Hawaii Part 1: Volcano

Aloha!

Our trip started with a too-long layover in the Honolulu airport, because I'd convinced myself that an hour wasn't enough time to get to the inter-island terminal, thanks to reading TripAdvisor postings from what I now suspect are a group of human-tortoise hybrids.  

After an unsatisfying airport lunch, a review of the terminal shops, some lunatic running, and chatting with a retired teacher who had flown over from Hilo for the morning to see her orthopedist, we made the short hop to Hawaii Island.  We stopped at Target in Hilo, where we lost Lucie for about 10 minutes, and purchased enough wine that the check-out girl asked if we were having a party.  As we drove up to Volcano Village, the threat of rain turned to promise to total commitment.  Which should not have been surprising, as we were heading 3700 feet up from sea level to a rainforest.

Once in Volcano, we found our rental house was a bit eclectic (my words, the rest of the family lovingly dubbed it the "s'hale", which is a combination of the Hawaiian word for house - hale - and a profane word for an outhouse).  After exploring the 3.5 rooms and determining the TV was too old to hook up to the Apple TV, we headed out for a nice diner at the 'Ohela Cafe and discovered this was the face Lucie makes when you use a shrimp head as a finger puppet.

After a night of rain patter and frogs - or birds?  probably frogs - I woke with the sparkle-bright sunrise, admired the yellow ginger and other lush plants, and went on a fruitless search at 6 am for an open breakfast place.  When the property manager advised stocking up in Hilo, I guess she meant more than the variety fun pack of cereal, wine, and Cheese-its.  After something resembling breakfast and failed attempt at using an automatic drip coffee-maker, we drove down to Kalapana and used the less-conventional east entrance to Volcanoes National Park:

When you get to the end of the public road, you park your car, peruse the 6 or so bike rental tents, hitch a van ride for the first 1.5 miles of gravel park-and-residential access road (if you're smart) -

and then pedal the rest of the way through the lava field

until you can see where Kilauea's lava flows into the ocean.

Can you get closer?  Of course, if you are willing to a) pony up $225 a head for a "lava boat" tour, b) pony up even more for a helicopter, or c) defy NPS safety regulations, bust through that very challenging barrier you see behind us, and chance you won't walk into barely crusted-over lava, a collapsing sea cliff, or a cloud of sulfur dioxide and glass particles, aka VOG.  VOG sounds pretty alarming when you read the park service warnings, and then you get to the leeward side of the island and it's blamed for such evils as being forgetful or feeling tired.

Regardless of the real vs perceived threat level, we still had 4 miles of gravel road surrounded by sparkly black rock to ride back through under full tropical sun.

So we felt pretty brave anyway, particularly after we found an Off-the-Grid resettlement home that runs a little end-of-the-driveway honor bar (well, cooler) full of water and soda.

We also went into the park from the official entrance, where we watched a short film about Hawaii and volcanoes, walked through a big lava tube with a busload of Chinese tourists, did a short rain forest hike -

- and visited the Kilauea caldera overlook at sunset, after dinner at the Volcano House hotel, which probably is nicer than the s'hale.  

The Volcano House also opens (sort of) for breakfast earlier than anywhere else nearby.  This did not result in actual breakfast, since it was really more of a Hampton-Inn-by-the-highway-buffet for hotel guests.  But I did manage to get a couple of lattes from the lobby coffee counter, AND see a Nene on the way.

Despite all the complaints about the rental house, the kids enjoyed the hot tub on the deck, and probably enjoyed the yard even more.  The jungle-ish vegetation lent itself particularly well to some elaborate game involving Dexter, the monkey from The Night at the Museum movie, and possibly spies.  I also managed to coax them into the backyard volcano tube, once they were absolutely convinced the red glow at night was just a yard light.

But I know not to push my luck in the Outdoors & Nature department, so it was time to head to our next destination.  We decided to take the more scenic north coast route, so that Brennan and Lucie could ignore waterfalls and ocean cliffs in favor of reading Percy Jackson & the Olympians and bickering with each other.  They did like stopping at this farmers' market to taste local honey and put leftovers in the pig bucket.