I'll get a picture of all five of us wearing our traveled to fifty states t-shirts. We did bring other outfits that I coordinated for a family photo at the beach (a little dressier). I'm hoping to do that either in Kona or on Maui. The last time we had family beach photos was in 2019. Paul accidentally forgot to pack socks, and the only shoes he brought were sneakers. Since Ian brought sneakers, crocs, and sandals, he loaned Paul some of the socks he packed. We're hoping to buy Paul some more socks while we're on this island.

All in all, things have been going smoothly. We're all healthy. Nothing has been cancelled. The only time rain interfered with our plans so far was today. Thankfully, Nadia figured out that Cafe 100 wouldn't be open tomorrow at the time we planned to go there for breakfast, so we had time to make alternate plans. I wasn't keen on the mattress at our Airbnb in Oahu, but I like the mattress at this one in Hilo just as much as our one at home. We also are enjoying that the boys have one bedroom, we have another bedroom, and Nadia is sleeping on a futon in the living room.