Hawaii--Part 2

Kyla is enjoying doing the junior ranger programs for the national parks over here. Here she is posing with the fish she made out of a coconut leave--and AJ is holding the one the ranger made to show here, and Adam is holding a cricket that they had made and gave to us. The fish is below.

At Pu'uhonua o Honaunau, or the city of refuge, she had to play on old
Hawaiian game that is like checkers.

And of course AJ had to "play" too :)

She liked posing with the Tiki statues.

At Kaloko-Honokohau, also called turtle beach, we saw quite a few turtles swimming, but none of them where out of the water to get a good picture. All the turtles have numbers on their backs, and Kyla was excited that we were able to see one of the numbers for her to write down for her ranger program.

We saw this flower, a Capparis Sandwichiana, Hawaiian name-- Maiapilo, also called a Native Caper, at the visitor center at Turtle Beach. I was very glad that I took pictures before going down to the beach, because when we got back a little over an hour later it was all wilted and ugly.

And of course I had to take more pictures of the geckos we saw.

On Friday, Adam and I left Kyla and AJ with my aunt and uncle and went on a helicopter ride over the volcanoes.

It was very neat seeing the top of the volcano. The lava runs under the ground through tubes in the lava out to the sea. You could follow the path from the steam coming out of the vents. There was 1 vent that you could see the red glow of lava.

There was also one small area where lava was on the surface. It is in the top right corner of the picture--I've written the words Lava Flow in blue about it--you can see a little bit of red and that is the lava.

The next two pictures are the steam created from the lava flowing into the ocean--one on the land side and one on the ocean side.

About the time that we were flying over the ocean for these views is when I really started to get sick--I even ended up throwing up. I think it was in part from not eating since breakfast and having to turn sideways--but it would have to be something pretty big for me to go on a helicopter again. I did start feeling a little better by the time we got to the waterfalls and got a few pictures of them. But I was very happy to get back on the ground :)