January 10th: Volcanoes National Park

 




Today we went to Volcanoes National Park. After going on a grocery run in the morning and buying plenty of breakfast food at Walmart(including dropping it off at the hotel), we drove around an hour to get to the Park. On the way we drove through a small town and into a rainforest. Once at the park, we could not find parking near the trails that we wanted to do, so we went to the visitors center. There we wandered around the gift shop and exhibit for a little over an hour waiting for the rain to lighten and for parking space. We ate our lunches outside on benches before finally starting our first hike. The 1.3 mile hike was very brief and allowed us to see different sulfur vents. There was so much fog on the deeper parts of that trail that it was hard to see. To get to our next trail after that we had to drive to the parking lot we were waiting for earlier. We then had to park in the overflow and take a trail to the full parking area. From there we walked the lava tube trail. We took a steep trek down to the tube and got to walk through it. Lava tubes are made when the outside of the lava lava flow hardens and the lava inside drains out of the hardened edges.  Along the way back to the car we passed a sign pointing out a type of ginger that is now considered a destructive weed called Kāhili ginger. I enjoyed taking pictures of it and of the other plants along the trails. We will be back tomorrow to explore more. 

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