Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Hawai'i. Big island. Volcanoes. Awesome.

I took advantage of the opportunity to attend the National Great Teachers Seminar in Hawai'i, on the Big Island, staying in the Kilauea Military Camp IN Volcanoes National Park. Aside from all the brainstorming and teaching techniques, I spent every day roaming the crater rim (really it's a caldera) and beyond.

This is where the flow is currently traversing the land to get to the ocean. This apparently was a subdivision 2 weeks ago. Note the helicopters - that is where I wanted to be.

At the very very end of the Thurston lava tube, it was awesome. We named a new "lava cave" feature too. While lava stalactites have long been known as "lavacicles", we have now officially designated lava stalagmites as "Pele's poop". This is what happens when you find equally nerdy teachers to go on 10 mile hikes with you on your afternoon off - and they weren't even geologists!!! L-R: math, english, computer science, english, ME

Anyone who knows me knows that I love to hang onto the edge of lava cooling cracks. Hawai'i is especially fun for this due to the lack of snakes!

Looking across Kilauea-Iki "crater" - a roiling lava lake in 1959.

Yay! Steam vents in Kilauea "crater"! Right there! Right next to me! Exciting!

Himalayan raspberry. Tasty. I just love trails that I can eat my way down.

Freaking awesome flower on some sort of GINGER plant!!! Except that this ginger root smelled like musty garbage and not the ginger that is tasty. Sure had a pretty flower though.

Flower on an Ohia tree. I love these - they give the trees this all-over firey pom-pom appearance.

A jumping photo, of course, who couldn't resist in this environment???

The Big Island in Signs

I was perpetually entertained by signs we saw on our ventures - too much fun!


Why not try to make back a little money after your house has been consumed in a rebellious flow of lava?


This will be a new addition to my office: "use the resources immediately available to you"


no matter how much I reach out to them, volcanoes are perpetually unfriendly - at least these weren't filled with boiling pools of acid...

the nice thing about hiking across calderas is that signs like these can often remain unnoticed until you randomly come across the the designated "trail"


behind this sign is an active vent within a crater within a caldera, even I don't need a warning!