KMC is a government facility that's a little dated but way cool (and way cheap!) resort style hotel. There are a bunch of cabins arrayed around a central social area. The social area has all sorts of things: a cafe, bar, game room, mini theater, tennis courts, and even a bowling alley. The best part is its proximity to Volcanoes National Park.
Unfortunately for the first day we arrived right as the sky opened up and downpoured for the next several hours. We hung out at the cabin we rented, made a bunch of food and played games. It was nice. Once it was time for Iris to go to bed, Mike, Thomas, Camille and I wandered over to the game room and played a couple of rounds of pool. As it turns out, we're all really bad, but we had a great time anyway.
The next morning was bright and beautiful. We drove the couple of miles to hike the Kiluea Iki Trail. I've done this one a few times before, but it's so cool that I'm sure I'll do it a few more. The trail is a 4 mile loop that circles the top of the crater for a half mile before dropping in. Then, hikers walk across the crater, back up the other side, and around another top section. The whole hike is STUNNING! Brad, Rachel and Iris came down to the crater but didn't finish the loop. Iris is only 18 months after all.
Thomas has a geology degree and was absolutely fascinated by the lava formations and steam vents. Camille and I spent a good amount of time checking out beautifully iridescent bits of lava rock. Mike was, as always, perfectly content to wander all over the place and climb on things. Overall, I think it took us about an hour to wander across the crater.
Afterward, we walked around the steam vents and checked out the overlook into the main Kiluea crater. This is the one that caused all of the fuss last year when it erupted. It's changed so drastically in the past year and a half. Check out this video for timelapse: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2BFFK_r5NU. Way freaking cool!
Later that day, we all piled into Brad and Rachel's 7 seater car and drove a couple of miles to Volcano Winery. We honestly could've walked it, but the skies decided to open up again. Less rain, but being wet in a winery just didn't sound fab. Weird how that works. The winery is a way cool little tasting room. They import almost all of their grapes, blend them and ferment them locally. I believe they have some grapes they grow there, but they're more expensive. Instead we paid $8 each for 8 tastes. It was pretty fun! We loved the first white wine they served, which was super strange because Mike doesn't like white wines.
We decided that it was a perfect night to check out the bowling alley. It was actually pretty decent. Brad and Rachel stayed for a game, which Brad won (Brad wins everything). Thomas, Camille, Mike and I played round 2. Everyone did better the second game except for me . It was fun anyway. I hadn't bowled in years.
The last morning of the trip, we were awakened by a 4.9 magnitude earthquake that happened near Mauna Kea, one of the larger volcanoes. It made the whole place jiggle for a minute. Way freaking cool! I made a ton of pancakes and we had a brunch feast. Then we parted ways. Brad really wanted to visit the botanical garden. The rest of us really wanted to visit the newly formed black sand beach at Pohiki.
We stopped at the Volcanoes National Park visitor center. I wanted to stamp my journal since I just realized in Joshua Tree that this is a thing. Seriously, I've been to six national parks this year and only managed to figure this out on numbers 5 and 6. We ended up watching a video on the collapse of the crater. It was similar to the one linked above, but longer and more extensive.
Then we drove about an hour to the coast, past the infamous Leilani Estates where big fissures opened in the earth and cars and homes were swallowed by lava. I drove through wide sections of road that had been newly constructed through recent lava fields. There were dead trees uprooted and baked stark white against the black stone.
When we arrived at the park, we were amazed to find that there was a wall of rock that blocked roads, covered sidewalks, and crumpling picnic benches. Below is a screenshot from Google Maps that hasn't yet been updated. You can see a park on the right side that is scribbled out. That no longer exists and is covered by a hugs field of lava (as shown in the pic above). Along the beach, the area between the black lines is full of black sand. There's a little dock and boat lauched there that used to go to the sea and now have only a little pond to service. CRAZY! The world's newest beach, and we got to visit it.
We walked down the beach, doing a bit of exploring and just taking in the amazingness of the whole thing. The waves were breaking pretty hard on the shore, but wanting to get my feet wet, I walked to the edge of the waves. The next wave ended up being the biggest one we'd seen. It crashed toward us and Thomas was the only one to escape. Camille, Mike and I were soaked to our waists, laughing and shrieking as we ran up the beach. (Ok, Mike wasn't shrieking.)
Brad, Rachel, and baby girl met us at the airport. I asked how the botanicals were. It turns out Iris was sick and they didn't end up going. They just puttered around Kona and got ice cream. I love both of those things, so it doesn't sound like a total loss to me. Poor baby though. It took about a week for her to heal. We boarded our plane as the sunset at the awesome tiny Kona airport. Another fabulous ohana trip!
