 |
| Checking out of the Castle Hilo Hawaiian Hotel Album for these photos All photo albums |
 |
| Panaewa Rainforest Zoo |
 |
| We got to the zoo around opening time so there was hardly anyone else there. The grounds are pretty and overall it's a great little zoo. |
 |
| This guy was squawking up a storm |
 |
| Namaste the tiger, the main zoo attraction, died earlier in the year |
 |
| Imiloa Astronomy Center |
 |
| Derek was disappointed we missed the Led Zepplin show |
 |
| We really enjoyed the Imiloa. Everything was well done. |
 |
| We went to an interesting stargazing show in the planetarium where the guide described how ancient Hawaiian's navigated using the skies. We felt bad for the nice guide. She was trying hard to be engaging, asking a lot of rhetorical questions, and getting very little response. It felt like I was back in school. I hate rhetorical questions in attempt to engage me. If you already know the answer then don't ask me. Adam surprised us a couple days later when he pointed out the Southern Cross constellation and some other things in the sky. That led to all of us discussing the last thing we remembered about the presentation before falling asleep. |
 |
| We decided to eat at the museum restaurant for lunch |
 |
| Pretty good Chinese food buffet |
 |
| Kilauea Lodge |
 |
| There's something so inviting about the lodge atmosphere. We had planned to eat here for Helen's birthday dinner the previous night, but decided to skip the drive and eat in Hilo. |
 |
| Volcanoes National Park |
 |
| It was a nice visitor center with some exhibits, plenty of rangers, and a good number of tourists |
 |
| Ranger talk Everybody wants to know where the lava is. The reality is that the lava flows haven't been noteworthy for quite a while. Twenty years ago or so you could drive your car up to the flowing lava. Currently, lava is only occasionally flowing into an extremely remote National Forest area that you can only really see from the air and even then it's not very impressive. I think the parks are being disingenuous when they hype something they know is not really true. There are plenty of other reasons to see the park without marketing fantastic lava flows. We felt the same way about Denali National Park and how they over-marketed seeing so many animals, especially bears. There are plenty of reasons to visit Denali - seeing bears shouldn't be the primary marketing message. |
 |
| We were really impressed with the Hawaii Volcano House. We should have stayed there. |
 |
| Outfits for the first day of school |
 |
| Volcano Art Center |
 |
| Volcanic steam vents |
 |
| Jaggar Museum |
 |
| Kilauea Caldera smoking in the distance The lack of visibility kind of hampered our judgement of the park. I'm always reluctant to say things are "the best" or "the worst". There are just too many nuances. I want to see the park in all types of weather. There are positives and negatives in most things. |
 |
| Crater Rim Drive |
 |
| Thurston Lava Tube |
 |
| This little guy seemed to have something wrong with his foot. He wasn't shy and was limping all around looking pitiful. I think he had perfected some sort of panhandling routine. |
 |
| This lava tube was purified for the masses. Not that impressive, especially after seeing an "in the wild" lava tube our first day on the island. |
 |
| Devastation Trail |
 |
| We went back to the Jaggar Museum and gathered with a pretty good sized crowd to see the caldera light up at sunset. It's pretty far away from the viewing area for all the hype. I joked that it was probably just a red flood light they switched on at sunset. We left the park way later than we had intended and had a multi-hour trip to our condo in Kona on the other side of the island. |
No comments:
Post a Comment