Hawaii: Day 4- Hawaii Volcanoes National Park

Monday, April 23, 2012

Today I woke up with Ethan at 6:30am.  Again.  It was raining.  It rained the whole day.  And the whole night. And the next day and night.  In fact...it rained every single minute we were in the rainforest.  But I guess that is why they call it a rain forest!

I got ready and headed out to the little tiny market in Volcano Village.  We had planned to make all our meals while we had the house, so I bought all our groceries for 3 days.  I just about had a heart attack to pay $8.99 for a pound of bacon and $7.69 for a small block of cheese!  But eventually I just quit looking at the prices and bought what I needed.  I headed back to the house and we had muffins, banana macadamia nut bread, and exotic fruit for breakfast!

The small brown fruit are called "Tiger's Eyes".  You peel them and they look like a peeled grape.  They did not taste very good though!

The purple fruit on the left tasted like a pear and the spiny one on the right was called a "razmatan" and had a solid jello-like interior.  

After breakfast, we headed over to explore Volcano National Park.  

We stopped at the Kilauea Visitor's Center first and went on a Ranger-guided tour of the area right around the visitor's center.  This tour was one of the most interesting things we did the whole trip!  It was probably one of my top favorite things we did.  We had Ranger Travis and he took us around the area.  He told us about different ferns and trees there in Volcano.  He told the story of Pele, the goddess of the volcano.  He shared many Hawaiian Legends and gave a great overview of the volcano.

This neat tree is called an Ohi'a tree.  It is one of the only plants that can live on a volcano.  It has an amazing ability to close up its "spores" and not breath the volcanic fumes.  When the air is clean it will oxygenate itself.  Pretty amazing!  One of the legends that Ranger Travis told was of the Ohi'a Tree.  The legend says that one day Pele (the Volcano Goddess) met a handsome warrior named Ohi'a and she asked him to marry her. The problem was Ohi'a had already pledged his love to another woman named Lehua.  Pele was furious when Ohi'a turned down her marriage proposal, so she turned Ohi'a into a twisted ugly tree.  When Lehua went to find her lost love, she discovered that he had been turned into this tree and was heartbroken! She begged the gods to help her turn him back.  The gods took pity on Lehua but could not turn him back and anger Pele.  They decided to turn Lehua into a flower on the Ohia tree so that the two lovers would be forever joined together.   It is said that when you pick a red blossom from an Ohi'a tree, it will rain....as Lehua cries from being separated from her beloved Ohi'a.

 

This is an old road that is not in use anymore.  In the 1980's this road partially collapsed when the ground shifted and part of the road slid off!  Crazy to think how active the earth is right here where we are walking.

Our first glimpse of the Kilauea Crater.  We were not able to see any red flowing lava, just thick white steam rising up from the Caldera!

  

We headed down the road to visit the Thomas A. Jaggar Museum.  The do research here on seismographs and other land measurement tools.  This helps predict earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.

We toured inside the museum.

Pele...The Goddess of the Volcano

This was really interesting to see how the Hawaiian Islands were formed.  There is a "new" island being formed right now off the coast of Hawaii.  It is called Loihi and will not reach the ocean surface for about 50,000 years! 

The 2 types of Lava Rock:  Aa and Pahoehoe
We have a joke about "Aa-Aa-Aa rock"  : )

The road around the Caldera was closed after the museum, so we headed back and stopped to eat our picnic lunch at the Kilauea Overlook.  After lunch we went and visited the Steam Vents.

It was really neat to see the steam rising and as you walked closely, you could feel the warmth from the vents on your legs.  Cool!

Back at the visitors center we took this trail to see the Sulphur Banks.  I thought these signs were crazy!

 

Here are the Sulphur Banks.  These are formed from sulphur gases leaking up and combining with the ground water.  The sulphur crystallizes and leaves behind a white and yellowish residue.

 We decided this was what the moon must look like!

After leaving the Sulphur Banks we drove down to Thurston Lava Tube.  This lava tube was found in 1913 by Lorrin Thurston and named after him.  There are no more rock formations but it was neat to see the inside of a lava tube!  

We went on down the road and hiked along the Devastation Trail.  The land here was destroyed in 1959 from an eruption of the Kilauea Iki crater.  This is one of the "most photographed" spots around Volcano.

And here is my attempt at "the photograph" LOL

The land is very barren but you can see the Ohi'a trees and other vegetation trying to reclaim this land.

After this hike we headed down the Chain of Craters Road.  This is an 18 mile journey from the 4000 mile high Volcano top to sea level. This is a spot where lava once flowed into the sea. 

 A cool Sea Arch formed from lava flowing into the ocean.

There is a mobile unit set up and a parking area.  This is as far as the road goes.  We got out and walked for probably a mile and came to the area where the lava ran across the road!  This was so crazy to see the asphalt and lava.  There was a hilarious sign that somehow survived the lava flowing.  It reads "road closed"  LOL...Ya think??!!

It was dark as we headed back up the Chain of Craters road.  We drove straight back to the Jaggar Museum to get a glimpse of the Kilauea Crater in it's night time glory!  Pictures don't do it justice.  It was so beautiful with the fiery red-orange glow.  Pele is definitely alive down there!  Looking up into the sky I could see a trillion stars. What an amazing place this is!

One last peek at the glowing orange caldera and we headed back to our rain forest house.  We showered,  ate tacos for dinner, and headed off to bed.