Big Island Birthday Love Part 2 of 4

We slept in until 8 a.m. (read I get up at 6 a.m. for work, and Chris 4:45 a.m.) and explored Crater Rim Drive and drove Chain of Craters Road. Our first pit stop were the steam vents were you could actually feel the Volcano’s heat. What took my breath away was the Kilauea Caldera and how big and vast it was and not to mention it blew my mind that this used to filled with lava!!!

Kilauea Iki Crater.

Me in a Lava Tube.

The drive along all of the craters was insane, and I think I pulled over at nauseum to take in the scene. All you could see for miles was lava fields.

As we drove down Chain of Craters Road you could literally SEE the different flows. They were different colors and with different levels of vegetation based on how old they were.

The end of the Crater Rim Road was literally was taken out by a lava flow!

I was a lil bummed because the Holei Sea Arch at the end crumbled recently.

Taking in all the sites left our tummies grumbling and with not many options in the park we drove a few minutes down Highway 11 and found a quaint lil lunch place. I got a yummy caprese sandwich and Chris got a lamb sandwich, that he was reluctant to let me try. His lunch was yummy!

We had passed Akatsuka's Orchids on our way to Volcanos National Park, and since Chris was over looking at lava, we took a break and stopped by. Orchids are my favorite flowers and they were the ONLY flowers at my wedding =) Sadly, after several failed attempts to take care of orchids, I’ll just stick to admiring them from afar, or fake ones (they just require some dusting and I can handle that!).

These smelled liked chocolate!

These look just like the ones from my wedding.

Right as we were about to leave the Orchid place, the sunny skies quickly turned into dark rain clouds. We made it back into the car just in time. With the rain falling heavily on our way back to KMC, we opted to forgo the Thurston Lava Tube and Jagger Museum and instead took some nice naps (this is vacation afterall).

Now well rested and hungry, we headed over to the 10-Pin Grill at KMC and ordered seasoned waffle fries and BBQ chicken pizza. We thought about playing a couple games, but the place was poppin,’ so we took our dinner to go and watched it fireside in our cozy cabin.

I must admit MY BBQ chicken pizza is hands over fist better than the one we ordered and when Chris told me that I smiled pretty big. They used too much cheese and the ratio of sauce was way off.

Since we opted to pay like the $8 difference to get a cabin with a jetted tub, we did it justice and FILLED it with an ENTIRE bottle of Mister Bubbles!

Now nice and clean and pruny all over, it was lights out for us because we had a nice long trek to the second part of our vacation: Kona.