Big Island Part Two

We had good weather in the morning and actually got a view of the Kilauea caldera. It's pretty impressive in the open, and fun to imagine it incandescent and boiling. The drizzle came back just after breakfast, and we headed to the desert to do a 7.5 mile hike. The landscapes were pretty great, and I was very thankful for the cloud cover. We drove back and down to Hilo, then went to a nearby beach park and Akaka falls. Rahul treated me to dinner in belated celebration of that whole UH top-doctoral student thing. We basically talked politics the whole time. I really liked being around an x-manhattan-lawyer-turned-gambler. Interesting stories.....



Kilauea Caldera
Halema'uma'u - the little active lava lake within the caldera.

The Ka'u trailhead. The drizzle we escaped clouding the distant pali....


A lone tree on the windswept plains.

The little beachpark in Hilo.
Akaka falls - a pretty huge waterfall, and it was gushing from the rain.....