Hawaii Trip 2-14-13

Today was all about the vulcanism that is Hawai'i.  But to start the day a walk across the street in the misty rain.  I grabbed a shot of the neighbor's bananas on the way.  I'll have to go when it isn't raining and get a pic of the banana flower which is large, lovely and pink.

Then I was at Richardson's Beach Park, across the street.  Hopefully it will be warm enough tomorrow to do some snorkeling in.  I saw a cute golden plover there.

Looking back at where we are staying in from the beach, our house is the little one to the left, which almost looks like it's part of the house in the right front of it.

After a huge delicious Valentines Day breakfast at Ken's Pancakes, we were off to Volcanoes National Park.

 

Once again it was a day full of an amazing assortment of interesting and beautiful plants, trees and flowers.

 

Not sure what this is, but we are calling it orange spaghetti lichen.

Then there was the breathtaking steaming hot crater of Halema`uma`u.  Small vents steamed around it and the main vent puffed a steady stream of gases into the air.

Inside we learned about volcanoes, and some of the really crazy cool things that they create.  I knew about lava bombs and obsidian and had learned about the two kinds of lava you find on Hawai'i, but didn't know about Pele's Hair, or Pele's tears. 

There was a lava tube in the park that we could walk through.  We went down a steamy damp trail through a couple layers of forest canopy to get to it. 

And here is the cool lava.  You'll see two distinct types in some of these photos.  The smooth pillow lava is called pahoehoe and the sharp jagged stuff is a'a.

There were many other craters throughout the park, and we stopped at almost all of them.

Thinking geese liked to be around wetlands, I was surprised at all the nene crossing signs I saw in Volcanoes Nat'l Park.  And was pretty happy to finally see my first of this state bird grazing by a road.

 

 

We also drove way down a road through lava flows to a beautiful view of the coastline and the series of cliffs formed by the lava flowing and dropping into the ocean.

Then we were back on the road and winding down to where the lava meets the sea.  We could see the steam coming up from down the coast where it is actively flowing in, but couldn't get there.  My pictures didn't turn out either, but we had a good time looking along the lava cliffs and seeing a sea arch.

One more stop, and it was a real treat!  We went back up to the Halema`uma`u Crater and waited until sunset.  After it starts to get dark out, you can see the glow of the molten rock in the crater.  It was really cool!