We only had one day on the Big Island before our next adventure so we decided to pack as much in one day as possible. We continued our quest to see more waterfalls and succeeded when we saw Rainbow Falls. These were beautiful and exceptionally accessible! No hiking in the dark required! I was a little bummed we didn't see a rainbow because I'm pretty sure every single picture I've seen about Hawaii involves some sort of a rainbow. But alas, maybe it was too early but there were no rainbows. But it was beautiful nonetheless. 
Our next thing on the agenda was to go to Mauna Kea, which is nearly 14,000 feet tall. If you measure it from its base underwater, it's the tallest mountain in the world. We drove up to the visitor's center at about 9000 feet and boy, my ears were popping! We decided to skip driving all the way to the top due to time constraints and my fear of getting altitude sickness and not being able to continue with the rest of our day. We had an awesome view of the island and it was a really cool drive. 
After finding some lunch at a restaurant in downtown Hilo, we headed to see yet some more waterfalls. I apologized to Brian for dominating our overall schedule with waterfalls but they were really cool and he didn't seem to mind at all. This time we went to see Akaka Falls which are 442 feet tall. There was a little 20-minute pathway that took us by some other falls but seeing Akaka Falls was the highlight. Those are some major waterfalls and definitely one of the highlights of God's creation!
Our next stop on our adventure was the main reason we chose to go to the Big Island... Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. Brian loves national parks and it's his goal to cross as many off his list as possible. I like that goal and have vowed to help him in that quest. Plus he wanted to see a volcano erupting. Also a good goal but we quickly learned once we got there that in order to see that, we'd have to do a 6+ hour hike and it wasn't accessible by road. So we drove through the park on the Chain of Craters Road and stopped at several overlooks to explore a bit. When we stopped at the first overlook, Brian said, "Wow, that's a really big hole in the ground!" It was where the volcano erupted back in 1954 and Brian was correct. It was a massive hole!
We kept driving through the park and stopped and looked at the hardened lava from lava flows in the past. It was just miles and miles of desolation and black lava. I had never seen anything like it!
We drove all the way down to where the road ended because it was cut off by a lava flow in 1995. It was super cool to climb all over the hardened lava and again, it was such a unique sight! I almost had to pinch myself to remind me that we were still in America!!
Brian had found that he qualified to be able to stay in a military post inside the National Park that was on the rim of the volcano. Which was great!! We were exhausted by this point and still had stuff on our agenda and being right there was key!! So we checked into our cabin and after dinner, we drove over to the site of an active volcano. It was the Kilauea Caldera, which was about a mile from our cabin. When we got there, it was incredibly foggy and misty and not the best volcano-viewing weather. We could see an orange glow coming from the ground but that was about it. But then the most amazing thing happened! All the clouds and fog disappeared within minutes and we could see it clearly! The camera doesn't do it near enough justice but it was so cool to see the magma bubbling up at the earth's surface!! Again, something I had never seen before!
We went back to the cabin and were completely exhausted after our fun-filled day! I am pretty sure I was asleep by 9pm!!
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