The Kalanapa Cafe is a small outdoors local restaurant that serves "high-brow" plate lunches and really great hamburgers. I don't know if there's a place with a great hamburger reputation (like pizza in Chicago/New York, beer in Germany, etc.), but Hawai`i should be it.As we were eating outside in the garden/picnic-style tables, there was a banjo player who started playing "Wagon Wheel" by O.C.M.S., which was the Carleton geology campfire anthem for a number of years. Good memories!
The plume was much more exciting this time around, although we weren't nearly as close. Luckily, David D., another volunteer, had the great idea of bringing his gigantic binoculars, so we could actually see the lava streaming out the tube (occasionally), and small bits of lava bursting out of the littoral explosions.
I also love the reactions and comments of tourists whenever they start talking about the geology, because in 99.9% of situations they say something ridiculous or downright wrong. A few classic and hilarious questions that have been asked and are quoted frequently include, "When will the volcano evaporate?", "Where's the ocean in the crater?", and "I heard the volcano is supposed to erupt today - do you know what time?" As we were walking to the lookout point, a woman was saying that Mauna Loa hasn't erupted in hundreds of years (it erupted in 1984), and Kohala was just declared dormant (it's the oldest volcano on the island and hasn't been active for ~120,000 years). Once we got there, another woman loudly exclaimed, "You brought me here for this?! I can't see anything!"
This is a video of the activity that I recorded through the binoculars!
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