Waikoloa fish ponds

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We decided to celebrate our upcoming 40th wedding anniversary with a trip to the Big Island. John has been wanting to see the volcano Kilauea. Both of the Kiddos have made the trip and highly recommended the trip. Of course, we made all the reservations and the darn volcano decided to stop erupting!

I know, the volcano wouldn’t stop erupting just because we wanted to see the glow of lava.

We landed in Kona after a delay of about an 1.5 hour leaving Honolulu. It has been so long since we departed a plane with a ramp outside! Thankfully the rain waited until we were at the hotel before it started.

Our first 2 nights were at the Marriott Waikoloa Ocean Club. We had an ocean view villa on the 4th floor. It was wonderful! While here, we enjoyed exploring around the Kauualii and Kahapapa fish ponds. There are informative signs along the walk.

On our first full day on the island, we took a drive up to the Mauna Kea Visitor Station. The change in flora made it an incredible drive. We were unable to go up to the observatories – 4 wheel drive required and they were checking. We were able to see them in the distance from side of Mauna Loa.

We then drove across the highway up the north side of Mauna Loa. We had an “exciting” drive up to where the 2022 lava flow crossed the road see rocks that were younger than us! “exciting” meaning the road was one-lane, curvy, and had volcanic rock piles taller than the car on both sides most of the about 11 miles each way! Coming back down was less dramatic since we knew the what to expect. The signs should have given us a clue.