Sarah and I visited the Big Island of Hawaii for our ten-year anniversary. One of the things that always bothered me was that we didn’t have enough time for Volcano National Park. This time, with the girls, we planned a few days and stayed at a Bed N Breakfast in the town of Volcano.

It was pouring down rain when we arrived at the park, but we couldn’t let that stop us. Once we reached the end of Chain of Craters road, the sun started to come out and made for some awesome pictures! We watched the sunset at Halema'Uma'u Crater. During the day the smoke, or “vog,” flows out of this crater continuously. But as the sun begins to set, you can see the orange and red glow from the lava.

The first stop at the end of Chain of Craters road is what Sarah calls, Russell's Sea Arch. She calls it that because evidently I LOVE photographing Sea Arch's. She gets tired of me waiting for the "perfect wave."

If you've been to Hawaii Volcano National Park, then you've probably taken this same picture with your family. Everybody does it - and it's still pretty cool!

Got lucky on this shot! The rainbow only showed itself for a few minutes so I was able to capture with the Lava rock over the sign.

Thurston Lava Tube

Halema'Uma'u Crater

During the day - you can't see the orange and red glow from the lava. But at night, this looks pretty awesome! Each of these pictures are long exposure shots.

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Kauai Doors Off Helicopter Flight

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The Hana Highway in Maui is one of those things that you just have to do at least once. The books will try to scare you and make the highway a lot worse than it is. But it is 45 miles of winding, sea cliffs, and waterfall roads. Make sure you pay attention to where the books tell you to park. There are some waterfalls that you have to walk back to see – and they are worth it! But don’t stop at every waterfall, or you’ll never finish! Also….I recommend driving...maybe I’m just a crazy driver but the highway was much easier from my perspective than everyone else in the car. hehe

This was one of the earlier waterfalls that we stopped at and turned out to be one of my favorite series of shots. Trust me...if we stopped at everyone...I'm pretty sure my family would have thrown me in.

The road is so small on this highway that I'm standing in the middle of a one lane bridge in order to take this picture. Fortunately there wasn't a ton of traffic...

We stopped at the Waianapanapa State Park to walk around a bit. There are many places to stop along the highway, but this is one of the few that actually has a parking area. We took the short hike down to see the blow hole and black sands beach. During the walk I glanced down and saw this large tree trunk washed ashore, and thought it provided an excellent view point with the beach and palm tree.

In the town of Hana, Sarah read about a red sands beach - the only one in Hawaii - that is a short but tough hike from the end of the road. I captured the shot below of Kaihalulu Bay on the way to the red sands beach.

We have seen many different beaches around Hawaii, but this red sand beach had to be the most unique. The color in this picture is not doctored - the sand really was this deep red color - very cool!