Hawaii has a lot of volcanoes and my family and I went to one of the most active volcano, Kīlauea (kiːlɑːuːˈeɪə). A volcano is a place where smoke, gases, and black hot rocks from deep underground erupt onto the earths surface. The largest volcanoes of the five from the chain of Hawaii are Kilauea, Mauna Loa, and Hualalai. They have erupted in the past 200 years. Kīlauea is still erupting and just erupted March 6, 2011 from the Pu`u `Ō `ō crater. To get current eruption information, you can go to http://hvo.wr.usgs.gov/kilauea/update/images.html . We visited the park museum and took photographs of a television screen showing the the recent eruption. 
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| This photo we took of the volcano near the park museum |
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| walking through the rain forest. |
After visiting the museum we went on a 4 mile hike to the Kilauea Iki crater. To get to the crater, we walked through a rain forest. Since we didn't know that it rains all the time at the volcano we got all soaking wet. The rain forest led to the volcano crater. A crater is a large hole that lava fills and makes a lava lake. After some time, the lava flows out of the lake through the lava tubes and into the ocean.
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| Sulfur gas rising from a steam vent. Sulfur gas is not good for you, so we didn't stay too long next to it. |
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| Kilauea Iki Crater |
Next, we went through a wet and spooky lava tube. Lava tubes are ways through which lava travels underground from the volcano to the ocean.
Have you ever been to a volcano?
Do you like to explore new places?
Where have you been?
