Love where you are and you'll make it work

Now that we've been back for a few days I'm not sure how exciting I'll be able to make this post. You see we got back late thursday and I had to wake up early Friday to bring Zane to school. Worked at the bar friday, got hammered that night. Worked basically 11 am to 3 am Saturday. And then 10 am to midnight Sunday. That's way to many hours at the bar for not enough tips. Sam says it would be alright if I actually got paid by the hour like in Australia(20 fuckin dollars an hour! Minimum behind a bar) Here I'm proud to say I make 5 an hour after ungodly taxes. But I'm having fun and should hopefully only be doing nights soon.

Stop Hoarding your Twenties

On day 2 We were woken up to this truck pulling into the campsite that had the bass booming and engine rumbling.  It was 4:30 in the morning and these two guys were blasting some sweet Hawaiian song, on repeat... They fixed something under their hood near the bathrooms and after 20 minutes (of the same song) drove back off into the night.  We could hear them for about 10 minutes because there was not another sound in the distance, not even the birds.
Sam here: It was still wet and rainy so we decided to pack up and make our way south to black sand beach, leaving the rest of volcano national park for later.  Standing in sand formed by a lava flow being pulverized by the ocean was pretty cool.



We continued along the coastline to the southern most point of the entire United States.


We pulled off to the side of the road and snapped some of the only pictures with the both of us in shot, special thanks to the amazing red camera and timer.  Anna was very disappointed that we didn't get photographic proof that we had reached the destination.  There was no sign to proclaim how far south we had made it, however the shear cliffs and clear water were impressive to see.  We followed the weaving paths of the 4WD tracks east, around the coast toward a small boat ramp and car park that marks the start of our green sand beach hike. Anna did very well for her first time driving off road.

I did well?!?!  No I did awesome thank you very much.  I didn't break the car or anything.  Well almost.  Until we made it to the road for the green sand beach.  Then I hit a boulder under the car, and so I decided it was imperative that we turn back.  The road to green sands beach was two miles of dry dry dry sand and heat along the water.  We made it all the way there and saw all of the tourists swimming in this clear beautiful wonderful gloriously cold awesome water, but we decided to turn around and go back.  It was too hot, and hiking back with sandy swamp ass would not be comfortable.  Sam completely hiked through both of his shoes by now, and his feet were SUPER sandy and gross.
This amazing beach came out of no where on the end of this long twisty road.  There were hot water showers because the pipes were exposed the whole way.  It was a great spot, and I wish we could have stayed there to swim and shower more, but it was time to move on if we were going to make it to a good sleeping spot in the middle of the island

Southern most point of the US!

GREEN SANDS BEACHHHHHHH

We drove down the rest of the coast and caught an awesome sun set.  We were just parked in the wrong spot, so there is a tree in most of the pictures.  Our drive continued in the dark for another hour or so, until we made it to the summit of Mauna Kea.  We slept in the visitors center parking lot, in the jeep, looking out at the night sky and into the stars. It was beautiful, and really freaking cold at 4000 feet.

Hungry Tigah

We made it on the plane!!!!

It's day three and we're sitting waiting for breakfast at a nice cafe. Still no Internet but its the first time I'm sitting down without something gorgeous to look at. This trip has been nuts. Our first day we missed our flight because Sam brought his Swiss army knife and so we had to check his bag in order to bring it with us. Because of that we had to wait for the next flight. We watched a beautiful sunrise out the windows. We landed safely and rented the most sexy luxurious pimp ass jeep ever. It was black and sleek for the first day at least.

praying that I actually reserved a car!

Sam's first visit to Walmart, and our sexy jeep

First up, we headed straight for the lava. Volcano national park was free to enter thanks to the public holiday. Always ask the oldest and wisest, the old man in the visitor centre may have talked our ears off, but he knew his way around. Our first hike for the trip was a loop around and through a cooling lava lake. Taking old mates advice we started the trail from the end, taking the reverse route. Starting on the high ground with a great look at what was to come, we followed the trail for the first few clicks. The first junction we met, we headed straight down the wrong path. Wrong turns always manage to lead to the best experiences. We took a much wider loop through the ash covered bush.
Anna found a whole in the ground which was previously a tree that died after being half buried under the volcanic ash. We had stumbled into a gap in the vog which, since we had taken the much longer detour, allowed us to see the steam thrown up by the largest of the current vents.

Anna now... Sam took this awesome panoramic picture of me with the vent in the background. It was upsetting to learn that we wouldn't be seeing any real live lava, but what we witnessed was amazing. Walking across a "lava lake" that was still cooling with tons of little vents all over the place was unrealistic. Putting your hand in the steam was even stranger because it was so hot! We took another retarted detour straight up the mountain and ended up in the middle of the jungle with what seemed as no safe way out. Luckily we could hear cars off in the distance and made it back out to the road safely... Eventually. After that, we did a trek through a lava tube. And then we made our way down chain of craters road and I made Sam get in a crater along the side of the road. We drove through super thick vog. Which was super scary by the way. We made it to the ocean and the end of the road because the 2003 lava flow gobbled it up! So cool. We watched the sun go down and then headed to camp, in the rain, for the night. Good times.