Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park

What a wonderful day we spent in Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park! Oh, you should really go there! We left the hotel at 7:00 a.m. which left us a tad short on shut-eye. First of all...Kilauea. There was no spatter and no lava glow after sunset, but you know what? Just peering into the caldera of an active volcano makes one think. It was impressive and I'm so glad I got to see things and learn things and think things I haven't seen, learned, and thought about prior to this trip.

We walked through the lava tube which reminded me of one of my mission presidents and his son taking me there when I visited while teaching on Lana'i. I tried to contact him and his wife before we left the mainland, but heard nothing back from them, so I'm sad I didn't get to see them this trip, however, it would have been difficult with K's family's agenda. And the fiddleheads! Those are the curled up ferns. Those remind me of the "cinnamon rolls" that I see while snowshoeing. We hiked, I don't know, something like 2.4 miles across pahoehoe lava to see petroglyphs. K was impressed that I started noticing them on my own long before we arrived at the actual site with the boardwalk and waysides featuring them. The Lehua flower is never picked or used in hair or to make leis. It's taboo (kapu). And this was my first time seeing the endangered Hawaiian state bird, the Nene (goose). We had a nice dinner at Volcano House--I ordered the vegetables and they were delicious! We drove the 2.5 hours back to the resort in the dark and rain.

K's mom mentioned a few times on the trip that she wanted to do most of the driving so that we could all be free to look out the window. She wasn't very happy with me when I dozed in the car. First of all, I often doze as a passenger. Second of all, I can't see much with a tall headrest and person sitting in front of me (I'm used to sitting in the front). Additionally, I was exhausted. Jet lag, all the extra work I had to do to prepare for the trip, being kept up until 2:00 a.m. in "my time zone"...I wanted to see everything, but I just. couldn't. keep. my. eyes. open. It wasn't that I wasn't interested. I was...incapable. Sleep deprivation is a serious form of torture. Good sleep, sufficient sleep on the other hand, is true medicine.