March 3, pausing as we strolled around the ship while docked in Kahului, Maui.
March 3, pausing as we strolled around the ship while docked in Kahului, Maui. |
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 Our next stop, just a short distance away and still in Volcanoes National Park, was a combination restroom break and shopping stop. (Every shore excursion stopped at places where us tourists could spend our money on snacks, Hawaiian souvenirs, and other junk.) This place was the Kīlauea Military Camp which was a former military base, then an interment camp for Japanese living in Hawaii during WWII, and now, a sort of "B&B" featuring small cabins for rent for military personnel, veterans, and others. We were allowed 35 minutes here (longer than at the volcano.) |
 As we walked by one of the cabins, a maid was inside cleaning up. She had left the door open, and I asked her if I could take a picture and she was okay with it. They look pretty nice and went for relatively reasonable ratesnote that although this sheet of rental rates was for 2024, it was still current for 2025. |
 Our tour guide told us the camp store was only for "authorized" people onlynote this picture to view a two-page PDF that lists all the different categories of eligible individuals. |
 After leaving the military camp, our next stop, still in Volcanoes National Park, was at the haunting steam vents, holes in the ground and cracks in the earth where steam from recent rain seeping into the ground is heated by the underground magma and released outward. This picture is of a vent along side the road that can easily be seen; here's another, set up just for us tourists. But the best was yet to come. |
 This trail led us to "Steaming Bluff" which overlooked a steamy valley, a big expanse of lava from Kīlauea's eruption in 1919. (Here's a map of where we were at what we were seeing.) Here we got to see this (0:12), steam coming out of the ground everywhere around us. Along the path, we ran into a ranger who told us we were really lucky. It had been raining since late yesterday (a light rain was still falling), which "fed" the hot earth below causing the steam to be released. She said yesterday at his time, there was no steam at all. |
 Around 11:00, almost three hours since we left the pier, we were headed to our next stop, ... |
 ...Big Island Candies, our last opportunity to buy stuff before returning to the ship. They did have a lot of cool stuff, especially nicely boxed chocolate candies which you could actually watch them making (in another room through a big window.) (We got a couple of free samples when we came in and they were really good, but everything was really expensive, and, though tempting as it was, we escaped empty-handed.) Then we were back on our way home. |
 It was around 12:15 when our ship came into view. Now it was time for... Next (Day 5, Page 3) |
