Now for the rest of the story...
We took off and headed toward Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. We'd read some parts might open soon, so we took the 45 minute drive to see if they were. We found the official park entrance sign and took our usual family pictures there, but found all other paths into the park officially closed. Bummer! There was actually a big lighted sign saying not to even stop your car for the next 12 miles and to keep your windows rolled up to avoid as much gas as possible. Wow!
Still hoping to see some of the volcanic action, we drive past the park on Highway 11. We drove over some crazy almost-Martian looking landscape, but then we saw lush green canyons to the north. Eventually we even drove through some prairie looking landscape and found a black sand beach too. The change in scenery over the hundreds of years of various eruption sights was wild. It was like being in the central plains one minute, then the beautiful beach followed by the rolling hills of Ireland the next. Oh yeah, and there was volcanic wasteland too. Some of our drive was extra "foggy" due to volcanic ask and smoke. It was an incredible trek!
The black sand beach in the middle of this all was Punalu'u Beach. It is home to many sea turtles because they love the warmth that the sun-heated black sand provides. We dipped our toes in the ocean and took an up close look at the Hawaiian Green Sea Turtles. We even found a couple of them in a large tide pool. Across from the black sand beach we found a bunch of old lava flow formations. It was neat to see what the lava looks like after it's flowed out and instantly cooled as it touches the ocean. Such a great stop!
After looking at the map, we noticed we were only about 25 miles from a green sand beach at Papakolea. Since there are only two green sand beaches in the world, we decided to try to check it out. After a long and twisty drive south, we found the trailhead. There we learned that it was either a hot and dusty 6 mile round trip hike to the beach or a $15 a person shuttle over the rocky terrain. Not wanting to waste the time or money, we took at look at what we could see from the point and headed back in search of more lava.
In our search for lava, we felt a bit like storm chasers. We kept seeing plumes of smoke and pink colored sky around us, but we just couldn't seem to find any active lava flows. Many paths were blocked by police or the National Guard. We did see several Emergency Disaster Response areas, but it was getting late so we decided to call it quits. Then, one last turn toward Hilo, and we saw the holy grail lighting up the night sky! We parked and I climbed on top of our van's roof for a better view. I caught a couple of eruptions of orange liquid hot lava bursting up in the night sky...right behind someone's house and near the local HS! We stood and took in the crazy colors of the clouds, smoke, and lava bursts for a while until hunger took over. Then, we headed back to Hilo for dinner at Ken's 24 hour Cafe (a surprising good choice as their huge menu that allowed everyone to get whatever they wanted for our late night dinner).
Today we are off to find Mauna Kea and the beach voted #1 in the US for several years running. Then after we grab a quick bite to eat for dinner we'll swim with the manta rays. Check back soon for that update!
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