January 25, 2012. Volcano, Hawaii.

This was a non-riding day. We used to call them "rest" days, but that was not the case today! Dianne and I walked about a half mile to go to breakfast at the Lava Rock Cafe. We decided that if we were going to hike we needed protein for breakfast. She is feeling much better and finally got her appetite back.

After we ate we walked to the Post Office. We had to mail the internet connector back to our original hotel! When Dianne was sick I asked her (by phone) to check and see if I left my phone charging cord in the room. She asked if it was a black box with a wire coming out of it. I said yes, and look at what I got!

We went back to our cottage, played one game of Scrabble and it was time to go hiking!

The leaders drove us to Volcanoes National Park. We could see the crater of the Kilauea Iki volcano far below us, with plumes of steam escaping from the crater floor.

Here I am at the rim flanked by Jen and Laurie from Woman Tours.

And here we all are-except for the other leader, Linda, who went to the visitors center to get trail maps.

We could see a large plume from a volcano in the distance beyond the crater. What an impressive sight!

Most of us decided to do the 4 mile Kilauea Iki Trail through the rain forest to the steaming crater floor. It was not an easy hike--rocky terrain, loose stones, and quite steep in places, but when we got to the bottom it was like being in a different world!

We could smell the fire and brimstone! There were large fissures in the lake bed, and places where the steam escaped from below the floor. April and Natalie and I are below--we hiked a distance with Linda and Cheryl to get up close to this vent.

Of course after hiking 400 feet down into the crater we had to hike UP 400 feet to get out of it. It was quite steep... When we got to the top we turned around and hiked the Lava Tube Trail down into the tunnels formed during a long ago eruption.

We returned to our cottages and I called Lynn, my nephew's wife. She lives here (he does too when he's not out to sea). Lynn came to pick us up in her cool Tennessee Titans pickup truck and hauled us off to her house. Dianne was going to go do the laundry instead, but when Lynn offered her laundry facilities to us, Dianne decided to go with us. We had a great time! We went to Lynn and David's house, met the little granddaughter Lily and her nanny, put the clothes in the washer and went out to dinner. We had great food, got to know one another better, and there was even a guitarist playing and singing! Lynn insisted on buying our dinner--told us that David told her she'd better treat his auntie right! Thank you, both of you!

Then it was back to Lynn's to get the laundry, and back to the cottages, just in time to get in the van to drive back to Volcanoes Park to see the volcano at night! We could see an orange glow waxing and waning, but no lava was visible. It was thick with "vog", the volcanic smog that plagues this area making people like me cough.... It was impressive none the less. I think we could not have packed one more thing into this day. Rest day? Hardly.