Big Island Day 3 - Volcanoes

Today was another major driving day.  We couldn't leave as early as we wanted to get to Volcanoes National Park, but we had a full day nonetheless. We had to go to the usual timeshare thing, then we had to get gas.  Some guy was trying to bum cash off people filling their cars and gave Adam a sob story about getting robbed etc. so Adam bought him a gallon or so of gas (at $5.06 per gallon!!).

We picked up the girls and headed southwards again. We had a 2 hour drive to Punalu'u Beach. It is famous for the green sea turtles coming out of the water to sun on the rocks between 11:30am and 3pm. We were a little early,  but we had a time-line to keep. There were a couple of turtles out. They had the area where the turtles (Honu) come out fenced off to keep people away from them.  It was a pretty beach of black sand. 

There were also some ruins that we explored. They were really cool.

I also enjoyed the grafiti. It looked like such a beautiful place. Very zen. There were several buildings all abandoned. It was the type of place Adam would want to restore.

As we were leaving there was a guy climbing the cocnut tree to get a coconut. That was exciting to see. He was almost up to them when he backed out. 

Back in the car again, we had sandwiches and made it to the national park.  The lady at the resort told us to plan a whole day there,  but we were all tired of hiking and trying to beat the coming rain, so we stopped at the visitor center, skipped the exhibits, and headed over to the crater overlook.

Then we drove to the lava tube and rainforest trail.

(Don't ask me why I'm making that face! All I remember is the girls making fat  jokes!) After that trail, we drove over to another crater overlook. 

The girls were done at that point so we headed for home.  We decided to pull off at one more beach.  We pulled off at Whittington Beach Park. The waves were slamming into the rocks and Adam was talking about building a house right there imon the rocks and listening to the waves crash all day long. I sat on the closest dry spot by the wet rocks thd Brin and Kinley eventually joined me. As soon as they did,  a huge wave sprayed then a little.  We did get a little wet, but trying to figure out which waves were going to get us was fun.