The PhilandMeags and Volcano

On Wednesday morning Phil and Meags flew into Hilo!  Yay!  It was so fun to have Taylor meet-up.  We drove over to Hilo and met them at Rainbow Falls.  There was a significantly larger amount of water!  

 The kids were very excited to show Ollie and Meg the awesome Banyan tree and the kids had a great climb:

The boiling pots were a whole different place with tons more water.  Not so easy to hop from rock to rock. The braver among us swam in the coldish water, but they loved it:

 Someone was super angry that there weren't any towels:

 What, no swimming allowed?  We had no idea.

 After Rainbow Falls we had lunch at Cafe Pesto and then we drove onto Volcano where we first checked into our cabin.  These cabins were AWESOME.  Super clean, nice bedding, clean bathroom, and peaceful and beautiful.  Would definitely recommend them to anyone.  Great place to stay.

 The boys gathered stuff to burn later that night:

After checking in we went to the visitors center and hopped on a ranger guided tour.  Ranger must be a loose term.  It was a 16 year old Puna girl that said awesome and like with a really strong local accent about 500x too much.  And she said some really hilarious stuff.  We just struggled not laughing.  Anyway, mistake:

 Not exactly sure what the boys were doing but there was a chant to accompany it:

 Next up was the Thurston Lava tube.  They closed off the end, dark, scary party.  It wasn't as creepy as I'd remembered it:

Next up was the kilauea iki trail.  The sign said it would take about 4 hours.  We had 2 before sunset, and as we love a challenge, we booked it.  We were speed hikers.  Proud to say we completed it in under 2.  National Park esitmates are estimates for people in wheelchairs or something.  Anyway, it was an awesome hike.  Loved it.  And it was cool and nice to boot.  Can't imagine doing it on a sunny day:

 It was dark by the time the hike ended and we went back to the campground and tried, unsuccesfully to light a fire out of damp wood.  We had an interesting dinner with what little food there was available to buy in the store at the military camp.  Crackers, cheese, and salami.  But it was good fun:

 The trail from the campground to the Jaegger museum for viewing of the glow was only a mile.  Poor Phillip who was still on Utah time was practically sleep walking:

 Rob had fun manipulating the shot to make the glow look even more impressive:

 What it acutally looked like:

Another super fun day in Hawaii!