I have to say, one of the highlights of the trip was Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park. But not just because of the dried lava hikes, glowing lava lakes, steaming ocean entry points, and beautiful scenery. The pair of resort flowers we later dubbed “The Lava Girls” really made the trip worthwhile.
As we did our stroll down Chain of Craters Road, we pulled off at all of the crater scenic stops. Puhimau Crater was a perfectly lovely picture-taking spot until the Lava Girls walked up. The first was dressed in fashionable not-very-park-appropriate clothes and marching with determination up to the viewing area. The other in skin tight workout clothes yapping on her cell phone and yelling, “We’re in Hawaii looking for lava! We just want to see lava today.”
For those of you who didn’t have maps that said in nice bold letters that you could only see glow at the sea and from Jaggar Museum handed out at the door of the Visitor’s Center, this is the explanation from USGS on why these girls were in the wrong damn place:
Puhimau pit crater is about 160 m deep. The crater probably formed between the mid-15th century and A.D. 1800. No eruptions have occurred from Puhimau Crater, and no lava flows from historical eruptions have poured into the crater. Dense forest surrounds the crater, but a small thermal area lies just north of the crater. Steam often can be seen low on the northwest wall. (Emphasis added.)
Lava girls stomped off back to their car and sped down the road to their next crater stop.
I’ll assume they left very unsatisfied. I would even put money on one of them saying something like, “They totally lied – there were no volcanoes at that park!”
There was a great glow from the lava lake that night, but I’m sure they never saw it. We were both tempted to give them directions to the nearest sources of lava just to remove them from the gene pool. Unfortunately, without any surface breakout, that would be tough. (Of course, with surface breakout, it would have been tough since they weren’t dressed for hiking on lava – typically the first step in finding the hot, flowing stuff.)
They could have taken a walk to the sea, usually the surface “breakout” in that event occurs when you get too close to the overhanging edge (“Look closer!”) and the crispy-crusty ground gives way.
That would have removed them from the gene pool via the washing machine action of surging water and sharp lava.
We thought about that, but apparently there’s heightened security around the areas near there since that’s technically all private property. Just because the lava has burned down all of the homes out there doesn’t mean the owners don’t still own the land. :) So, unfortunately, they would probably be caught and re-released into the gene pool. But, believe me, we did weigh those options of lava benches.
Awww, no pics of the lava girrlzzz?