Volcanoes!!

We took a morning flight from Honolulu (on Oahu) to Hilo (on Hawai'i [the Big Island]), spent the day exploring volcanoes, and then flew back that evening. We rented a car and were confronted with this scene ...

... at the museum (James in picture).

Actually, we didn't see any hot lava flows while we were there. When we got there we learned that there had been hot lava flows that you could drive to see, but that the volcano had burped recently and the flows had stopped four days before our visit. I asked how long it had been flowing before it stopped. They said since the early 80's.... I bet if I washed my car today it would rain tomorrow, too!

Nevertheless, we did drive around and saw some cool sites. Clockwise in the below picture: Mark lifts a huge lava rock (very light due to zillions of tiny air bubbles). Halemaumau crater (about a mile in diameter). Inside a lavatube (hot lava once flowed through this tube, until the volcano ran out of hot lava, or poured it elsewhere, etc.). Steamvents near Halemaumau crater. Sulfur vents. Rift in the Earth (about 25 feet across, 15 feet deep, and 20 miles long).