Hawaii, Part IV: The Adventures of Jon Boy and Lava Girl

Here's the continuing recap of our Hawaiian adventure from earlier this month.

When we last saw our travelers they were up early on Wednesday (8/9) for an island hop to the Big Island, courtesy of Hawaiian Airlines. We took the first flight out and got to the island of Hawaii, aka The Big Island, by 8. Picked up our rental Jeep and headed to Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, about 21 miles from Hilo. But not before a quick stop at Walmart for snacks.

We checked out the Thurston Lava Tube first. Really cool, thinking that 500 years ago, lava had surged through this cave that was now in the middle of a rain forest. We then made our way down Chain of Craters Road. Our first views of lava rock had us giddy. You see pictures of this stuff all your life, but to see real lava (albeit older lava rock). We drove past several old floes on our way to the end of the road...where in the 1990s, lava had crossed the road, closing it.

We then hiked out part of the way to where new lava is going into the ocean, instantly boiling the water into steam. It was incredible to see...it was making new land. But climbing over the old lava was tough. It was rock, but the shapes and edges were tricky to navigate...and looked liked like an alien landscape. The dried lava alternately looked to me like brownies or crumbled Oreos or some kind of gooey, dried chocolate syrup. Maybe I was just hungry.

After that, we made our way back to the Kilauea Caldera and the Halema'uma'u Crater - a huge crater within the enormous super crater. Makes you feel pretty small. The smell of sulphur was everywhere as were holes in the ground where steam poured out. It was impressive.

We finished our trip around the caldera and headed back to Hilo. It was quite a day. Funny thing about the Hilo airport...part of it, where the gates are, is open air. It has a roof over it but is open on the sides. When flew out of Hilo about 7:30p, headed back "home."

In our next installment, exhaustion sets in but we finally see the "Lost" beach.