We ventured out to Volcanoes National Park, this was our last day on the Big Island. A big MAHALO to Shane for being quite the trooper on this excursion. He woke up this morning with a bad bad tummy bug, but still managed to ride in the car for 3 HOURS so we could see the volcano. We left out around 10 am and headed north through Waimea, this was the scenic route. It was such a beautiful drive! Our 1st stop was for a photo op of the original King Kamehameha statute. We had seen the one on Oahu in 2006 and I saw the one at the capitol in DC when I was there with Karen. Next stop was Volcanoes National Park. Once we arrived we stopped at the visitor center and got some tips on where to see the important sights from the park ranger. 1st stop was the Jagger Museum and a view of the Kilauea Caldera. It is does not look like you would imagine a volcano to look...tall and pointed. Its elevation is just under 4,200 feet with a circular caldera. It is one of the the most active volcanoes in the world (it started erupting in 1983). Unfortunately we were not able to see any active lava, the area of the park that had active lava is inaccessible. It was still an exciting sight to see! We stopped off at the steam vents and the Thurston Lava Tube. Going back to the resort we took the southern route and stopped off to see Punalu'u beach...aka black sand beach. The sand at this beach looked like asphalt. The weather was very cloudy, this is a result of the smoke drifting off of the volcano.
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