Flying to the Big Island

Apologies for posting too many pictures, but today was a huge day - two times flying from Maui to the Big Island. I doubt I'll be able to do a day of flight like this for a very very long time. Cliff flew the Cardinal over to Maui so we could go on a few long flights. In the morning, I flew with the REUs Shannon and Brian from Kahului to Hana, Upolu, along the north HI coast, stopped in Hilo for breakfast, took off and got to the lava, climbed up over saddle, and took high pass back around south Maui. In the afternoon, Pascale Amanda and I took a twilight pass around south Maui, climbed up over the saddle, dropped down on to the lava at twilight then stopped off in Hilo for a dinner with a few people Pascale knew before doing a night flight back home. 7 hours total..... What a ride. We lost our two gyro instruments so the night flight was a little scary but also a great training experience.