Picture Gallery Tuesday, July 18
J36: Lava from Pu'u O'o
L02: Thurston Lava Tube

This morning we awoke to a hopeful sign: no rain! We were rather optimistic about the helicopter flight this morning. We succeeded in our mission to have an expedient breakfast and get to the Hilo airport by 9:15.

We arrived and assembled with our other travelers in groups of 6 - the other 2 in our helicopter (piloted by William) were our companions from Carsons Volcano Cottages with the Delaware sweatshirt! We also found out later that they are heading to Kona Village next! We got our safety lecture, then headed to the airfield and boarded the helicopter.

The feeling of lifting gently off the ground was pretty astounding! We were soon soaring above the macadamia plantation heading south towards the Pu'u O'o lava flows. Our expert pilot showed us the currently seething cauldron (bathed in steam due to the recent rains), skylights (holes in the lava tubes where you can see the lava inside), magma pools starting brush fires, and ultimately, the lava pouring into the Pacific creating huge towers of steam as it creates new land. We all felt a little queasy during some parts of the flight (Donna even needed to use the "Aloha bags"), but it was a fascinating trip! We bough two copies of the video of our trip afterwards.

A quick trip to Walmart, Borders, and Charlie's Bar and Grill for lunch, and we headed back to Volcano National Park, this time to see the sights along Crater Rim drive. We stopped several times to get good views of the Kilauea caldera and its associated features. We also stopped at the Jagger Museum, Kilauea Iki crater (which erupted spectacularly just 40 years ago), and the Thurston Lava Tube, where we walked through the 200-year-old lava pipeline, now situated in the middle of a lush fern rain forest!

After visiting the on-location art center, we returned to Surt's, this time for an early dinner. Our evening ended relaxing at our cottage, and preparing for our trip to the Kona coast the next day.

day 10	index	day 12