Hawaii

My roomate and I found cheap tickets to Hawaii (the Big Island) in September. It's a low season for tourists, which ended up making the trip really easy.

The highlight was night scuba diving with mantarays. All of the lights from the scuba divers attract Krill (or whatever it is that the Mantaray eat). Then come in the giants. They are 12 feet across and supposedly weight over 1000 lbs. It is amazing to see how graceful they are in the water. They swim around with their enormous mouths' open trying to catch as many of the little krill as possible. And, if you hold the light out in front of you, they swim right at your head and then detour up just in time so that they don't take your head off. Occasionally, they will do a loop-d-loo right over you and come back down for another pass. Oh, I forgot to mention that you can't touch them cause they are protected, so you have to kneel on the bottom of the ocean. We were close to 40 ft. down.

Unfortunately, I have no underwater photos of the mantarays. Other than scuba diving and snorkeling, Ed and I did some hiking and checked out Volcanoes at Volcano National Park. All and all, Hawaii is a great place.

Volcano National is huge and very interesting. This is me with a big crater.

Me with a Lava Flow

The next two photos are of lava flowing into the ocean.
This is Ed at the Captain Cook monument. Cap. Cook was the first European to visit Hawaii and was ultimately killed in the bay where this monument stands. There also happens to be very good snorkeling at this spot and a long hike to get there.