Hilo! Grandma*Grandpa*Farm*Volcanoes*BJ Penn

After my brother's reception Mark and I got to take my grandparents back to their home on the Big Island. This time we were in Hilo! It was an interesting trip through the airport! My grandparents were both in wheelchairs all through the airport. I had never had to take anyone through with a wheelchair. We checked their 1 bag and went to wait at the gate. Mark and I originally were going to go on a flight before theirs because their flight was full when we booked ours, and wait for them to get to the Hilo airport. While we were waiting though, the said that our flight had seats open for anyone who wanted to go on an earlier flight. Fantastic right?? Wrong. Grandpa's bag didn't make it onto the earlier flight, so we had to wait at the airport until the other flight came in! What's the point. Anyway. We got our car and went on our merry way. Mark was very nervous driving us all in the rental.
Here's Mark next to a portion of the farm. Grandma and Grandpa are in their 80s and they're still farming, just not as much as they used to.

They live so remotely that they don't have a plumbing system and so they have to live off of rain water. Every time I flushed the toilet I felt like I was using a weeks worth of their supply! This huge wooden tank is what hold their water.

This is their little house. I think my Grandpa built it himself too. So old, but sturdy. Just like them I think.

The road to their house. It's the same in the other direction. How you know to turn I have no idea. Good thing we weren't by ourselves getting there.

They live near Kileaua, the only active volcano in Hawaii. At the National Park they have these steam vents. This is steam coming from the lava underground! When you looked around everything was steaming. It was slightly eerie, but so cool.


This next picture is the caldera. It's still smoking! Crazy to think that it the volcano actually erupted we would've been the first to die.
They also had a lava tube that you could walk through. A lava tube is created when the lava runs though an area and melts the rock down and creates a tube. The lava either stops, or finds another path, leaving a tunnel where it used to run. This is an extinct tube.

Mark in the tube.

We drove down the whole area all the way from the top of the volcano down to the water. Mark thought that he would be able to see actual lava. Me being practical knew that they wouldn't let people into that dangerous of a situation, so Mark was slightly unhappy that he didn't get to see anything.

When we got home Grandma had a huge lunch planned. Now we feel bad that we only stayed 1 night with them. Next time we'll stay longer. Promise Grandma!
One of the last things we did before getting on another plane back to Oahu was look for BJ Penn's training center. Mark was all excited to go and find it, but when we finally got there he didn't want to go in! Probably embarrassed, but it's ok, it was still cool to find it.

Now back to Oahu! So much traveling!