In one of the most fortunate happenings of our trip, we stumbled across the gorgeous city park on Hilo Bay and had a picnic there before our helicopter tour. It was just gorgeous and perfectly manicured. There were even people doing Tai Chi in the park. Very beautiful. We wished we had more time to really walk around, and walk out to Coconut Island in the bay, but we had to scoot.
Here's one of those cool banyan trees. Those long vines that come down from the branches, if left alone, will actually put down roots and become trunks themselves. On our bus tour two days previously, we saw one that had blown over in a storm recently. The driver told us he was not surprised because if you trim off those vines and never allow them to root, the top of the tree becomes top heavy, and because the root system is shallow in the little soil on top of the lava beds, over they go. You can see in the picture with me on the park bench, how the tree roots are right on top of the ground. 
