Day 4 - To the Big Island and Volcano's National Park

Compared to last year, we "slept in" for the flight to the Big Island.  The bus left at about 5 AM.  Ugh. On to the Big Island and a lot of geology...it is after all still an active volcano!  A stop at Safeway and up we went.  A park ranger - Ranger Dean- gave us a fantastic tour.  He talked all about plants and the geology and he history of the island. He sang/chanted for us and played the nose flute. He talked of the war between Pele and the demigod that was trying to get her attention.  It was really quite spectacular. He told us of the story at the crater sight.  

Sulfur Banks. Well. It smells like sulfur!

The fumes coming up is the sulfur. There are also sulfur crystals. 

Next we went to the Volcano House. I don't believe that we went there last year. It was a very pretty view but we had to walk through the restaurant to get to them. Kind of awkward. But. It seems to happen a lot because everyone seemed just fine with it. 

Kubicek orientation to the island was nice. We looked at a big map of Hawaii and how the islands have changed over time. 

The Orchid Garden was new to me thus year. It was a big store with A LOT of orchids. It was fantastic! There was one orchid they had there that was a $20,000  orchid. Yikes!  This one is not it.