The Big Island

On July 7th, Stephen and I left San Diego for the Big Island in Hawaii. We were fortunate enough to be able to use a family members condo for free!!!! So when we arrived, we picked up our rental car, went to Costco and went to check out our living space for the next 8 days. The condo was absolutely amazing...way nice (and bigger) than our house! We checked it out and then went to explore some of the Island.

We drove around and found out where some of the nice beaches were and then we found a grocery store to stock up on some more food and supplies that we would need for the week. We spent our 8 days exploring the Big Island. We went to several beaches and did some swimming and snorkeling, we kayaked to the Captain Cook Monument in Kona, and we even hiked an active volcano!

We hike 4 miles into a crater that was once full of lava (I believe it erupted in 1959) and we got to see steam vents and get up close to where the lava was spewing out. It was a really cool experience! We also go to see lava moving down the side of a mountain and falling into the ocean. It wasn'tall orange and glowing, they said you had to be there at night to see that and since the volcano was almost 3 hours from our condo we didn't stay until dark :(

The Big Island is amazing! There is so much to do there, the only problem is, the island is really big so you spend a good amount of time in the car getting from place to place. We had a fantastic time and we will be returning to the Big Island, hopefully soon!