Day 9: Maui to Hawai'i

This morning started before dawn with a drive to the airport. We had to leave at about 6:30 to leave time to get gas, return the rental car, take the shuttle to the airport, and still be able to check luggage.

I started to regret that 30 lb case of wine that I had to carry around today...

After another brief flight on Hawaiian Air, we arrived in Hilo, on the east coast of the Big Island.


By the time we got the new rental car (Dodge Caliber... 2.0L but CVT, feels peppy), it was only about 10 AM, so we headed south towards Volcano National Park.

On the way, we stopped and had lunch at the Volcano Resort and Country Club Restaurant™. Oddly enough, there's a town called Volcano, which the golf course is named after.

After lunch, we found the park. It was slightly alarming to see a warning sign about sulfur dioxide, but we figured it was for liability reasons and didn't think much of it. Just inside the park entrance, there is a perimeter road that goes around the top of Kilhauea.


One of the first stops, after skipping the visitor's center, was a bunch of steam vents. Apparently, rainwater runs down into fissures and comes in contact with hot rock, then comes back up as thick steam.


The steam just billows out of holes in the ground, it's a little odd to see.


Farther down the road was a lookout point where it was possible to see into the crater ("caldera"?). The crater has gradually been filled in as small eruptions have occurred over the last century or so, I think. My history of Kilauea is a bit rough. Sabrina took pictures of many of the informational signs, but I was too busy rockin' the video camera to read.


Not far past that lookout, we learned that the warning sign at the park entrance was not just for show. The sulfur dioxide fumes had gotten so bad that they closed a section of the perimeter road.


So, we turned around and went the other way, only to discover another closed section of road. My rough estimates with the GPS indicate that about 1/3 of the perimeter road was closed.


Having just acquired some free time in our hastily-drafted plan, we turned to the road that goes down the southern side of the volcano, called Chain of Craters Road.


The trip down this road documents the history of lava flows from the volcano, which just keep going and going and going. The road from the crater perimeter to the shore is almost 20 miles long. Granted, that includes a few switchbacks, but there's still a very large area ofhttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif lava shield here.


It's difficult to grasp just how large the black lava area is from these photos. To get a better idea, you need to see a map.


Anyway, we made it down the road to the coast, where there is a ranger station with some information and lots of walking.
Eventually, you get to a point where the road just ends. Well, it doesn't actually end... but it gets difficult to follow, because it's buried under lava.


In 2003, a small eruption swallowed the road, and also (I believe) a town, further east.


This has easily been one of the best days, using outrageous signs as a metric, that I've ever had.
By this time, it was about 4 PM, so we headed back up the volcano. On the way, we stopped at a lava tube that had been very crowded the first time we passed it.
Just down the road, back towards Volcano Village, as they call it (to avoid confusion), we found our lodging for the evening. We're basically staying in a small cottage, on the side of an active volcano.


Tomorrow morning, we're tentatively planning to go (almost) to the top of Mauna Loa. I don't think you can actually drive to the summit, what with the snow and cliffs and such, but you can get to the observatory at 11,000 feet or so. That's only about 2500 feet shy of the summit.

After that, it's back to the airport in the afternoon for a helicopter ride around the island. Hope to get some video of flowing lava. Then, we fly back to Honolulu for one last day touring Oahu.

Pictures start on page 100.