Turns out, when you're at the top of the crater looking out towards the active caldera, you can see the trail that exists at the bottom of the extinct caldera. And there's a path. That you can walk.

That's right, there are people at the bottom of that hill.

We had parked at the Lava Tubes overflow parking, so saw this view on the hike over to the Lava Tubes entrance and main parking lot. The path down to the bottom of the crater was near that entrance, we think, across from the Lava Tubes entrance sign. Unsure about that.

What we are sure about is that the hike down, across, and back up was not the journey we wanted to make so underprepared. Or maybe not at all, given the hike back up for Mom.

So, we just looked at it. Maybe next time.

Right, the Lava Tubes from yesterday. Whee!

So, after Mom and I hiked from the overflow parking lot for the Lava Tubes, parking there in error, to the main parking lot and the Lava Tube entrance (an easy 1km hike), we walked up a short distance, then down the paved switchbacks to the tube entrance. Which, by the way, totally looks like a cave you'd see in an Indiana Jones movie if said movies had handrails surrounding said caves. Oh, and signs pointing you where to go for the treasure:

There was a nice bit of stairs waiting for someone to wait at them, maybe hear a lecture on the lava tube formation (which, incidentally, was from a flow of lava having a slower flow cool on top of it and harden, as the now-buried flow kept moving), or record jungle bird sounds (which is what Mom and I did).

This is what the Lava Tube looks like inside of it:

It's like a damp cave, with lights. The tunnel wasn't very long, and we were through it in less than 5 minutes. It was neat to visit and learn about the formation of them. If you're at Volcano, do go walk through it.

Okay, here's something I don't understand:

If everyone is going to go around the gates, why not put the barrier where people are actually going?

Yes, yes, I completely understand that it is more likely the view was developed AFTER the barrier went in, and know that. It was, however, an opportunity to tell my mom about the "pave the paths" story, though I told it pretty-much tech-universe centered. Something like the stories collected on this page:

When I was an undergraduate student, I had the opportunity to witness one of the great design processes of the century. Or perhaps it was just one of those lucky breaks occasionally caught by poor planners. My university completed the construction of a new lecture hall near the center of campus before students entered in the fall semester. Although there was a network of sidewalks around the perimeter of campus, no sidewalk was routed to many of the entrances of this building, which housed the largest classes and hence had the most traffic throughout the year.

The new hall remained virtually disconnected throughout the rainy season, then through the snowy season, and on into the season of mud. Well-worn paths emerged throughout the year, marking optimal routes to other significant destinations. Had they been left unpaved, I am sure that archeologists would have had little trouble finding the campus epicenter based on the artifacts strewn along the way. The following spring, however, the most-used paths were paved and thereafter became the official routes between termini.

Years later, I spoke with a member of the faculty who assured me that this was all part of the grand plan, and that the lack of concrete paths was part of a process. The reported rationale for the campus sequence was that it was more effective to let the students find the "natural" paths and optimize their own travel than it would have been to predict them and then have students find shortcuts after the fact.

I really want to put a "the" in that title....

Mom and I went to the volcano today. For the first time since 1982, the volcano has been spewing and sloshing hot lava (a term which cracks me up and makes me think of the Hot Lava ultimate frisbee team) in the caldera. Because of this appearance and subsequent sloshing, the volcano is quite popular as a tourist destination. Where previously you could just drive around a big hole at the top of the hill, now you can see smoke rising from the hill and red lava sloshing. Win!

Of note, it's not called THE volcano. You go to Volcano. Turns out, there's a town just outside of the volcano named, unsurprisingly, Volcano. This is where you go. The volcano itself is in the national park outside of the city. You say, "We are going to Volcano," not "We are going to the volcano."

And people think Los Angelenos are weird with their freeways. :eyeroll:

Anyway, it was 82°F and sunny when Mom and I left from Kona in the morning. Going to be a scorcher of a day, yessiree. We left in shorts and t-shirts, arriving at Volcano to discover it was 61°F and raining and windy and OH MY GOD WHY DIDN'T WE LOOK AT THE WEATHER REPORT? Oh, wait, we did. It was supposed to be sunny. When the wind stopped and the sun came out, yes, it was nice. But neither of those happened very frequently.

We arrived at 9:47am, 13 minutes before the museum near the crater opened. We weren't the only ones in shorts and t-shirts, though we seemed to be the only ones who stayed in shorts. When the museum opened, we bought matching sweatshirts.

The view of the volcano sloshing is a distant one. We don't really want people falling IN to such craters. The road around the crater has been closed, so we couldn't drive around, and maybe oh, I don't know, "accidentally" head down the mountain for better pictures. Probably better that way.

There was a mounted, free, scope thingy at the top of the mountain by the museum. I tried to get a good picture through the lens, as I had managed in Tanzania on the safari with binoculars (and WHY DIDN'T MOM AND I BRING THE BINOCULARS FROM THE CONDO? I don't know), but didn't have as much luck this time:

We spent about 15 minutes looking at the volcano (a slight exaggeration on the shortness of our stay), twice through the telescope aimed down, and had a quick spin through the museum, before Mom suggested the lava tubes. "Well that was a long drive for a short view," was our joke about how fast we toured the volcano, so maybe the 15 minutes isn't THAT far off. Given how far away the lava was there, however, I was done with the sight-seeing and was happy to head off. On the drive back to the park entrance, which is close to the tube entrance, we passed a section of the park labelled "STEAM VENTS." Mom had never been to them, and drove by the parking lot near them. After passing, asked me, "Want to go?"

"Adventure. Turn around. Let's go!"

So, we parked the car, hopped out, and looked around at all the steam vents puffing steam. I immediately walked into the plumage and stood there. Hot, water-laden air wafted around me, coating me in droplets. It was warm in the steam, but cold when the wind swirled. An interesting, not unpleasant sensation.

We wandered around for a bit along the edge of the hill until we found a map, and realized there was a 1.2 mile loop that we could do. Hot damn, off we went along the steam vent trail.

After a very short while, the trail descended down along the crater wall. Mom was a little concerned about how far we had descended, realizing that we'd have to go back up the hill and we were hiking the trail fairly quickly. If down was gradual and we were running out of trail distance, the up at the end was going to be brutal. Turns out, there was only one section that was really hard. Mom was careful, and the hike was nicely easy overall. We were both excited to be out and about and walking in nature. Hiking, even!

Hiking was something I had wanted to be doing, so I was happy that we had found such an interesting trail.

We also went to the lava tubes, tomorrow's tale.