Hawaii: volcano-spotting/dining tips from the pros

Okay, I am going to take you to Volcanoes National Park in a minute but first I want you to see a little more of our cottage at Volcano Rainforest Retreat. This is one of the coolest places we have ever stayed:

And here’s what it’s like to sit out on our patio as the sun starts to set:

Travel novices who visit Volcanoes National Park stop in at the Visitor Center at the very start of their day to gather information. We made it there at the end of our 5-hour visit and I will allow that they had some extremely fine maps, planning displays, multiple rangers offering advice, and audio walking tours to download.

But given our traveling expertise, we just drove off into the park, figuring we’d surely notice a large volcano.

We discovered the 500-year-old Thurston Lava Tube, which was formed when a volcanic eruption from Kilauea Volcano created a lava flow that cooled and solidified on the outside. As the last of the lava flows out, the earlier flow has hardened enough to create a cave. Thurston Lava Tube is 600 feet long. If you are lucky enough to “hike” the cave while Ron is in there, you will get to listen to him tell each and every stranger we pass that there is an ice cream shoppe at the end!

Here’s Ron hiking down to the entrance:

And then here’s the entrance:

From the lava tubes, we decided to drive the Chain of Craters Road. This is a 19-mile stretch of road that passes tons of lava fields.

Here’s one from early in the drive, when we both readily got out of the car:

Here’s a gem from my favorite photographer:

By here – maybe at the 11 mile mark – Ron hung out in our Chevy Equinox and let me look at lava fields on my own as his curiosity had been satisfied:

As we made various stops, we looked around, generally and in a volcanologist sort of way, scouting for a volcano, a large mountain etc., and I’m really embarrassed to say we were never sure we saw one.

We did finally make it to the bottom of Chain of Craters Road. The temperature when we started at the top was about 65 and it was 89 where Ron stands in this picture:

An hour or two later, back up at the Visitor’s Center, with a solid opportunity to gain some directional information about a volcano, we instead went over to the Volcano House, a nearby restaurant, and I had this amazing soba noodle salad:

While we ate, we asked our waiter about the volcano and he happily shared all the details we needed about steam vents and lava flow, and we were able to see steam coming out of the Kilauea Crater. This first pic is mine – but the steam is pretty hard to see. The second pic is from a more active day.

As I type this up for you, I realize the problem I was having was that I was expecting a volcano that looks something like our beautiful Mt. Rainier at home, where I can use all of my geology skills to conclude it’s probably a volcano and I don’t even need a waiter to assist me:

Here, by contrast and with great thanks to our Volcano House waiter, is what Kilauea looks like when an eruption occurs:

That’s it for the park for us. I feel about like I feel when I exit a museum in Europe – I wandered around pretty blindly, grasped a few main ideas, and watched Ron buy a t-shirt in the gift shop. Ron, when asked about the park, said he could take it or leave it, and I just hope there’s no Park Service employees reading this. He did seem to really enjoy a Kalua pork flatbread he ate as we talked with our Volcano expert/waiter and so I’ll leave you with a picture of that:)

Tomorrow we head to Hilo.