Day Two was spent in the Volcano Park exploring as much as we can. I'm sure some of you are wondering if we felt a little weird being this close to an active volcano. While I can't answer for Brian, I can honestly say that I was a little freaked at times. I had to keep telling myself that there are signs of an impending eruption and that if things were unsafe at all, park rangers would not allow anyone to be there. That being said, part of Crater Rim Drive was closed due to high sulpher dioxide gas being emitted from Halema'uma'u Crater. Here is a site where you can look at a handout that we were given when we got to the park...it shows the roads we could travel on and where some of the sites were that we visited....
On that map, it says that the road was closed after KMC and that the Jagger Museum was closed. However, a couple of days before our visit, they opened part of the road back up and were allowing people to go as far as the Jagger Museum. (NOTE: a couple of days after our trip, the park had to be evacuated due to a lot of the gases being blown towards highly populated areas of the park...good thing we were already home!!!)
Here are some things that we saw....
The Steam Vents....basically, rainwater sinks through the ground where it is heated by the rocks that carry heat from the liquid rock below. Hot water then rises through the fissures to condense in the chilled air. They have a few of them accessible to the public and have put railings around them to prevent stupid people from trying anything dumb. :-)
This is the view of the Halema'uma'u Crater and the SO2 cloud from the Jaggar Museum.
After we left the Jaggar Museum, we went back around Crater Rim Drive and explored Thurston's Lava Tube. Basically, this is a space where lava had once flown through...basically, as lava flows, the outer parts harden as it cools and just the inner part is still liquid. As the eruption slows down, the supply of new lava stops and eventually drains leaving just a hallow tube. They have a trail that leads to part of this hallow tube that is lit so you can see the inside. There is another area that isn't lit that you can explore if you have flashlights, but we decided to move on...
Inside the Lava Tube...
We stopped at a couple of stops and one trail we went on was Devestation Trail. You start out walking through a little forest and then it opens up and this is what you see.
They are studying this area to see how vegetation reintegrates itself back into this land and how long until it becomes a forest again. There are signs along the trail asking you to stay on the walkway so that you don't accidentally introduce seeds since they want it to be done as naturally as possible.
After leaving Devestation Trail, we started driving down Chain of Craters Road. This was pretty neat to see, but Austin was pretty much done hiking and there was just a lot of lava to see and nothing that really interested him. The next post will show a little of what we saw on that drive....
This is the view of the Halema'uma'u Crater and the SO2 cloud from the Jaggar Museum.
After we left the Jaggar Museum, we went back around Crater Rim Drive and explored Thurston's Lava Tube. Basically, this is a space where lava had once flown through...basically, as lava flows, the outer parts harden as it cools and just the inner part is still liquid. As the eruption slows down, the supply of new lava stops and eventually drains leaving just a hallow tube. They have a trail that leads to part of this hallow tube that is lit so you can see the inside. There is another area that isn't lit that you can explore if you have flashlights, but we decided to move on...
Inside the Lava Tube...
We stopped at a couple of stops and one trail we went on was Devestation Trail. You start out walking through a little forest and then it opens up and this is what you see.
They are studying this area to see how vegetation reintegrates itself back into this land and how long until it becomes a forest again. There are signs along the trail asking you to stay on the walkway so that you don't accidentally introduce seeds since they want it to be done as naturally as possible. 
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