The Brown Kiddos: Hawaii Vacation - Sept 14 - Hawaii Volcanoes National Park

On Monday, Sept. 14, we headed down to spend a day learning about volcanoes at Mt. Kilauea in the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. We went to the Visitors Center there and looked at exhibits and watched a movie about the volcanoes of the Hawaiian islands. Actually, Sydni and I only got to see half of it, but that's OK. Then, we drove over to the Jaggar Museum and got to see more volcano stuff, and we got to get a closer view of the active crater of Mt. Kilauea. Due to high sulfur dioxide levels, we weren't able to spend much time there, just enough for a few pictures and to look around in the museum there. In there, Dane learned a lot about seismographs, which are the instruments geologists use to measure the volcanic activity. There were also lava rocks on display there.

After we snuck out of the movie early.

Dane had a couple disposable cameras for the trip to take his own pictures, and I think he used up most of his film on this day!

Nearby the crater, there were tons of steam vents. I thought this was so neat, and also kinda scary.

Several more views of the steam vents.

More views of the crater from a different location.

This was the closest thing to a flower that I could find to put in the front of the picture :)

The frozen lava lake formed during the 36 day eruption in 1959.

Walking along the trail that leads to the lava tube, a tunnel formed from flowing lava.

The entrance to the lava tube

Heading back to the car

After we left the main park area, we followed the road that passes most of the craters that have erupted in the past and have left miles and miles of lava fields. These pictures are from one of our many stops.

As we drove closer and closer to the coast, the lava fields continued. At this point, the land drops off dramatically, and far below, you can see the coast. This was a beautiful part of the drive.

At this lookout over the ocean, you can see several arches formed by the lava at some point. I read that eventually, the crashing waves erode these away and they collapse. This was a very beautiful, yet intimidating view.

Back in the 90's, this lava flowed over the road for a stretch of about 10 miles, and the road, obviously, had to be closed. It is now part of the national park system, and they allow you to walk all over the fields. If you walk to the other side of the 10 miles, you can actually see where some lava flows into the ocean. In some of the pictures of us at the arches above, you can see the plume of smoke in the distance caused by that. This part of the day was Dane's favorite. We climbed and explored for a while and really had so much fun.

This was interesting, we thought!

Sydni was such a great trooper in her stroller and car all day, so she was certainly happy to get to walk and be free for a while.

I just have to say that I am so proud of the dad that Lane is. He has always been such a fun person, and he just makes trips so much fun, and he does so much to help me with the kids to make our adventures the most fun possible! This little girl is so blessed to have her daddy. I have a feeling they will be extra close as she grows up.