Time on the Big Island

We started our Hawaii trip on the big island of Hawaii.  We stayed in a small home near the town of Volcano.  We spent the first day seeing the volcano from a car and by foot. 

 

Steam vents were the first thing we saw.

 

Then we hiked through a lava tube.  We learned that a lava tube isn't a tunnel that lava flows through, its a lava that hardens around a lava flow, then the rest of the lava drains out and leaves the empty tunnel. 

I was fascinated by the rain forest.  It was amazing.  We hiked several miles down into an old crater formed in the 1950s after 17 fountains erupted.  The girls were quite little troopers and even ran all the way back to the top.

This view you can see the rain forest and then the desolation of the crater in the background. 

And after we reached the bottom, we walked out of the lush green, to see this.

 

You can see the top, which is where we hiked from.

And then we hiked back up!

Our next stop was down off the top of the volcano at the shore where the lava flows dumped into the ocean. 

A short walk up the "closed" road, we came across this little patch of palm trees.  We learned that years ago, this coast line was covered with small communities and little patches of palm trees in each community.  Over time the volcano and lava flows have destroyed all those communities.  About 20 years ago, the native people replanted the trees.  The volcano again destroyed all of them, but this one little patch.  The native people feel they are a sign, like the people to be resilient and continue to rise above the struggles.   

Just a little further up the road, we hiked on the lava flows which covered the road as recently as August of last year.

The road was closed and then several times they had to close additional parts of the road as the lava flows covered more of the road ... including this road closed sign.  The post is original - although the sign has been stolen and replaced a few times.  :)  We thought it was really fun.

We thought it was interesting to see where the lava flows went and how sometimes parts of the road survived.  There were miles and miles of road covered by the lava which had come from miles up the mountain. 

 Cute little Jess wrapped up in a Hawaiian sarong sitting by a little sign of life among the lava flows.

 Then she tried to save me from the lava hardening around me ... :)  Gotta be a little silly once in awhile.

 

The sunset was stunning.

The girls took turns throwing rocks into the ocean - you can see Jessica's rock as a grey blur.  All the other photos I took were blurred kids. 

Taylor and Jessica strike a pose on top of a small little hill or lava rock.  It was really cool to see how life comes from the lava after time passes. 

After dark, we ventured back to the top of the volcano and had dinner in a restaurant that overlooked the volcano.  We could see the glow of lava in the distance. 

 

I was amazed to see the volcano.  I've never seen anything like it.  A beautiful and stunning day - and check off "see active volcano" from our bucket list.