On this day we got up early and headed to Volcanoes National Park. It was a chilly morning so we are glad we all brought something warm to throw on. I had read online to hike the Thurston Lava Tube before it got crowded and we are glad we did! There was a small parking lot right outside the entrance so we parked there easily and made our way through the underground tube where lava used to flow. We also took a path for short hike up the hill from the parking lot and got to see the Kilauea crater, which we later saw from multiple angles :) When we drove by this parking lot later in the day, there was a major traffic jam of people trying to park there. Happy I did my research!
Katelyn got a run in while we hiked behind her. She'd run up half a mile, then come back to us until she had completed her mileage! She is dedicated, that's for sure! This part of the park was very lush and gorgeous. As we got closer to the crater rim it became desert like!
From this point we couldn't see any steam vents, but it was massive and the closest spot where you can see down into the crater. There we people walking down in the bottom too! We walked and looked at several different lookout points, and here we spotted a rainbow too!
We drove around and there were steam vents everywhere along what looked like just an open field.
Here you can see the entire crater. On the right, where the steam is the largest, is where Kilauea erupted just 5 days earlier. It was spewing 1000 ft into the air! Lex had seen online that it was erupting but we were on the other side of the island with plans to relax on the beach. We briefly thought we should go drive over to see it, but decided against it since we would be there in a few days. I honestly thought we would still be able to see some red hot lava at this point, but it was only steam.
OH NO....Levi is falling off the cliff into the volcano!!! Save him!!
(He tried to make it look that way at least, haha!)
After exploring Crater Rim Road, we popped into the souvenir shop and discovered behind it was a military vacation spot. Veterans can come vacation here for a discount. They had this big game room where Kyler insisted on playing Lex in a game of pool, haha! It also had a movie theater, a bowling alley, pickleball/basketball/tennis courts, etc! All within Volcano National Park, pretty cool!
We ate lunch at the Volcano House restaurant inside the hotel within the park too. We had a fantastic view of the volcano while we ate!
After lunch we drove through the park on the Chain of Craters Road all the way to the ocean. Along the way were lookouts where you can stop and view the old lava flow that made it all the way to the ocean. At the end of the road, we found the "Sea Arch" that was created when lava fell into the ocean and hardened into an arch form. It was all so pretty!
We walked over to this odd group of palm trees not far down the way from the sea arch area. It looked as though the palm trees were flowing in the wind, but the wind was actually blowing the opposite direction. Very strange!
On our drive back we stopped for a quick photo shoot, love it! And you can see the black lava flow better in this photo too.
We headed back and ate dinner at the house. After, Lex checked the live YouTube feed of the volcano and saw what looked like red lava erupting from the same spot it was steaming from earlier. We hopped in the car and headed over (our house was right outside the entrance, so it was a 5 minute drive, we were excited and hopeful). We drove to the closest spot we had stood earlier that day and the fog was intense!! We couldn't see a thing!! But yet the YouTube feed looked clear as day. We were disappointed but found out later it was not erupting, must have just been a red glow from odd lighting. It was predicted to erupt again a few days after we left, which it did. We weren't lucky enough to see it in person but happy we had a chance to see a true active volcano!
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