Next, we visited the island of Maui and drove up to see Haleakala.
Haleakala (House of the Sun) is a 10023 ft. high shield volcano that covers over 75% of the island of Maui.
From the summit we looked down on a massive depression that includes volcanic cones.
The last eruption at Haleakala took place in 1750 so we felt pretty safe from volcanic bombs or Pele's hair. :)
The biggest danger that day was not driving off the road on the way down as we looked down on the clouds onto a beautiful rainbow!
We also happened to see a Pueo, Hawaiian Owl, as we were driving down from the mountain. I didn't get to photograph it but here is what the owl looks like.
Next stop: The Big Island of Hawaii and the Kilauea Volcano.
My fascination with volcanoes started in a museum, the Bishop Museum, in Honolulu Hawaii. My brother-in-law Earl,
(Da handsome braddah on da left as they say in Hawaii)
volunteers at the museum and got us tickets to see the Lava Melting demonstration.
WOW, I was excited!
Lava is melted to 2000 degrees. Its hot in there, let me tell you! We actually got to see lava rocks melted into lava.
No chance I will even try to duplicate this experiment in the classroom. :)
We saw lots of interesting displays of lava at the museum. Here is something called Pele's hair. Pele' is a mythical goddess in Hawaiian legend.
This type of lava forms when molten lava is pulled apart to become thin strands of volcanic glass.
It looks like my hair when I wake up. (be quiet family!!!)
Now this type of lava is more my style. It is called volcanic bombs! After being ejected from a volcano a large glob of molten lava partially cools and hardens during flight. This gives it it's aerodynamic shape. Growing up in Michigan I threw lots of snowballs at unsuspecting victims. My snowballs never looked this good.
Here is an interesting phenomena. Lava flows around trees, burning out the inside, forming these strange structures. In fact, Lava Tree State Monument in Hawaii has lots of these lava protrusions.
Visiting the museum was a real treat. Next stop, Haleakala on the island of Maui.
