Good morning from Hilo! It’s currently 7:00 am here and I’m writing this from the living room of our airbnb. We had a busy day yesterday – we left the house at 8 am and didn’t come back until almost 5 pm!
We started out with the Kilauea Iki hike. It was about 3.5 miles in total, and we both saw some amazing views of the crater and walked right through it! We stopped several times throughout the hike to learn about the history of the caldera and its collapse, as well as take some awesome photos.
After that, we walked through the Thurston lava tube. It was chilly, dark, and damp inside, but it was so neat! That was one of my favorite parts of the day. Kaden took this photo of me as we entered it – you can really see how excited I was:
Then, we were all so hungry and it was almost noon, so we walked back to the vans and got our lunch. We couldn’t eat some of the bread because it was already moldy (thanks Walmart), but it was still super tasty – I had some turkey, cheese, an apple, a bit of candy, and a lot of potato chips. When we were done eating, we walked around the Volcano House art gallery and the rest of the gift shops. I bought some cool volcano socks and a bunch of postcards to give to my friends when we get home!
After that, Aiden taught us more about the caldera before we headed down the road to see and learn about the sulphur banks and steam vents. Those were also really neat – I enjoyed learning about the chemical processes that the rocks go through! We then headed back towards Hilo and our airbnb, but stopped at Rainbow Falls and a massive bunyan tree, which was SO cool. It’s thousands of years old and super impressive. Here’s a photo:
We then came back to our airbnb, and a bunch of us went across the street to the beach to snorkel and kayak around. I learned how to snorkel and swam around with a bunch of fish for a while – SO cool! – and also kayaked around for a little bit with Van. The water is so clear here, it’s amazing. Then we had dinner (pasta with meatballs and garlic bread) and started Teen Beach Movie, but we got so tired that we went to bed before we could finish it. All in all, it was an awesome day, and I’m excited for what today will bring!