Perusing my old photo files, I ran across some from when I lived in Hawaii and was reminded of a cool experience I thought I’d share. See how your amusement is of untmost importance to me? Right.

So anyway, I was living in Hawaii Kai, as was my bro Dave (though a few miles apart) and my Dad and his wife came for a visit from Illinois. Dave and I switched off showing them the sights of the island. (Though the hours long trip through Kakaako looking for a beauty supply shop Dave’s wife could kinda remember probably wasn’t one of the highlights of their trip). Figuring I could do better, I suggested a day’s trip to the Big Island, Hawaii, to see the volcano. It’d been active for a few years and on TV they were reporting that the black sand beach (and neighboring town) of Kalapana was in danger of being overrun by lava

Off to the Hilo side, we rented a car and made a quick stop at a local dive for breakfast. My visitors were thrilled with the prices (had one price, five ‘meals’ to choose from). Personally, canned corn as an option at the salad bar doesn’t make me drool with anticipation. But being of mid-western stock, they were quite happy and suggested we return at the end of the day for dinner before heading back to O’ahu.

Somewhat sated, with me trying to comer up with a good reason we wouldn’t be able to have another meal at their new favorite restaurant, we drove up to the main touri area of the Volcanos National Park to see the visitor center and find out where the best viewing of the lava was. Coming out I got to experience a truly touri moment. The lot was filled with rental cars. Half of them were small white ones, just like ours. Good thing the key ring had a tag with the license number on it or this travel tale would end there.

Found the car and headed over to the Kona side of the park where the rangers had reported lava was entering the sea. Way cool. Got to the end of where you could drive your car only to discover you had to walk for a bit over an hour to get to the viewpoint. That’s over large, crumbly chunks of old lava. My Dad’s wife is not real good at walking on sidewalks, so rather than leave her there I suggested we try an end run back the other way to see if we, and the car, could get closer.

So we headed over to Kalapana. Just outside the town, lava had flown over the road. Several hours before we got there. A cop was manning the flow while the ranger who was suppose to be there went on break. We parked, maybe ten yards away from a thick finger of lava and walked up to the cop who was standing a foot or two away from the crusted flow. Asked him if we could get closer, and, well, like he cared. So closer we went.

You could feel the heat and hear a low hissing as lava flowed under the cooled crust. The top was black, but fissured. And like stupid touri the world over, we totally forgot about safety and quickly climbed up on top of the flow. We could only stand there for a few minutes because the heat was so intense it was melting the soles of our shoes. But Dad and I perched atop the flow, staring down into orange-red cracks where you could see the lava slowly moving toward the sea. An incredible experience!

Wasn’t until we got back home and I was telling some friends about it that it dawned on me how really stupid that had been. My local friends looked at me like I was completely nuts when I told them. Mmmmm, let’s see: go stand on freshly cooled lava with the real stuff running just inches below your shoes . . . yep, real smart!

So the black sand beach at Kalapana is no more. The town too is gone. But thanks to some good karma, both my Dad’s and my feet are still with us . . .