On Jan 22, New Jersey (herein known as "Not Jersey") and I met some of my Nebraska friends for hiking at Volcanoes National Park. I was a day out of quarantine from my second-round with COVID. I wasn't feeling great, but I was armed with painkillers and the euphoria that only mainland visitors can bring.
Not Jersey hikes Volcanoes frequently, so I let him choose our hike. He picked a nice 2 hour round-trip trek that took us down into a caldera and back up. Part of our hike was on the Byron Ledge Trail and part was the Halema'uma'u Trail. My friends, ranging in ages from mid-thirties to early-seventies, all enjoyed themselves.
At this point Not Jersey and I had been dating for a little over a month. I was impressed by his hiking enthusiasm. It was like having our own personal tour guide. He took special care to ensure that we knew when we'd be ascending and descending. He'd never met my friends, but he fit right in with the group. He said many times that he was happy I had a chance to reconnect with my friend.
We adjourned to Ohelo Cafe for dinner. We both ordered the lilikoi (passion fruit) tea, which was quite tasty. Not Jersey ordered the risotto and I had the seafood pasta (his was better). In my opinion the food was "ok," but it wasn't anything special. It was very expensive and the portions were small for the price.
After dinner we returned to Volcanoes for a night hike to see the lava. This would be my first time seeing lava in the national park. In 2017, Mrs. Presley and I saw lava flowing into the ocean when we road our bikes to Kalapana. Mostly we saw steam.
As Not Jersey warned us, sometimes the "close" parking lot gets full as many tourists come to the park for the night time lava viewing. That night the park was full, so we parked in the "far" parking lot and began our 3 mile walk to the lava. It was cold in some places, but I had prepared for this. I tightened my hoodie down over my sweater and walked on.
Yes, cold is relative. It was probably 55 degrees, but the wind was really blowing. I have acclimated to life at a balmy 70-78 daily temperature. So, 55 with wind felt really cold.
My favorite part about the hike turned out to be the sky. The stars were so vibrant. The sky looked huge. In some ways, it didn't look real. It looked different than any sky I've ever seen even though I've been in places with low light pollution. It was incredible.
Earlier in the day we'd heard a park ranger talking to a group at the Visitor's Center. He said there was a chance we wouldn't see lava that evening. Luckily, we were rewarded at the end of our journey with a beautiful lava lake.
The Kilauea lava flow at the Halema'uma'u crater is still active. It's crazy to think there is a volcano erupting 30 miles away. I just asked Not Jersey if he'd like to go back for another night hike and he smiled and said, "Anytime."
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