Hawaii - the series: B-rad almost fell into a crater & rainbows. 452 rainbows...

If you thought I was done with the Hawaii posts, well-you were sadly mistaken. 

 However, this is the 2nd to last installment.  Tear...

On Saturday, the day of Ironman, Butterfly & Rhonda had me drive them to Kona bright & early at 5 am so they could hang out for the day.  B-rad, mom & I weren't sure what we were going to do for the whole day.  We got a late start because B-rad wasn't feeling well.  He had sinus pressure plus his ears never popped from being 14000' feet above sea level the night before.  Ouch!  

We finally headed out around 11 & decided to do what the locals do - avoid Kona...go to Hilo.

It was kind of nice to just drive around & see what we ran into.  That's how we found the Rainbow waterfall I showed you in a previous post.  We also drove past this guy & had to stop:

King Kamehameha.  This dude is serious business in Hawaii.  I can't remember why, but he just is.  Mom wanted her pic in front of him.  See how big this statue is?!

And people put offerings here for him.  Like I said, serious business... UHM, he's great...

We saw we were really close to the Volcano National Park.  I'm all about a real live volcano so we decided to go.

 Students, this is one of those map thingies that shows real elevations.  Mauna Loa is there on the right kinda orange, Mauna Kea is the big dog brown one in the middle & Kilauea?  Well, she's the brown one at the bottom.  And that's where we were.  Gasp.

 You can drive your car along several routes.  Some were closed because of lava flow.  Dang it.  Don't they know I wanna see lava flow?  

The first thing we drove up on were steam vents.  Yes, steam vents.  As in steam...coming out...of the center...of the earth.  B-rad leaned his head over too far (because that's NOT what the rails are for) & got a shot of steam in the face.  

 Yea, just little pockets of steam coming up.

 Mom.loved.it.  She was so excited & wanted to pose with the steam.

 See?

 So we're driving along & there was a museum.  So we pulled in the parking lot.  And as we walked up I saw a sign with a crater & smoke coming out of it.  Cool...it must've done that a billion years ago.  WRONG!  It's doing it right the hell now!!!!

 And we were all uber excited to see Kilauea doing what she does.

 Then we saw a rainbow.  Students, rainbows are very rare.  We only see them when the conditions are just right.

 After we pulled ourselves from the smoking crater, we found a spot where we could walk through a lava tube.  The weirdest thing about this place was all the weather changes just inside the park.  It was like a rain forest as we walked.

 And mom loved this too.  It was cool & moist.  You would think she would've learned by now that moist is not good on my hair.

That big black hole is the lava tube.  See B-rad pointing something out to mom?!

I don't know how long this lava tube has been here...but isn't it crazy that lava used to flow through here?!

 You can see how big it is, then how small it gets...

So mom kept saying, 'take pics of this, take pics of that'.  I had my point & click with me, so I gave it to her & said, "here, take pics of whatever you want...'

In this area, you could see our shadows on the wall...she wanted a take a pic of the shadows... but this is what she got instead...sigh...

It was tough inside the lava tube to get the fancy schmancy camera to focus.  There were lights, but they were not good for picture taking.  B-rad was convinced that he could do a better job so he grabbed the camera...still around my neck.  I said, 'Hey mom -get a pic of THIS!'  

This is now my new favorite picture.  It is the desktop on my computer... & when B-rad calls my phone...

B-rad & I trying to navigate our way outta the rainforest.

As we continued our drive, there are tons of craters & lava flows you can stop & look at.  This lava is from 1974.  It's older than me!

And B-rad was really starting to irritate me with his whole 'I need to lean over as far as humanly possible without falling so I can see every bit of lava there is to see.'

See how close to the edge he is?

The next crater is when I lost.my.mind.  We had watched a film about the lava thingies that pour out into the water & how there were unstable, blah,blah,blah, don't stand near the edge, blah, blah,blah, stay within the railings, blah,blah, blah.

This crater had a nice little walk way around it.  With pretty rails that you could see around perfectly.  Not B-rad.  Those rails weren't meant for him.

I mean, he is right.on.the.edge.of.that.damn.crater.

And this is when I went all 'mommy' on him.  "We watched that film!  It said the edges are unstable!  It could break & you could fall in.  Get your ass away from the edge!"  Then mom chastised me for chastising him.  Gee, thanks...

We drove on to find lava from 1973.  

There were no signs saying we couldn't walk on it...so we did.  Mom LOVED the lava!  She picked up a piece to pose with.  There were no signs saying we couldn't touch it...however, there were signs saying it was against some law/rule/whatever to take lava outta the park.  Bummer...

I find it interesting in the 38 years since this lava flow, there isn't much vegetation.  You can tell it takes for-eva for stuff to grow!

Whoa, look - another super rare rainbow...

The roads of the park were basically carved out of the lava.

This pic is great at showing the sea of lava...with a little lonely road all by itself.

Mom had us pose by a big ole rock

We had decided to follow the road to the end of the volcano park...which coincidentally is also the end of the freakin' island.  We drove through some tall lava to get there!

We were on a windy road that was also pretty high in the air.  On the way down, mom screeches, "THERE'S A RAINBOW!"  Good God, we had seen 400 rainbows...

So we stopped.  And took more pictures.  Of the rainbow.  Because they're so rare...

See mom with her camera?!

It was neat because we could see the beginning & the end of the rainbow.  Like seriously...you could see where it stopped on the ground.  There was no gold...I looked.  I tried to get back far enough to take a pic of the beginning & end but it just didn't work.  Look at B-rad at the bottom...silly...

And just when we thought our rainbow adventure couldn't get any better...mom screeches, "A DOUBLE RAINBOW!"  Heaven help us...we had a double rainbow.  Are rainbows good luck?  Because if they are - I should never have trouble in my life...again...

After our 20 minute rainbow picture taking pit stop, we finally made it to the end.of.the.island.

There was this really cool arch there that we had seen in that pesky film about lava being unstable.  It really was cool to see.  And we all had our picture taken in front of it.  

B-rad first...

Then mom...

And me...but you can barely see me!  B-rad sucks at taking pics!  Pssssh!

The water comes in so fast & hits the edge.  It's just like you see in the movies.  It crashes waaaay up on the rocks.  There's nothing out there to stop or slow the waves down.  NOTHING...

While we were at the museum where Kilauea was smoking, we had seen a picture of what it looked like during the day (which I showed you) & what it looked like at night.  IT WAS SO COOL!  B-rad & mom decided that we had to hang out in the park until it got dark so we could see it.  Since we stopped to take so many rainbow pics, we had no trouble still being in the park when it got dark.  On the way out back out, we stopped at the crater.  And we were not disappointed...  Yes, it is glowing red... told ya it was cool!!