Big Island Day 2..the Volcano!

day 2 was spent at Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park
(again lots of pics...sorry it's hard to pick my fav's, and we sure crammed as much in as possible!)
a steam vent up close!

the steam is created when rain seeps into the ground and is heated by Kilauea and there ya got it...steam!

first thing emma saw when we went to breakfast...yes a tiki and HAD to get her pic with him!

here's the view from the volcano house. Halema'uma'u Crater a crater inside the Kilauea Crater, said to be the home of Madame Pele, the hawaiian volcano goddess.

over looking Kilauea Overlook

the girls showing the map of what we're going to see today!

the crater

checking things out...the gasses were soooo bad! in fact they closed the park the day after we were there!

reading the volcanic activity

tommy hiked this mount...it's crazy all the different looks the lava has. one area can look like this and the next is totally different, pretty neat!

tommy and i goofing off at Hilina Pali Lookout along chain of crater rd.

more lava...looks nothing alike huh!

and we all took a short 1 mile hike along Pu'u Loa Petroglyph Trail. check out the petroglyph (rock carvings) pretty cool!

imagine that, emma not hiking, lol! those little legs get tired!

Holei Sea Arch, where the ocean has undercut the rock leaving an arch.

another beautiful view!

the o'grady's touching some of the NEWEST land on earth!

lol, FUN!

well we didn't get to actually see any flowing lava, but you can see the steam created when the lava hit the ocean. i guess this way we have a reason to go back!

on the way back up crater chain rd we found Devils Throat, a small collapsed crater. it's impressively sheer and straight down. and the edge very fragile...spooky!

emma straddling a crack that looks never ending!

some crazy trees grow here! the girls thought they looked like monkey tails, lol!

hiking down to the Thurston Lava Tube. glad it wasn't a long hike, it got pretty rainy and yucky!

daddy, megan and emma inside the tube!

what a great experience, there's so much to see here, if you ever go make sure to give yourself at the very least a whole day! (we planned for one and it took all day, we could have easily spent another day here!) someday we'll have to go back just to see if we can see lava flowing.