Vistas of Beauty and Devastation

The third day of our Hawaii trip was a "road trip" day. We put the top down on the convertible we'd rented and headed south around the island toward Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. But we had one particular stop in mind along the way: Punalu'u Beach.

This spot along the southern coast of the island is better known as Black Sand Beach, and is one of several interesting colored sand beaches to be found throughout Hawaii. (We were curious about another green sand beach on the Big Island, but were told a four-wheel drive vehicle was necessary to get there.) The black sand there is not oversold or metaphorical:

I know that photo makes the place look more like Black Rock Beach, and parts of it certainly are -- like the area where lots of guys like this were hiding out:

But there were big patches of sand too, and it was indeed black, ground down lava rock.

We walked around for a while, taking in the gorgeous scenery...

...and then were back on our way.

Despite being no more than 75 miles away, Hawaii Volcanoes National Park took around two hours to get to, a phenomenon we came to refer to as "Hawaii miles." It's not just that the roads wind around more than they do in the typical city, and it doesn't seem like it's just that the speed limits everywhere are lower than back in the continental U.S. No, I swear that every "Hawaii mile" feels longer when you're driving it. Just when you get to thinking, "I must have missed the last mile marker a while back," there it comes.

So, several Hawaii miles later, we arrived at Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. It was the intended main attraction of our days on the Big Island, because we wanted to see lava (aka "liquid hot magma") as up close and personal as possible. We were quickly disappointed by the park ranger at the Visitor Center, who told us there was no lava accessible anywhere in the park limits at the moment. A real comedian, he pulled out a bar of Lava hand soap and showed us that. I assure you he wasn't as sick of telling that joke for the thousandth time as we were of hearing it the once.

We knew from news reports (and from daily lava alerts issued in Hawaii) that there was indeed flowing lava elsewhere on the island -- it had been destroying people's homes in recent weeks. We briefly discussed trying to seek out such an area. I'd like to claim that we weren't ghoulish enough to go gawk at someone's ruined home, but it's probably more fair to say that we simply weren't willing to do more driving in search of something that might have access to it blocked anyway.

But there was plenty more to see in the park. The steam vents were a bit unimpressive after our recent trip to Yellowstone National Park, but the Kilauea Caldera was a breathtaking sight, along with the desolate land around it:

Also just a few minutes from the Visitor Center was a lava tube you could walk through. The short trail to get there was through a small, lush rainforest...

... a stark contrast to the bleak landscape just minutes away at the caldera, and full of interesting enclaves, nooks, and crannies.

The lava tube itself was fairly neat. Or at least, we thought so at the time.

You walked for a couple minutes and a few hundred feet through this tunnel once carved by magma, then emerged back in the rainforest. As interesting as the contrast was, we'd have another experience later on in the trip that retroactively rendered this place little more than a "Black Bart's Cave" for adults. (Denver area readers, or people who have seen the "Casa Bonita episode" of South Park, should understand the reference.)

But that will be a story for later, as will be the rest of our time in the park.