Big Island, Day 1

We got up the first morning and decided we'd hit the gym. We'd made a promise to each other that we would work out every day we were there. After the gym and breakfast, we went volcano hunting. The volcano national park covers a lot of land and there are lots of parts to it. I guess I thought a volcano was like you used to make in school; one mountain with a hole on top. It's not like that at all. I don't understand it completely, so I will just say the place where the lava erupts moves. There are lots of calderas where the land has caved in. There was one place we saw after dark that had glowing lava in it. Some places had steam or some kind of sulfur cloud coming out of them and that was it. We did see lots of lava. Some of it was up to 20 years old and some as new as 4 months. The part we found that was only 4 months old still had hot lava running underneath it. In fact, we were able to stick our hand in a crack and feel the heat. It was like holding your hand in front of a 300 degree oven. This particular lava had covered a whole community.
Check it out:

 

This was the entrance to an old lava tube... very cool!

Lava and more lava. This is some of the older stuff.

Literally..the end of the road. This was very cool.

Four month old lava.

For those of you wanting to move to Hawaii, here's a deal for you. The sign says two lots and ocean view. These people actually re-built after the lava came through and wiped out the community. There were other new houses here too.  Remember, this lava is 4 months old. There is no water or electricity here.

This was the only "hot" lava we saw. It was disappointing for us. Many times you can see lava rushing into the ocean, but Pele was quiet this time.