Aloha 2012! Day 3

On our third day in Hawaii, we finished up the Volcano/Hilo side of the island and then headed over to Kona. Before driving over to Kona though, we took one last tour through Volcano National Park. Taking advantage of the early start and low crowds, we hiked through a lava tube. This isn't actually a tube of lava, but rather a tube created by lava. But no one wants to call it "big gaping tunnel that the lava made and is sorta tube like."

After the lava tube we walked through the sulfur flats. These were amazing! The trail was paved an elevated, and apparently the ground was so hot it could burn you. Or at least there were unpredictable pockets of heat that you could get burned by. No ROUS sightings though. 

As one last stop in Volcano National Park, we drove back to where Mark took the picture of the active part of the Volcano. This is what it looks like during the day! Amazing! If anyone wants to study light, I highly recommend a trip to Hawaii because every time we turned around, the light changed and challenged us to rethink what we were seeing.

After a yummy lunch, we started our drive towards Kona. We stopped at Black Sand Beach Park, where the sand was indeed black and the sea turtles let us gawk at them.

Dragging ourselves away from the sea turtles, (they really were awe inspiring) we drove a bit out of our way to South Point. South Point, aptly named, is the southern most point in the United States.

And Mark took one of my all time favorite pictures ever. I think this one is going to end up on our wall!

We finally made it to Kona, grabbed some grub, and went to sleep. There were even more adventures awaiting us on the other side of the island!