Hawaiian Vacation - Thursday, December 10, 2009

Ten years ago when we made our first try to get to Hawaii, Volcano National Park was a must see on Claude's list. This day we would check off that item on his list of things to do. During the night our ship rounded the southern tip of the Big Island of Hawaii. This is the southern most point in the United States. This is where Kilauea continuously spills hot molten lava into the Pacific Ocean. We were told to be on deck at 12:30am for the possibility of seeing this from the cruise ship. Claude set our alarm for 12 midnight. We scurried up to Deck 13 to view whatever we could see. I'm remembering the actual seeing part began at about 1am. I tried my best to get many shots so that one might just work out. I took shots with and without zooming in. I tried the night setting as well as the daylight setting. I tried working with and without the flash. It was pitch dark and we were fairly far away for the safety of the ship. I found when I downloaded my pictures that most were not at all usable. When you lighten a dark picture you just get a lot of fuzz. With all that explanation I'm sharing one picture with you. Don't ask me which setting this was. But Claude and I enjoyed and will have our memories of watching this amazing thing happening before our very eyes in the wee small hours of the morning on a cruise ship in the Pacific Ocean.

When we got on the trusty tour bus this day our guide took us first to a black sand beach. In this picture Claude is standing on a lava rock wall looking from a tiny bay across the water to Mauna Kea. There are 3 mountains (mauna) on Hawaii. Mauna Kea is translated White Mountain. They actually get snow on the top of this mountain. It has the clearest view of the stars in the heavens and has some serious telescopes on top for observing those heavens. Our tour guide shared with us that the people in Hilo will take a truck up there and fill it with snow, then hurry down the mountain to Hilo and empty the snow into their yards. Then their kids can make snowmen. It melts quickly but the kids enjoy playing in the snow anyway.

Yep, these are my feet in black sand on this beach. This sand was a bit coarse compared to some sand. Our guide told us that some of the older black sand beaches have finer sand. I brought a plastic zip lock bag to carry away a small sample of this sand. Alas, there were signs posted saying it was against the law to take sand from this little beach. I am an obedient person usually and put my plastic bag away. We also had to walk past the police station to get to this bit of beach in the police station's back yard. That was another incentive.

Here are a couple of views of the water from the beach. The one on the left is me and Claude with Mauna Kea behind. The one on the right has the black sand in front and the Pacific Ocean in the back.

As we left this beach we walked past another area that was full of the little ponds in which fish would have been kept for eating later. There was a man here with a bucket and a net taking something tiny out of the water. My curious nature demanded I ask him what he was up to. Turns out he was catching shrimp in the net to use as bait for fishing.

Then we had a nice drive through Hilo and up to Rainbow Falls. This is called Rainbow Falls because if you get there in the morning you can see rainbows where the water falls into the river it makes at the bottom of the falls. Our tour was timed perfectly and you can even see a rainbow at the bottom of the falls in my picture.

We found a path where you could hike to the top of the falls. The top was a flat area with little pockets of water. They named these the boiling pots. They didn't appear hot but they were quite beautiful to look at. Chemo (the ch is pronounced the the ch in church), who is from North Carolina, on our tour hiked right down to the boiling pots and then to the rocks at the edge of Rainbow Falls. His wife assured us he does this kind of thing all the time.

To the left at the top of the falls lookout was a grove of banyan trees. We would miss our day in Lahaina on Maui where one of the highlights is an enormous banyan tree. When we visited Jamaica there was a huge banyan tree. There was actually no where I could stand and get it all in any picture I took in Jamaica. This grove was really neat to see and walk into. Claude is in the lower right corner of the picture watching the falls and the river flowing from them.

One poor fellow named Brian in our tour group lost his cell phone while we were doing all this walking and viewing. Then we were off to find Kilauea. The bus took us to the top and dropped us off across the road from the visitor's center. Here we would have lunch. We chose the sandwich shop. We got each of us a sandwich and I found us a table by the window. This window gave you a great view of the caldera of Kilauea. In the distance you could watch the smoke rising from the active portion of this volcano. What a thrill to be eating lunch at the edge of an active volcano crater.

After lunch I hurried outside to take pictures. Just to give you an idea of the massive size of Kilauea here are a few statistics. There is an 11 mile drive that circles Kilauea's summit and craters. Hawaii's Volcanos National Park covers 377 square miles. Kilauea has been spewing non-stop since 1983. It is miles across this caldera. I would learn 3 of the 5 volcanos on the island of Hawaii. Mauna Kea which is pictured as we stood on the black sand beach was the first. Kilauea with it's smoke rising from the top and lava flowing into the ocean was the second. In the picture above you can see our first view of the smoke rising from Kilauea. The picture below is of the third volcano I learned of on Hawaii. It is Mauna Loa which is Long Mountain. It is also active but we didn't really see any of that activity.

From the Kilauea visitor's center I was able to see Mauna Kea rising nearthe base of Mauna Loa.

After viewing all of this at the visitor's center, we boarded our tour bus and drove around to the Jaggar Museum for a view. Enroute we stopped to look at places where the steam from the volcano comes out of the earth. This one larger hole had a railing around it. We were cautioned not to put our faces over the hole to feel the steam. We were told we could put our hands out and wave them over the steam. It was very hot. Across the road from this spot there was a field and then a row of trees. In front of these trees were several places where you could see steam rising. Why this did not strike terror to my heart I do not understand? It wasn't until reviewing my pictures on my computer that it really sank in that these places with steam escaping meant I was really on top of a working volcano.

At the Jagger Museum there was another great overlook into the caldera and across to the visitor's center where we ate lunch and took all the pictures so far of Kilauea. Please note that you can't see the full caldera because it soooooo HUGE!! In this picture you can't even see the smoke rising from the top.

After viewing and taking pictures Claude and I headed inside to see how much we could learn quickly. One of the displays I really enjoyed were the 2 kinds of lava the come from volcanos. The one on the left is what flows from Kilauea. It does just that it flows. It doesn't explode. That is what makes it more predictable and safer for us to travel around on top of.

From the Jagger Museum parking lot I got this picture of Mauna Loa (Long Mountain). You can see the green growth. There are actually places where people farm and raise livestock. These are fenced off so that the growth coming back on the volcanoes is protected.

Our next stop would be the Thurston Lava Tube. You walk through a jungle like setting with tall trees and tall fernlike plants under them. As we walked we saw what appeared to be nests in and hanging from branches in these tall trees. We asked our tour guide about them and he explained that they are aerial root systems. It is believed that the trees experienced a shock of some kind (Imagine that on a volcano!!). This sends an alarm through the tree and to try and preserve itself it sends out these aerial root systems that can get quite large and from our vantage point on the ground appear to be nests. Amazing!!

After a brief hike into the jungle we come to a short place that is flatter. Then there is this tall opening and it is Thurston's Lava Tube. It is formed as the lava flows and some of it builds up on the sides and cools. The lava keeps flowing and burning its way down and the cooled sides build up and eventually build across the top. Then when the lava quits flowing through it the whole thing cools and you have this tube where lava used to flow. It wasn't a long walk but it was very neat to do. At the end of our walk there were roots from the trees above hanging inside the tunnel.

Okay, this picture is just the humor of the moment to me. As we started to board our bus there was a sign at the back of the bus that said 'Overflow parking'. Now, think about it, you're on top of a volcano and just walked through a lava tube and you reach the 'overflow parking'. I got a chuckle.

We had one more pull out stop to look at Kilauea's caldera and craters from one other perspective. What you see here is a crater and fissures. But the really amazing thing is the hiking trail with little teeny, tiny people walking across to get closer to where the steam is coming out of Kilauea. It was a nice thing to see but I really don't know that I would want to walk out there.

This cool little flower is 'Ohi'a lehua. From a distance I thought it had petals. Then I found one up close that I could take a closer picture of and realized it was like a mimosa (spelling?) blossom with little stem like petals. Our tour guide would show us one that was mature and dried out. It actually looked like a fat round paint brush. That is exactly what it was used for by early Hawaiians.

Now I want to include a story about the effect of taking lava rocks from Volcano National Park. Despite being warned never to take them many visitors did so. Then a legend was started that taking these lava rocks would bring bad luck as a punishment from the goddess Pele. People heard this story and found they were having bad luck in their lives. Many letters started to arrive with the lava rock that was taken asking forgiveness from Madame Pele stating difficulties from divorce, loss of businesses, foreclosed property, etc. To this day people are still mailing back lava rocks.

Our final stop for this days excursion would be the Mauna Loa Macadamian Nut Company. Our tour bus had gotten very quiet. We were all tired after a very full day. As the bus driver pulled into the Mauna Loa parking lot he explained that the visitor's center and gift shop had an ice cream stand with wonderful ice cream. He also explained that another tour bus was pulling in behind ours. He suggested that, if we wanted ice cream we go there first. Immediately our bus came to life. We had established a routine to make it fair to everyone when we were on the buses to alternate unloading of the bus from left side to right side and from front to back. Immediately everyone was yelling, "Get moving up there!" It was hysterical. We were all laughing and yelling so that our tour bus beat the other tour bus to the ice cream. Claude and I managed to find it quickly and each had a really, really, really good dish of macadamian coconut ice cream. Yummy!!!

Across the parking lot was the production facility. They have it set up really nicely with stairs you can walk up to the 2nd story height and look into the facilities big glass windows all down the outside walls and watch what is being done with the nuts. There are buttons you can push along the way to explain what you are seeing. You don't have to wait for a tour guide or in long lines.

Now it is time to head back to the bus and get some rest for the next day of touring.