These are pics of us on our first sightseeing trip on the island. We went to Volcano National Park. Jackson had bugged us almost nonstop all week to go so we finally went our first Saturday. It was pretty cool. It's only about 30 minutes away too. We went on a guided tour where the ranger told us about animals and plants around the volcano and some fun legends about Pele, the Hawaiian goddess of fire. We ended up going to Thurston's Lava Tube (the last picture above) which is what the name says, a large tube where lava once flowed and when it stopped it left an underground tube. It was cool. Then we went to Kilauea Iki Crater which is a volcanic crater within the Kilauea caldera which is basically a larger crater. It once erupted and was a huge lake of flowing lava but now is hardened and you can walk across. There are steam vents that show you how hot it still is underneath. That's a picture of Matt and Sabrina feeling the heat of the steam. The hike was several miles and and the kids were pretty worn out at the end. Then we went to Jagger Museum where we listened to another ranger talk about the volcanos on the island (there are 5). Did you know that Mauna Kea is the largest mountain in the world when measured from it's base? Even taller than Mount Everest. We got to see the plume of smoke coming up from Halemau'mau crater which had some sort of eruption back in March and has had this big plume of smoke coming out since then. There's been a constant eruption for the last 20 years or so from Pu'oo'oo which is also in Kilauea. It was a fun and very educational trip. Jackson was very excited to see the volcano and wants to be a junior volcanologist. When the ranger was asking questions about the volcanos, Jackson knew all the answers. We were very impressed. Let's just hope that we don't have a huge eruption while we're here and have to evacuate.