Hawaii Volcanoes National Park

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Yesterday morning, we made sure to swim and eat some malisadas from the cafe before we packed up and set out for Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. I'd been really looking forward to going to the national park, but I found that I was sad to leave our resort. There were some pros and cons to where we were staying, but, when it came down to it, we had the best time there. We loved the pool. There were plenty more beaches to explore in short driving distance. I was sad to go.

It was only a two hour drive to Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. I didn't want to be stuck waiting for our room to be ready, so we stopped at various places along the way. We stopped to see the painted church. We were going to stop at Punalu'u Bake Shop for lunch and a last malasada, but the line was out the door! So, we stopped at a coffee shop across the street instead. Lastly, we stopped at a beach along the way. There were many to choose from, but we picked Whittington Beach Park because it was almost directly on our route, and it was supposed to have good tide pools. The tide must not have been low enough when we arrived, because we couldn't find much sea life at all. We wandered around a bit and took some photos, and then we piled back into the car. Most of our stops had been a bit of a bust! That was OK, though, because our room was ready when we arrived at the national park.

Volcano House is absolutely stunning. It's quaint and cozy, and we have a corner room with good ventilation. After checking in and getting situated, we went to the visitor's center to get the kids some Junior Ranger books. Then we went back to Volcano House and ate and checked out the glow of the eruption from from the rim. Part of me really wanted to go see the active eruption from Keanakako'i Overlook. A cinder cone had just collapsed there, and lava was popping and bursting. Honestly, I was just too tired. I haven't gotten over my jet lag this trip and have been napping every day, but I couldn't nap on the drive. So, we hung out in our room, played a few games, and I was asleep by 8pm.

This morning, I woke up at 3:30am as usual. The rest of the family was up around 7am. We ate breakfast, I grabbed a Holoholo tour guide from the visitor's center veranda, and then we set out for the overlook to see the current eruption. I'm glad we didn't miss it! We could see some lava flowing a bit, glowing, and even popping. It wasn't quite as spectacular as the videos I saw from the National Park Service last night, but it was still impressive! It started raining when we got back to the car. There was still more I wanted to see, so we drove to Mauna Ulu Lava Shield. It's a lava flow from the 1969 eruption. It's really cool to see. It's only a short, 0.1 hike from the parking lot (we appreciated the short hike in the rain!). We were rewarded with old lava formations in the form of mushrooms, and we saw volcano glass. It was really neat! On our way back to Volcano House, we stopped to hike through the Thurston Lava Tube.

We dried off at the Volcano House and rested a bit until housekeeping was close to our room. Then we set off on a little hike from Volcano House. First we went southeast and enjoyed the little hike through the forest and along the crater rim. After that, we doubled back and went past Volcano House to the northwest. This part of the hike was incredible! There were steam vents everywhere. At a few points during our hike, visibility was very poor due to all the steam. Andrew walked about 20 feet ahead of us to check out the trail, and he disappeared into the mist. I actually started to get nervous on our hike because we passed three steam vents that were basically attached to the trail! Still, it was beautiful, if not a little scary, and I'm glad we made the trek. Afterwards, we drove to a little general store to pick up some snacks and cold sandwiches, and we brought them back to our newly cleaned room for some lunch.

Later in the day, we were going to set out on the last two hikes on my Holoholo tour. We set out for the Pu'u Loa Petroglyphs. My stomach started acting up along the way, and there are no services in the final part of our drive. We had to double back so I could use the restroom elsewhere. When we finally got there, it was nearly impossible to follow a trial. I'm guessing it's difficult at any time, but it was especially difficult in the rain. We went back to the hotel, and I found out that I could do the hike virtually on Google! So, I did the last two hikes virtually. I fell asleep around 8pm, which was New Year in Des Moines! I definitely didn't make it to midnight in Hawaii.

When we woke up the next morning, we decided to stay in our room and relax the morning away. We had to check out at noon, and our flight wasn't scheduled until 10:45pm. We were going to be "homeless" for about 10 hours, so we decided to enjoy the indoors. There's no TV in the hotel room, but we played a few board games and used wifi a bit until it was time to check out. Once we checked out, I went back to the visitor's center to turn in my Holoholo tour reflection. I earned a new sticker for my National Park Service cancelation book! I'd told Andrew before that I hoped that was the prize at the end. It was exactly what I wanted.

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