Hawaii, the Big Island

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I owe a big thanks to Kevin and Rebecca, my wonderful hosts here on the Big Island. Kevin let my borrow his R1200GS and gave me the best tour you could imagine. In the past 3 days I’ve driven 830 miles, without any Interstate (there’s not one on this island).

Day 1: Kevin and I took the southern road to Hilo stopping in Volcanoes National Park to walk through a lava tube (think lava cave). We drove the amazing Chain of Craters road. In Hilo, we ate lunch at a local favorite Ken’s House of Pancakes. We drove back to the leeward side of the island on the Saddle road which passes between the two giant volcanoes Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea. Even though it was foggy and rainy on the windward side, we had an amazing ride. This is one of the best motorcycling roads I’ve ridden. It has lots of twists and turns, beautiful scenery, and not much traffic. These two enormous volcanoes aren’t shaped like the perfect cones I remembered from 8th grade science (the volcano that Rett and I built was bright blue and blacklight reactive, way cooler than the drab brown). They are instead gentle sloping giants, that measured from the sea floor to the top are the tallest mountains in the world. We cruised back through some lava floes and big open spaces on the high road.