What, you say, returning to a place where I've biked before? Why?
This trip will be a ride around the island counterclockwise, starting and ending on the west coast. I've always been fascinated by the Hawaiian volcanos. My first trip to Hawaii was to the Big Island. Much to the dismay of my travel agent, who thought I should take a traditional Hawaii beach vacation, I spent most of my time in Hawaii Volcanos National Park. It was my first, but not my last, visit to the home of Pele. Pele is the Hawaiian goddess of volcanos. It is said that she makes her home in Halema'uma'u Crater within the Kilauea caldera. Even though I've been to the Big Island twice before, I've never been to see the active lava flows. On my first trip, the active flows weren't easily accessible. On my biking trip back in 2000, I could have gone, but... we had a rest day in the park. We stayed at Volcano House, the National Park lodge perched on the rim of the crater. To get there, we rode from sea level to the lodge at 4000 feet of elevation. For me to get to the active lava flows, I would have needed to ride downhill about 20 miles - almost back to sea level - and then back up again. Somehow that extra ride uphill didn't appeal to me at the time, so I went hiking instead. Laziness? I don't really think so! But I did need a rest (if you can call hiking resting!). This time I'm hoping to finally see the active lava flows. So I'm sending a big wish off to Madame Pele, and hoping that she provides a show! And I'm also planning to get to the top of Mauna Kea, another place that is somewhat hard to reach. For that I'm hoping for clear skies for our summit hike, sunset, and star viewing. My transportation to both of these wonders is via the van tours that Arnott's Lodge runs. Actually, the discovery of Arnott's adventure tours helped push me over the edge in my vacation decision. I always enjoy Hawaii, and the ability to get to two new places is a huge plus for me.
> because it's beautiful...
> because everytime I go someplace, I see it through different eyes...
> because I haven't had enough of the Big Island...
> because there are places there that I haven't seen yet...
> because I want to!
No parking? No kidding! And no biking either --- this stuff will melt bicycle tires. I'm hoping to see some interesting views like this one. Photo taken on April 1, 2003 (no, it's not an April Fool's joke), courtesy of the USGS Hawaii Volcano Observatory.
Now that I've made my decision, I'm really excited about my trip to Hawaii. It's still 7 weeks off. It seems like a long time away, but I know the time will fly by. My departure date will be here before I know it. As an aside - there's one more reason I need to visit Hawaii again with my bike. As I was looking for biking journals from folks who have traveled there, I noticed that Hawaii was the only state in the USA with zero journals on crazyguyonabike.com - I felt a need to fill in that spot. Not really - but I was pretty surprised that there wasn't a Hawaii journal on the site! The pictures below were taken on my previous biking trip to the Big Island. Seeing pictures helps me dream...
