Ring of Fire

Sooo....our trip to the Big Island wasn't really all about the Ring of Fire...but, it was the best vacation that we've ever had! Our first 5 nights we stayed in Volcanoes National Park at the military "resort" KMC. It was really perfect for us, comfy & accessible to all of the sights that we wanted to see. We drove all over that island, looking in huge holes in the Earth that once bubbled with red hot lava (now they are just big black fields of dry lava), finding spring-fed swimming pools naturally heated from the volcano, and searching for white, black and green sand beaches. It was fun! Clay was a trooper, we didn't really allow him to have his usual napping schedule because we were dragging him all over the place, but he slept when he could and then played when he was awake. And thankfully he was happy most of the time. We drove to the other side of the island, through the most beautiful town Kamuela (it's hard to believe that the sleepy little town up in the mountain is actually located in Hawaii), and spent the last two nights in Kohala. It was nice to be in a resort with swimming pools, awesome hotel room, and the luxury of room service. Unfortunately, although Clif & I were more comfortable in the hotel than at KMC, Clay was not more comfortable and I think the two weeks of traveling caught up with him...he was CRAZY...he would not nap & cried when he put him down at night. So, we were glad to finally get him back home & back on schedule today!
The pictures I've included are of us at a beautiful waterfall, some scenery, the part of the island that is the southern most point in the US, the location of a tsunami tragedy (21 school children were killed in 1946), among many other memorable spots from our trip. Oh yeah - we did hike out at night to see the lava, our photo is unimpressive, although the experience was really neat. We weren't as close as I would have liked, but I guess I'm not in charge of where a volcano decides to have a lava flow...oh well.