The Grand Finale...

Our final stop on our Hawaiian islands tour was on the Big Island. Thinking back to my favorite activities during our trip, most of them took place on the Big Island. It was an island with plenty of activity, but it was also an island that made you feel like you were not overrun with tourists. Maybe it was the resort we stayed at, or maybe it was the time of year, but it was the perfect end to our vacation.

The helicopter tour was an amazing experience. If any of you have been following the volcanic events currently taking place in Hawaii, we were able to see the volcano that is currently active. Not much of the lava was visible from the surface, but we were able to see a small bit. Our helicopter tour took us from the fiery hot volcano to the lush, green waterfall side. It was one of those experiences, where if you are going to do it, pick an awesome location. Hawaii was the perfect location for my first helicopter ride. 

We also did a night dive/snorkel with manta rays. This was by far the coolest experience I have had in the water. We had some amazing experiences in the Maldives, but something about having a manta ray with a span of over 8 feet rub belly to belly with you is like no other experience.  Ryan has some amazing video of the experience, but I cannot for the life of me, figure out how to upload the videos and/or turn the videos into pictures in order to post. You all are just going to have to wait until I can get him to sit down, and upload them to the blog.

I think our trip to Hawaii was a great way for us to celebrate living back in America, and taking the opportunity to further explore our country.

If you want to view more pictures from our helicopter tour, and a few pictures from our other activities while on the Big Island, click on our Big Island, Hawaii photo album below.

The Big Island, Hawaii

The Drunken Mountain Goat...

Our adventure in Hawaii continued on the island of Maui, our hiking also continued. It was during one particular hike that Ryan finally identified what my hiking reminded him of, a drunken mountain goat. Instead of staying on what appears to be the trail, I find the most obscure path, with the most difficult, uneven terrain. I then decide it's the best path to take, and mountain goat through, stumbling, but miraculously not falling. Have no fear, this drunken mountain goat is a hiking queen.

I believe it was during this picture I earned the title "Drunken Mountain Goat." 

Before I start rambling about our time in Maui, I wanted to post a couple pictures I forgot to post on the previous Lanai post.

Boarding the plane from Honolulu to Lanai. 

Arrival at the resort. 

Maui has plenty of waterfalls, so waterfalls were our main focus. Ryan also did some diving during this island visit, but I am waiting for him to identify his favorite photos, and I will post those at a later date. Our main hike on the island took us to a giant waterfall. The hike was not too bad, it was longer, but mostly shaded during our path through the bamboo forest. After finding the big waterfall, we made our way back to the tide pools.

Perfect place for lunch. 

Entering the bamboo forest. 

I decided all hikes should have these awesome boardwalks. 

Made it to the waterfall. 

It's always hard to portray true size in pictures, but hopefully you get the idea, Ryan is on the rocks, compare his size to the size of the waterfall. 

The famous, Hana Highway is on Maui. If it's famous, then we must take it. Part of the road was under construction and our resort informed us that we had to leave very early in order to get through the construction before they completely closed the road. We saw on the map the highway was not too long, so we could not possibly figure out why the resort told us it would take 3 hours to drive. Yes, we did see the little curves on the map, but nothing prepared us for this road. It was basically one lane with 90 degree turns every few hundred feet. Factor in the need to hurry, and you can imagine how out of control my car sickness was. We successfully made it through the highway with only two pictures, when Ryan felt it was safe to stop, and we vowed never to take that road again.

Just like with Lanai we were surprised at the vast difference the terrain was from one side on the island to the other. One side was lush, green forest, drive around to the other side and you have sandy, rocky cliffs. We were very happy in our choice not to take the Hana Highway back to our resort, because otherwise we would not have seen this other area of the island. We even saw goats!

Ryan heard from a fellow diver about an area known as Black Rock. Apparently all the locals go to this area to jump off the cliffs. Local spot? Cliff jumping? Mr. Adventure was hooked, we had to go find it. I was instructed to not skimp on the pictures. I turned my camera to sport mode, and held down the button. He got every second of his jump. I picked just two to post here, but you can see them all in our photo album.

A few pictures to end this post:

A view from the plane during our flight from Lanai to Maui. This was our resort on Lanai. 

Dinner. 

True story, this photo proves it. When we went to board our flight from Lanai to Maui, the woman asked me to step on the scale. They weigh your luggage, you, and all our carry on items. Really keeps your vacation eating in check when we have to jump on the scale every few days.
Obviously my backpack was gaining weight at each island. :)

If you want to see more pictures from our time on Maui you can find them in our photo album, click on the link below.  Check out more hiking pictures, the goats, and the rest of Ryan's cliff jumping.

Maui Photo Album

Next and final Hawaiian stop, The Big Island.