When he's not in class

Contract classes used to be a boondoggle. There must have been an Inspector General report on them or something, because now not only do they go until 4pm, but they go well past 5pm too. Something I didn't expect, nor am I getting used to.

Good thing Rich and I planned our trip to the Big Island, or else we may not have gotten back to the main base to get our tickets since classes were going late. We both wanted to see the Big Island. So we booked a one day trip to the Big Island, complete with a loop tour of all the "sights".

Our first stop was for an early lunch. "all right, see you back here in 20 minutes" said the bus driver man. We were the first ones in line and ordered a red veal, Kahua ranch beef, medium rare. Listening to the stories of the Parker Ranch on the Big Island, one of the largest ranches in the United States, made us hungry. After 13 minutes, we had our burgers. Down the hatch with 30 seconds to spare. The other tour goers were not as lucky, some had just received theirs when the horn honked on the bus. You could eat on the bus, but who wants to each a fat, juicy hamburger over your lap when you have a full day tour ahead of you?

I quickly learned that our tour guide was a big of a BS'er as me. Once I heard him say that the Parker Ranch was once the largest ranch in the US, over 500,000 acres. I asked him how big and if it was larger than the largest ranch in Texas... he didn't know, but he knew Parker Ranch was big. I knew that the King Ranch in Texas was the largest from Michelle's story in the Wichita Falls Times Record News, and from then on I had a hard time believing anything he said.

Our tour guide told us that Marines trained on this hill, rolling wooden logs up the hill. This was their training before they were to take over Mount Surabachi on Iwo Jima...


Our first five minute "wiki wiki" stop was at Rainbow Falls. I would have rather have spend 15 minutes here rather than the candy factory shopping extravaganza where I spent $0. The chocolate was so-so, not worth the inflated tourist prices.


Our next stop was at an orchid factory, where I got a taste of my own medicene. Michelle used to wait patiently for me to take pictures of interesting flora and fauna. Now I waited patiently until it was time to leave for our main attraction...

Volcanoes National Park

It didn't look like the image created by Mark Twain, but


it was still a sight to see a crate 2 miles wide and 3 miles long still fuming sulfur oxide from a distance.

We even got to walk through a lava tube that was about 200 meters long. It's amazing to think that lava flowed through this tube just like water in a garden hose.

Our bus driver told us NOT to go through the chainlink fence gate, "it's illegal and dangerous." I have a feeling he didn't want to wait for us to explore a little more. The sign says it's ok to go another 334 meters, even inviting me!

Our final stop was at the black sand beach on the east side of the island. After 15 minutes on the beach and getting back on the bus, a couple was talking about turtles... "there must have been 8 or 9 sea turtles," she said. WHAT? WHERE? Oh wait, there is no time, we must get to our next wiki wiki stop, a place to buy Kona coffee.

The longer we were on the bus for the 250 miles, the more I wished we had rented a car and done it ourselves. But I did enjoy snoozing between stops on the bus, it wasn't all bad. What sealed the deal for me to avoid another bus tour in the future (except in extreme circumstances): We didn't even have enough time for a wiki wiki stop to view the nice sunset.

The Big Island is definitely worth the visit, and I'd like to go back and see the orange glow of the lava at night some time before it stops. And next time, we'll do the driving so we can make the wiki wiki stops as long as our hearts desire.