KIM, BETH, & ADAM VS THE VOLCANO

Kilauea Volcano has been erupting continuously since 1983! During this time it has added more than 500 acres of land to the Big Island in the form of lava and black sand. It has also covered more than 43 square miles of land in lava throughout Volcano National Park and beyond over the past 20 years. It is considered the world's most active volcano..... so we figured we had to check it out!

On the way to the park, we heard there was a volcano winery.... what a great way to start our day! We tried many different wines, red and white that are made on the volcano. Some were great and some were.... interesting. But, it was free and we even bought a few bottles to take with us.

Here we are outside the winery:

The park itself is huge..... over 520 square miles. We started out by driving to the Kilauea Caldera which is at the top. On the way there are are multiple scenic points where you can get out and walk around and take pictures. The first place we stopped was at a place called the Steam Vents. It's basically a huge lava field with steam coming up through the cracks. The lava below us heats the air and creates the steam you see.

Here's a video clip of the Steam Vents:

The caldera itself resulted from the collapse of the land around one of the volcanic explosions. It was pretty cloudy and raining when we first got up there. At the end of our day in the park, we went back up to the top and had a drink at the Lava House Bar. The weather was much nicer and we got some really awesome pictures.... it's huge!

Next we stopped at the Thurston Lava Tube. This is how lava travels, apparently. Since Kilauea is still erupting, you would think you would see massive amounts of lava gushing down an enormous mountain with people running to save their lives. This is not how it is. Instead, the lava travels in tubes, so most of the time you can't even see it. There are certain places, especially at night, that you can actually see it.... but we'll get to that. Here we are inside the lava tube.... obviously this one no longer has lava running through it.... err.... we hope!

Here we are outside the lava tube. You can see that the eruption that formed this tube was a very long time ago because life has sprung up and formed a rain forest.

Next, we headed down the Chain of Craters Road. This is a driving trip down the volcano that ends at the water where the lava entered. It's hard to picture what this must of looked like before the eruption. Here are lava tubes running right across what used to be a road:

Kim playing in the lava rocks:

Jumping over large cracks in the lava:

This is a natural arch formed by the lava rocks:

After playing on the lava rocks, we did a very short hike through newer forest in the Volcano National Park (we can still barely walk from our Waimea Canyon adventure!)
You can see in this post that one minute we have our ponchos on, and the next minute it's sunny and we look hot. At different elevations and different sides of the volcano, the weather varies a lot. It was really warm and sunny down at the end of the Chain of Craters Road, but a little chilly and raining closer to the top.

The more we kept seeing all of these lava rocks, we wondered..... would we ever get to see flowing lava? The answer is YES! That night we drove out to a black sand beach where we had heard that you would be able to see lava flowing into the water. It was pretty cool.... you could see Pu'u'o'o from the beach. Pu'u'o'o (pronounced poo -ooh- oh -oh) is where Kilauea is actually erupting. From there the lava seemed to disappear for miles (apparently in lava tubes). But down the beach (probably about a mile) you could see if flowing into the water. You can kind of see Pu'u'o'o in this picture, up and to the right of Kim's head.
But, you can see the lava entering the water much better in this video. Obviously it's kind of dark and we aren't professionals, so this is the best we could get!


The next day, Adam had his first day of work..... poor guy! But I lucked out and didn't have to start until the following week. This gave Kim and I a chance to continue on our volcano adventure for one more day. We decided to head back to a black sand beach, since we couldn't really see where we were the night before and neither of us had seen a black sand beach before. We went to Kaimu Beach. This beach was formed in 1990 when a particularly explosive eruption devastated the town of Kalapana. The old beach, was sprinkled with gorgeous palm trees and was considered one of the best black sand beaches in the world. Today, the trees are gone, but residents have begun planting coconut trees in their place. You can't swim here because the water is too dangerous... but here we are:

Waves crashing up on the beach:

Black sand up close.... in case you've never seen it:
Here are the newly planted coconut trees along the beach:

Kim and I headed to the Kapoho Tide Pools next, but I didn't get any pictures. I think Kim did though, so Kim, if you're reading this then send me your pictures! Kim will tell you that I was a big wimp. I just find it a little scary to walk through rocky water when you can't exactly see what you're walking on.... especially when you know that there are eels swimming around. We didn't have any snorkel equipment but one of the snorkelers let us borrow her mask so we could see what we were missing. It was pretty amazing. Just when we were feeling bad we didn't have our own snorkel equipment, it began to rain. A lot of the snorkelers didn't even seem to notice.... but where I come from, if it's raining, you get out of the water. There aren't too many lightening storms in Hawaii though, so maybe I'll have to fight that instinct in the future.

That concludes Kim's visit to Hawaii.... we had an awesome time exploring with her. She's the kind of traveler that will try anything and go anywhere.... so laid back. Thanks for coming Kim!

IN KAUAI WITH KIM!

Our initial plan was to get back from Kona, have our TB tests read and have cable installed, and then explore around Hilo some more. But since it was raining, we decided to get out Hilo and head to the northern most island of Hawaii, Kauai. Since Kauai is the northern most island, it's the most expensive island to fly to and you have to stop in Honolulu. That being said, it's totally worth it! The first day, Adam and I stayed by the pool and the beach at the hotel and just relaxed while Kim went SCUBA diving. She saw some great fish and turtles too. We stayed at the Sheraton right on Poipu Beach on the south eastern side of the island.

Here's the beach at our hotel The second day, we decided to be adventurous. Waimea Canyon is on the western side of the island and so we woke up early and began our drive. Once you are in the canyon park there are multiple scenic points you can stop at to take pictures. The first stop was awesome and the pictures don't do it justice.

Here's a picture of the first look out point we stopped at:

Here's a video of the view so you can get an idea of the magnitude.:

After stopping at multiple scenic points we arrived at the Waimea Canyon Trail Lodge. There were roosters everywhere. We never realized what pretty animals they are. When we arrived at the lodge there just happened to be 3 roosters standing on the fence in front of it.

Here are some roosters just hanging out:

We had selected our trail the night before, so once we found the trail head we were ready go. Here is Kim and me at the trail head ready to start....

The trail we selected loops up with another trail and leads back to the lodge for a total of 11 miles. This sounded perfectly reasonable to us when decided to do it. Starting out, we started to wonder if maybe 11 miles was a bit long. The terrain was rough. Lots of rocks and, inclines, declines, and narrow trails on cliffs dropping into the canyon and the ocean. Here's Kim and me looking pretty happy (we hadn't realized what a long day we were in for yet).

We also over packed stuff and under packed water. There was supposed to be a waterfall to frolic in (we still weren't over not being to frolic in the Hilo waterfall) so we brought our reef shoes and towels. Plus, we only had 1 back pack. So once we packed in our lunch and two big bottles of water, the back pack was pretty tightly packed and really heavy. We decided the best way to get a drink of water was just to leave the bottle in the bag and tip it over. If we took the bottle out every time we needed water, it would have been a lot of packing and unpacking. So here is the technique we used:

It was super hot out and most of the trail was through really pretty and lush forest. This picture has the water in the background but its hard to tell where the blue water ends and the blue sky begins.
A lot of the trail was over this red dirt. It stained our shoes and socks... you can see it in this picture of Adam and me:

About 4 miles into the hike we came to one of the most beautiful sights we have ever seen. This is where Harrison Ford was filmed in Six Days and Seven Nights. Only he didn't hike up here, he took a helicopter. Actually, when we looked down, we could helicopters flying around BELOW us. It was pretty cool. It's a little hard to tell but the blue closest to the cliff is water and then it eventually blends in with the sky. Don't be fooled by the "end of trail" sign. That just means the end of the particular trail... we were only about 4 miles in. These views are not for the faint of heart..... it's a long way down!

Gorgeous!

I should probably mention that Kim's family has this tradition of rotating a pair of black socks with colorful fish on them to different members of the family. It's Kim's turn with the socks this year, so her job is to take pictures of herself wearing the socks in different exotic places. Needless to say, we took a lot of pictures of Kim wearing these socks. She doesn't wear them all the time, just when she wants to take a picture. Here she is:
We barely saw anyone else the entire day. We were trying to figure out how to get our camera to take a picture of all three of us when we happened to run into another couple. We took their picture and they took ours.
Here's another spot we stopped to snap a picture. Sooooo pretty!
It was pretty much after this point that we realized that 11 miles was a bit much for us on this kind of terrain. The end of the trail was absolute torture! Our guide book told us there was a steady but gentle incline for the last several miles of the trail.... gentle our asses! It was a struggle. Kim was a real trooper and carried the back pack for a while during this time. Our backs were aching, Kim's knee was hurting. Every step was excruciating. At the end of trail, we saw this sign.... good to know AFTER our hike! It basically says we could die on this trail.

When we finally got back to the road, we still had to walk a little over a mile to get back to the lodge and it was all down hill. This sounds great, but in fact, it was even more excruciating than the uphill terrain. Kim started sticking her thumb out for a ride, Adam followed, but I was a bit more reluctant. Eventually a nice family with a van stopped and drove us the rest of the way to the lodge... it was probably less than .5 mile away, but we're pretty sure they saved our lives! We didn't get their names but if you're reading this someday.... thank you so much!

We managed to drag ourselves to the car and to get to Jo Jo's.... supposedly THE best place to get shaved ice in Hawaii. I'm not really big into shaved ice.... but here is Adam and Kim outside Jo Jo's.

We were pretty much out of commission for the rest of our trip. When we got back to the hotel we alternated between soothing ourselves in the hot tub, and drinking mai tais (we had made it back to the hotel just in time for the free mai tai cocktail hour). We did manage to hobble down the beach to see the really pretty sunset:


The next day we stayed by the beach again. We had late check out so we didn't have to rush out of the hotel. We looked pretty pathetic limping around.... it was a lot of effort to get up and down off of the sand! We did take a drive out to a place called Spouting Horn. This is where the rocks form a shelf over the waves. The water rushes under the rocks and spouts up out of the rocks into the air. It's pretty cool.... here's a video:


We had to pack up our things and say goodbye to Kauai shortly after this. A really pretty island with so much more to see that we didn't have time for. We hope to be back at some point. We still have 2 more days of Kim's trip in Hilo to tell you about..... hopefully soon!