Will the volcano awaken today? This morning we parked at the crater rim lot to have a look. The skies were clearer than yesterday morning and there was even some blue sky visible.
I could not believe it when as soon as we got to the overlook a bit of the mist moved aside and provided the perfect conditions for a rainbow. Sometimes we even saw a double rainbow. We hiked around the crater for another hour and when it became apparent that the only volcanic activity to be seen was steam and a little bit of vent glow, we went to the park gift shop.
Halemaʻumaʻu crater, the source of today's lava flows inside of the huge Kilauea caldera
Between the parking lot and the temporary visitor center at the historic military camp we encountered four nenes, or Hawaiian geese. Once reduced to about 30 individuals in the wild by 1952 and then bred in captivity as the first successful attempt at such actions for an endangered species, the population is now about 3,800. These are the rarest geese in the world and still considered near-threatened. We learned on a tour later on this trip that they used to serve nenes for dinner at the Volcano House! Noooooooo.....
By the time we were leaving the park at around 10 AM the entrance road was backed up to the main highway. Everyone is on Volcano Watch since USGS elevated the status to Code Orange, meaning that the next event is believed to be imminent.
We went back to Hilo for the afternoon. It was laundry day. After a week of travel it was time to wash our clothes.
We weren’t feeling fancy about dinner tonight so it was decided that we could pick up some stuff at the local grocery store chain Foodland. Grocery prices, like everything else here, are very high. Hans and I both signed up for memberships at Foodland so that we could save a little bit of money.
In the town proper we went back to Big Island Coffee Roasters for an afternoon pick-me-up and some gift shopping. Hans suggested that we check out the town farmers market. There were several produce stands that looked good but they didn’t really have ready-to-eat items. It was still cool to see what was available. We stopped at a couple of other stores, then headed back to Volcano Village with groceries. I had some tasty store-made poke and Hans had nachos. Then it was time to start packing again.
It was a quiet evening, volcanically speaking. The forecast called for lava fountaining in the next 24 hours. I kept a watchful eye on the USGS webcams throughout the night and we went to bed prepared to jump up and make the 5-minute drive into the park at a moment’s notice.
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