Iris and I used to travel around quite a bit on vacation. We went to Australia on our honeymoon, drove through England a couple of years later, spent time in Yosemite and St. Thomas, and made a couple of trips to Hawaii. We didn’t intend on going to Hawaii twice; we were supposed to go to St. Martin, but a small event named Hurricane Andrew in 1992 made that part of the Caribbean somewhat uninhabitable for a while.
So, we ended up going to the big island of Hawaii and it was a blast. It’s a quiet island, really, not having nearly as much tourist appeal as Oahu. What it does have is Volcanoes National Park, macadamia nut plantations, green and black beaches, and an active volcano. Yeah. Flowing lava and everything. It also has the Ellison Onizuka Space Center, which is just outside the airport on the west side of the island.
We got a rental car and drove everywhere we wanted to go. They call Hawaii “the big island” for a reason. It’s huge! You can’t drive through the middle of the island because of the old volcanoes Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea, so you have to drive around and that makes it a much longer drive to anywhere you want to visit.
There are a couple of areas of interest with regards to the volcanoes. There is the main park, which is inside the old caldera of one of the volcanoes. It’s an amazing place. It looks quite like the surface of the moon, so it’s no surprise that NASA trained the Apollo astronauts there. Then there is the active lava field way down on the south side of the island near the ocean. You drive along this little one and a half lane road that follows the coast until you come up to this black wall, maybe four or five feet high, that cuts right across the road. That’s the lava field. It flowed down the volcano and across the island until it emptied into the ocean and then cooled.
We knew the National Park Service had set up shop here and had planned for it. We came prepared with hiking boots, hats, and backpacks with plenty of water. The rangers had some wooden steps set up so you can climb up onto the field and had laid out a scenic path for people to follow. They also had installed a couple of portable toilets and such, just in case. The field itself is tricky to walk on. It’s volcanic glass, very slippery in spots and very sharp everywhere. Remember the hiking boots? Very important. It’s also jet black, which made it that much hotter when you’re out in the middle of it.
Taking our time, we hiked along the trail, stopping to talk to the rangers that were stationed along the way. They seemed as surprised to see how prepared we were as we were to see the other people out there in bathing suits and sandals. Eventually, we got to the end of the trail where there were a couple of spots of lava oozing up out of the field. It wasn’t difficult to find; from fifty feet away it felt like you were standing next to an oven on high with an open door. We were allowed to get as close as maybe twenty feet to it and that was about as close as you wanted to be. Despite the small size of the flow (maybe a foot or two across), it was still quite impressive.
As we were standing there, admiring the lava, a thought occurred to me. A very simple thought to be sure, but somewhat disturbing all the same. That thought was “WHAT IN THE WORLD ARE WE DOING?”
Here’s the situation: we’re standing in the middle of an active lava field. Active. Lava. Field. Got it? We just spent the last 30 or 45 minutes hiking across a field of razor sharp volcanic glass to get to this point. Was this a smart thing to do? I don’t really know.
It was fun, though.
