Sunday, June 26
 

In the morning, before leaving Oahu, we had a breakfast buffet at the Shorebird restaurant while watching the hula lesson on the beach.

Around noon we flew into the Big Island. We drove around the east side of the island.
 

One of our stops was at Akaka Falls. We hiked through the rainforest, seeing wonderful tropical flowers and a couple of waterfalls. Here is Akaka Falls.

  By mid afternoon we had reached the historic Volcano House, our hotel in Volcanoes National Park. The best feature of this hotel was our amazing view overlooking the Kiluea Caldera. We could see the huge crater (which stretches 3 miles across and 400 feet deep) and the steaming cliffs from our bedroom window.
 




This was the most amazing moment of the trip. It had been gray, cloudy, and drizzly all day. As we headed through the park, the sun broke through, and this perfect rainbow stretched across the bottom of the crater.

  We continued following the Crater Rim Drive, through the 11 miles of road that often pass through the remains of lava from previous volcanic activity.
  In the evening, we enjoyed a wonderful meal in the Volcano House dining room. The wall of windows in the restaurant overlooked the sunset over the crater and the steaming cliffs.
 
Next