June 25, 2006


Volcanoes National Park & The Lava Tube

Today while hanging out in the Plum Palace in the morning we were trying to figure out what to do with the rest of the day.
Since we were not in the mood to go to the beach decided to go the opposite way and go check out volcanoes national park (you gotta hate this place!).

On the way there, Hana decided to take a nap while in the middle of her artistic inspiration (talking with her muse perhaps?).... it is only a 30 minute drive.

We first stopped at the town of Volcano for a quick (and very expensive) lunch. And once we had refueled we headed out to the park (tip for future visitors: bring cash to the park because they do not take credit at the park entrance).

Once at the park Hana's nap and three slices of pizza kicked in and she was running up and down the trails without stopping. The vegetation at the park is absolutely out of this world, it just seems like a set from the Jurassic Park movie (we were just waiting for T-rex to pop out). Giant fern trees all over the place.

Note to the canyoneering gang (and Jamie) there are some really cool hikes at Volcanoes. Check out the picture at the left, one of the hikes you start where we took this picture from, then you hike down to the Kilauea crater seen below and the trail goes accross it through active steam vents! then you hike back up to the crater rim and back to the parking lot. A total of 4 miles! There are other longer hikes as well but why push it. Over here we may even be able to accomodate Pete and start at what he would consider "crack of dawn" or, 10:00 - 11:00 AM.

In Arizona where there are no plants going out on a hike with Charlotte was excrutiangly annoying because she would stop to look at every plant..... imagine how it is here!

We hiked for a short part of the crater trail and then went into the lava tube, which is a channel formed by lava, and as the outer core cooled down, the inside drained out leaving a huge tunnel where people go Oooooh and Aaaaaah! all the time (very cool actually).

You can see from the picture on the left the type of patience that Hana had for Charlotte's botany lessons. While Syd was interested in learning about ferns & moss and all kinds of stuff, Hana, well, a nap and 3 slices of pizza had to come out of her some how.

After hiking through lava tubes and giant fern forests we went back to the Plum Palace where Syd & Hana made a bouquet of wild orchids and we grilled some hot dogs for dinner...