Our second day was a Volcano day for us. We started by heading to Hawaii Volcano National Park. I think we're unofficially collecting pictures of ourselves standing in front of national park entrance signs.
After hitting up the visitor's center and driving through the park a bit, we headed out on a hike to get a good idea of the landscape. The prevailing theme seemed to be "Life Beats Lava." Which, heck, considering the year we all had in 2011, sure is a relief to find true! It was so inspiring to see the different levels of habitat growth throughout the area. This lava bear was also pretty amazing! The hike itself was on a little bit of slippery ground... I wanted to run part of it but quickly decided that running on loose uneven ground was a bad idea.
From parts of the hike we could see the volcano spewing. It wasn't erupting, just active in the sense that stuff was coming out. I would call it smoke. Pretty cool stuff!
The light throughout the day stunned us at every turn. We truly began to feel that paradise feeling. So many times we'd turn a corner or crest a hill and find ourselves looking at varying bits of sunlight sprinkling the landscape. Gorgeous, breathtaking, and in a way, healing.
Ok, obligatory "couple with a view" pose. I thought I was being so clever by standing on ground a bit higher up from Mark, but alas he's still so much taller me.
Finally, before we were all completely tired out from the day, we headed back to the park to check out the volcano at night. Let's just say my illusion of smoke was dissolved! I couldn't believe that what I thought was smoke earlier was this:
And with that Mark has declared that if it ever truly erupts again in our lifetime (which it likely will), then we'll be on the first flight to Hilo that we can catch.
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