Friday, we went to visit Volcano's National Park for a brief visit and saw Mt. Kilauea as it is now actively spewing smoke and sulfur dioxide into the sky. In fact, there is something called "vog" out here which people have to monitor. Schools actually close when the sulfur dioxide levels get too high. This relatively little crack in the volcano's crater allows enough to spill out over time so that when the wind is right, it all drifts into Hilo. Now's a good time to mention that we're actually staying in Hilo, HI while we are here. High levels of vog irritate the lungs and eyes and can be a big health hazard for certain people. One evening when we came back, we could smell it in the air. It smells like someone just lit a match, or lit off a firework. At night, the crack in Kilauea (pron. kill-a-whay-a) glows bright red, and this kind of eruption has been relatively recently, in the last 2 months. The time before that was years ago, though the volcano has been active for a long time. There are all these steam vents throughout the park where underground water is heated by hot rocks and then release steam out of vents in the ground.
Safety tips if you ever visit Hawaii:
1. Don't fall on volcanic rock. It cuts like razor blades. I just bumped my hand lightly against some of it and my hand was bleeding for the whole afternoon.
2. Rip current can pull you out when snorkling
3. Watch out for jellyfish and man of war (see my updated post for Monday)
After the volcano, we went to the lava rock cafe, had some fresh mahi mahi, a local winery, and yes, Isaac did whine at the winery. Then we went to tour the Mauna Loa macadamia nut farm, got some manga and coconut macadamia nut ice-cream, and then we came back and had supper at Danica's cousin's house, where we are staying.
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