June 11, 2015

See Beautiful: Volcanic Edition

A couple of weeks ago when I posted about the hubs swimming with an Iron Dog, I mentioned we'd gone to the Big Island for my Big Birthday. Today I thought I'd share some of the beauty of Hawaii with you!

We spent a few days in the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park and it was amazing! (It would have been even more amazing if the rain had let up a little more often.)

Here's a picture of the Kīlauea crater during the day (during a rare break from the rain!).

We lucked out while we were there! Usually at night, the crater looks like the pic below. You normally can't see the lava - only the glow from it on the crater walls. Pretty cool, eh?

But while we were there, the lava lake rose 80 feet from where it normally is, so we also got to see it looking like this:
You should really "bigify" this one!
It was AMAZING! The park was crazy-busy with folks coming to see the beauty of the lava doing it's thing. The pic above was taken at 10:00pm when the park was slightly less busy.

We went on some great hikes in the park, including one across the Kīlauea Iki Trail which started in a rain forest and then down across what had been a lava lake in 1959. In some places the lava rocks looked like something out of an earthquake movie, but we "saw beautiful" in the rocks and in the hardy plants that were managing to grow up through the rock.

Of course we also saw beauty in the power of the ocean.

The bright blue water against the black lava rock was so gorgeous!

There was also beauty in the flora...
Banyan trees, flowers and ferns were everywhere
...and fauna of the island.
Turtles sunning themselves, a red anemone, and a bird in a tux!
I found some beautiful shells and bits of creatures at the beach, but "took only pictures."

The place we stayed when we got to the Kona side of the island had this happy smiling rock built into the wall along the bay. That little rock has every reason to be happy, living in such a beautiful place!


I hope you are happy with your placement in the world, just like this little rock is! Now get out there and see some beautiful!

But wait... what's a PoochSmooches post without a pup pic?! It's always fun to go away, but it's fabulous to come home to your pup!!

This pic is funny because Rita is (for some reason) afraid of the front of the car and had NEVER gotten in the front seat before, but she was so excited that we were home, she jumped in the front before I'd even had a chance to open the backdoor for her. Funny girl.




{This Moment} See Beautiful is a once a month Blog Hop, every 2nd Friday of the month. Simply create a blog post that made your day, week, and/or month … inspiring you in Seeing Beauty.

Blog Hop inspired by See Beautiful.

Thanks to Sugar the Golden Retriever for hosting the See Beautiful blog hop! 

30 comments:

  1. Those are wonderful! I would love to see a volcano like that, how awesome.

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    1. It was totally awesome! The only other thing I really wanted to see that wasn't happening while we were there though was lava dripping into the ocean. Have to keep that one on the "to see" list!

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  2. That is very beautiful. I love lava. My Goose would ride no other place than the front seat, even if I had other people with me.
    Blessings,
    Michelle

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    1. Our beagle was like that - she HAD to be in the front seat. If someone else was riding along, she stood on their lap!

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  3. Volcanoes are truly fascinating as long as they don't wipe out the whole area around them. You remind me how beautiful Hawaii is and how much I would like to return and how many other tourists there always are.

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    1. Yeah, they were on "Volcano Watch" while we were there and experiencing 100s of earthquakes a day. Kinda wanted it to blow (we were supposedly out of harm's way... supposedly) but really kinda didn't!

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  4. WOW! That is amazing. It'd be so awesome to see a volcano in action.

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    1. It was SO amazing. And it was doubly cool because that night when we got up at 10 (with the time diff, we were beat - we went to bed at 8 and set our alarm to get up and go see the volcano) it was one of the few truly clear times on that side of the island and the stars were amazing! With the stars, plus the lava it was so beautiful! Couldn't really capture it on film. (Or, apparently, in words either!)

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  5. I've always wanted to go to Hawaii! That's a gorgeous picture!

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    1. We've been to other islands before but this was our first time on the Big Island. It was lovely. (But I like Kauai and Maui better...)

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  6. Amazing pictures!
    hugs
    Mr Bailey, Hazel & Mabel

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  7. Those are some gorgeous pictures you shared. Thanks so much.

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  8. Volcanos are fascinating. Mom was on a black sand beach once which was made from volcanic ash I guess. Looks like a fabulous vacation.

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    1. Oh, the black sand beaches - that is another fascinating thing. My sis had been to Hawaii before and told us to go check out this black sand beach near the volcano park. Well, it's no longer there! An eruption filled the bay with new lava rock so that black sand beach is gone. Although I suppose it will be back some day when the surf pounds the rocks into sand again!

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  9. what a beautiful place you visited. Thank you for sharing your Birthday vacation with us it was awesome!

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  10. Hi Y'all!

    Oh what a beautiful and amazing trip!

    Y'all come on by,
    Hawk aka BrownDog

    P.S. We've moved to http://www.browndogcbr.net

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  11. Lovely <3 The big island is one of our fav places to visit. We watched the Iron Man event 2x. Golden Thanks for sharing your beautiful adventure. Happy Seeing Beauty. Golden Woofs

    Something changed or the way we are viewing your blog. If you need help, we know who can help you :-)

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  12. That looks like an amazing place to visit! I love the smiling rock.

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  13. Now THAT's how to rock a birthday. The lava photo is simply incredible.

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  14. Wow. Just beautiful. Thanks for sharing.

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  15. When we went to Hawaii ( forever ago! The 90's), the volcano was very active. A lava flow had wioed out the road so you had to stop the car and walk. The lava was still flowing and it would drop over the cliff edge and hit the ocean with a huge BOOM like a cannon shot. This would shoot the now cooled lava high in the air and it would rain back down. Very cool. Plus, all over the lava flow that had cooled and was walkable, there were little "puddles" of volcanic glass that glittered gold in the sun. I made the mistake of sitting in it for a picture. Oh, my! So itchy ;-)

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  16. I have never been to Hawaii so I truly enjoyed your post. I did bigify the one photo and felt like I was RIGHT there.

    Linda
    http://coloradofarmlife.wordpress.com
    https://coloradofarmlife.wordpress.com/sherlock-boomer

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  17. What beautiful photos! It looks like you had a wonderful time. I think I would have been a little freaked out about being so close to a volcano though...LOL.

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  19. Now I really want to go to Hawaii
    Retro rover

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  20. hello pooch smooches its dennis the vizsla dog oh hay wow that firy volkano is kwite a brite shayrd of orandj!!! i am serprized my dada duz not want to bild a howse on top of wun of them sinse he luvs the kolor orandj so mutch!!! ha ha ok bye

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  21. Your pictures are gorgeous! Now I HAVE to get back to Hawaii!

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