Yesterday was a good day — woke up at 4:30 and picked up a friend to go to Volcanoes National Park. Two and a half hours later we were at the Kilauea crater, an awesome sight. Did a bit of hiking there (including a trek through a lava tube), took some photos, then headed down to the coast to see the area where the volcano is still active. The web site for the park had mentioned that if we were lucky we might see some steam where the underground lava was reaching the sea, but instead of steam we got to see a river of lava running down the hillside — apparently starting Thursday the eruptions had picked up in intensity. Not only did we get to see this, but we were able to walk about a mile out over the cooled lava to within fifteen feet of the lava flow — there was rock melting and burning all around us while molten lava poured down the hill in front of us. Hawaii isn’t somewhere that’s high on my list of travel spots, but this experience definitely pushed it up several notches.
"My life amounts to no more than one drop in a limitless ocean. Yet what is any ocean, but a multitude of drops?" — David Mitchell