It's not called The Big Island for nothing

 

This is my favorite image of the Big Island, as it throws the crazy geography here into relief:

• you can get from sea-level to Mauna Kea, at 13,803 ft, in less than two hours.
• the latitudinal differences in vegetation between the dry, west side and the wet, east side, caused by trade winds blowing from the northeast to the southwest--the windward parts getting tons of rain; the leeward parts get very little rain.
• the longitudinal differences in volcanism between the still active south and southeast shore & the long-dormant north shore. Kohala and Mauna Kea at the top are extinct and dormant; Hualālai on the west side is active but hasn't erupted since 1801; Mauna Loa and Kīlauea on the bottom are both active, with Kīlauea causing the most trouble in recent memory.
• recent lava flows--all those scorched looking sections. We're living just to the right of the flows you can see at on the southeast shore that form an 'n'.