Our Hawaiian Vacation- Volcanoes

During our three day stay near Hilo, we spent a lot of time looking at volcanoes and searching for hot lava. The first adventure we went on was a trip to the end of the road where we were staying that had been closed because of the latest eruption.

Ian in the lava field (He learned to say cheese this week, can you tell???)

Emma really wanted to see red lava and we were told that we might be able to see it going into the ocean here

The lava was really cool

And at the end of the walk was the blackest sand beach we have ever seen

There are actually coconuts being grown on the beach

But no hot lava
The next day, we headed to Volcano National Park
First stop was a lava tube, which is a tunnel created by lava

Emma and Zachary in the tube

Ian enjoyed being outside the lava tube

One of the craters

This is the closest we got to an erupting volcano

Emma checks out the steam pots
Then we went on a real adventure...Dan wanted to hike into the crater. Even though it was only about 2.5 miles round trip, I was a little worried because Emma has never hiked that far on her own and the trip was quite vertical. But......

We made it to the bottom!

All old lava rock

Emma make her mark

Ian checks out some lava rock

We were really proud of Emma

It was a truly awesome sight

Then it was time to go back up!

With a little singing and little bribing (we had cookies in the car) we made it back up to the start of the trail!
Out last attempt to see hot lava was another trip down the road from our house. The road was closed and we got close, but still saw no hot lava.....

Anyone want to buy a house or two? There are actually people living in this community with not power or water because their houses were not destroyed and the insurance companies would not help them.
Although we found no "red lava" we were amazed by what we saw.