Hawaii ~ Day 3: Hilo, Hawaii Part 2
After Brad and I got back from horseback riding, we grabbed a quick lunch, changed, and headed out to the Volcano National Park. Yep, I said Volcano. The National Park was about a 30 minute drive away. While we were driving there, the clouds started looking pretty grey. When we got there, it was sprinkling just a little bit and it was very foggy/misty. This kind of interrupted our volcano hunting. However, the park has quite a bit to see in it so we talked to a park ranger, grabbed a map, and headed out. Here's what we saw!
The first place we went to were the Steam Vents. The trail we followed leads you to the edge of a crater. The ground water flows over the hot volcanic rocks and creates heated steam! We stood by the fence and felt the hot steam coming out of the crater. That was an experience!
The second place we went was a Lava Tube. A couple hundred years ago, live lava flowed through this tube in the ground and emptied out into the ocean! It was pretty cool to walk through. The floor and the walls of the tube were kind of bubbly looking and feeling!
The third place we stopped was a lookout where you could see hardened lava and a deep crater. We walked around this area the most. It was unbelievable to be walking on lava and think about it coming out of a volcano! The crater is a mile long, 3,000 feet across, and the floor is 400 feet below the overlook. Cool!
The last area we stopped at was the Jagger Museum. The Jaggar Museum is a museum on volcanology with displays of equipment used by scientists in the past to study the volcano, working seismographs, and an exhibit of clothing and gear from scientists who got a bit too close to lava. The museum also told the story of Pele and how the volcanoes came to be in a pictorial and written display. The overlook outside the building had an incredible view of the volcano, one of the world's most active volcanoes!!
After our awesome visit to the park, we stopped in town at this amazing restaurant called, Pineapples. I would probably fly back to Hilo just to go to this restaurant again! If you're ever in Hilo...go to this place!
We were pretty worn out after Day 3! It was busy, but fabulous!
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