It's technically the end of our fourth day, but due to several circumstances (one of those being a very busy day yesterday) I'm just now completing the post for day 3. At this point in our vacation, Ely and I are also questioning our sanity in taking a hyperactive 3 1/2 year old on a trip where nap time is not always possible...
Anyways, on Day 3 of our Big Island vacation we took a tour of the Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park. Seeing the volcano sites was our main motivation for choosing the Big Island, and it was definitely a very cool experience :-)
Our first stop was the Kilauea Iki Crater which erupted and filled with lava in 1959. The crater is a mile long, 3000 feet across, and the floor is 400 feet below this overlook.
The smoke in the background of this picture is the hazardous fumes from the Halema'uma'u Crater (the red glow seen in the photos from the other night)
Lucas missed out on this family photo op because he was busy sleeping :-)
Our next stop was the Thurston Lava Tube (Nahuku).
Noah posing next to a small lava tube (he kept wanting to make "goggles" in all of the pictures *but I think he meant binoculars* because they use them in the jungle on Mickey Mouse Clubhouse :-)
At the entrance of the Thurston Lava Tube
Inside the lava tube
We continued driving down Chain of Craters Road, which descends 3,700 feet to the coast and ends at a 2003 lava flow.
Some of the hardened lava that can be seen along the drive
The Pauahi Crater which erupted in 1973 and 1979
The view as we started the final descent on the Chain of Craters Road. The dark strips in the background are old lava flows.
If you look closely at this photo, you can see the old road that used to lead down to the coast...they had to build a new one when lava flowed over the old road :-)
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