Some like it hot

My year ends with adventure Hawaiian style.

At some point, on some trip to Volcanoes National Park, my mother, who was hunting lava, came upon a man in his 40's on a BMX bike playing the ukulele. The guy asked her what she was doing and she explained she heard there might be lava but didn't know where. He offered to take her to a lava field, which was located on a friend's property. It was the afternoon, the sun was blazing but there it was- a lava puddle oozing around his friends yard. She posted her lava video on facebook and called the trip a success.

Two months go by and my mom decides that this is something my brother, Marisa and I can't miss. So she calls up BMX dude and in the middle of the night we hightail it past a thicket of private property, road closed and do not enter barriers to arrive at this:

Needless to say, the house that once belonged to the friend had been overtaken.

The scene wasn't exactly a kind of aloha style private communion with Pele, the goddess of the volcano. Turns out Mike, who lives next to this lava field, and several other friends run these night tours of the field, so after the lonely road through the jungle and the obstacle course of DO NOT ENTER signs we arrive the lava field equivalent of the Statue of Liberty.

But sometimes a natural wonder is so breathtaking, not even tourists can ruin it. From a distance the black field, which arched up into the sky, twinkled red against a blanket of stars. The ground radiated heat and crumbled in parts, in other areas the lava had frozen into black braids. When we arrived next to the area where the earth really cracked open- a rock broke off to reveal a yellow oozing river of liquid rock.

To see rock in liquid form made me feel like I was in a sci-fi flick or next to a miracle or really close to the incarnate of mother nature and all three at once. I wanted Johnny Cash to descend from the Heavens and sing "Ring of Fire" right there. I was ready, but it never happened. Instead I took pictures and watched as parents let their children, in jackets with polyester fur fringe, heave bits of lava up in the air with sticks. It made me want to add another sign to the bramble: Dumb people are not invited, especially if you have children in tow.

The next part of the trip is one that I decided not to photograph. Mostly, this was due to a lack of water proof camera equipment. So you will have to follow the narrative with your imagination.

The lava field trip was part of a vacation-in-a-vacation that my mother had planned. The first day was an ode to the earth- a day devoted to the moonlike landscapes in Volcanoes National Park and the night time lava field expedition. Day two was an ode to the sea. We woke up in, Kapoho, in a house we rented on the ocean and walked down the street to series of tide pools which seemed to extend for a mile. When my mother said we were going to the tide pools I thought of the tide pools on the California coast where you walk over rocks and stick your fingers in sea anemones and try to pull starfish from their rock. It is a cool experience; I like tide pools. But when my mom started putting on her bathing suit and breaking out the snorkel gear I knew I was in for a different kind of ride.

Indeed I was. I slipped into the first pool and it was like Finding Nemo-the unanimated version. In fact, as soon as I stuck my head under water, Sebastian from the Little Mermaid started singing Under the Sea with a Caribbean steel drum band back up. Well that is stretching the truth but not by much because the song was on repeat in my head for the hour or so I skimmed over the coral, swimming with a school of convict fish and moorish idols.

Then came the second round of ocean adventures at Champagne Baths, which are located in a gated community behind another thicket of 'no trespassing, private property, we hate you' kind of signage. (As a note: no beach in Hawaii can be private and all beaches need to have public access, so when it comes to the beach signage its all just a bunch of smoke and mirrors). Champagne Baths is a series of thermal pools located just behind an ocean break. When high tide rolls in the ocean mixes with the baths to create a little bit of heaven on earth.

I don't think my family enjoyed Champagne Baths in the same way they enjoyed the tide pools but it became my new happy place. The crystal clear pools had bright yellow leaves scattered over their surface and hung in the water, glimmering in the sun's reflection like gold flecks. I walked over the break into the ocean. The tide had pulled out so that the big waves were set back and created a layers of smaller mini waves. I sat down in the water and leaned back on the rocks and let the ocean wash over me. The ocean wanted to pull me out to sea and if I knew for sure I would become a mermaid I would have gone with it. But I wasn't sure the ocean would grant me that wish, so I got up and walked back into the sanctuary of the baths and thought about how being a building scientist and planner runs a pretty good second to a mermaid.

Happy new year...may the next one bring you many hot, wet adventures.