The Big Island of Hawaii
Ok, quick update...Thursday, we took the main road our house is off of to its end to see what was there. From the looks of the map, this road use to go in a circle from here up into the Volcanoes National Park and back around...until a few years ago, it was cut off by lava. We hoped to see the current lava flow where it enters into the ocean, but unsurprisingly, the road ended far before the lava flow. However, a relatively recent but non-flowing and now solid flow was there, so we hiked out onto it and looked around, walking right down to the water where one of the black sand beaches are on the island. It was eerie and amazing - the black rock had hardened in formations that clearly show how it was flowing when it did so, and tinkled like the glass it is in areas that pieces has fallen off. The black sand, we learned yesterday, is not formed by the rock eroding over years into little bitsas we suspected, but is formed by the lava flowing directly into the ocean where it immediately shatters into the tiny sand crystals that make up the beach. All of the lava, sand-sized or not, shimmers and sparkles and shines in the sun - very pretty while at the same time, awe-inspiring. This rock was in the ground as magma only a couple of decades ago! And Ted has read in one of the many books we found in the library, that ALL of the rock on the Kilauea Volcano is less than 1000 years old. What we stood on on Thursday was likely only 20 years or so. Wow.
That's it for now, I'll update more about yesterday and today later.