Now we can picture this perfect Hawaiian spot

Kona Family Reunion gift-giving continued: The kids gave us a nice frame and shots of the four of us at the breath-taking Hilo lookout. It was the closest she could find to the four of us together, my terrific daughter joked. Yeah, we gotta work on that next trip. But this will do very well,…

Let it flow, let it glow

Watching a live volcano at dusk has become a spectator sport at Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. We found a bit of a traffic jam at the top of the mountain, and a uniformed ranger with a lighted wand guided us into an unmarked spot at a way-corner of the big parking lot. The Jagger Observation…

Rocky mountain way

The Hawaii Volcanoes National Park is an interesting place in our world. See something you want to see with a sign attached to it and you pull right onto the shoulder. No parking lot necessary. And so George Three listened to Scott’s veteran advice, and the five of us wandered on a lava rock bed.…

Now that’s a hole in the ground

When you get to the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park in Hilo, you can drive around and split your attention on a wide variety of craters, lava rocks and, these days, the bubbling, live volcano that’s the center of attention. A stop at the Visitors Center and Scott’s advice helped us plan our agenda. This crater…

A lush life on the edge of the sea

The Tropical Botanical Garden bursts with green life. Once you pass through those gates, you down a long flight of wooden stairs, both sides flanked with exotic plants. The backstory told us that the original caretakers found this breathtaking piece of land basically trashed as a dump. They nurtured it, loved it, and brought it…

We fall hard for the big water sight in Hilo

A few twists and turns from the Waipio Lookout, and we’d made our way closer to Hilo and at the tourist point Akaka Falls. We paid our five bucks for the car full. Fair price for a state park, I figured as I followed the attendant’s instructions at the big meter and was handed the…

That’s one beautiful view from the Hawaiian mountain

Kona sits by the sunny sea. Hilo stands next to the rumbling volcano. That simplifies the geography of the Big Island, sure, but that’s the way it looked to our Dodge Journey stocked with tourists for a day of wandering from the former to the latter smack dab in the middle of our dream family…