Marc and Claire's Trip to Hawai'i

We stayed at the Queen Kapiolani hotel just off the beach in Waikiki. It's a great place to stay!

Queen Kapiolani was Consort of the last king of Hawaii. This is one of the portraits in the hotel.

Marc took a tour of the USS Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor.

After the symposium, we flew to the Big Island to spend a few days exploring and relaxing. After settling into a nice cottage near the summit of Kilauea, we took a helicopter tour of the volcano. We started at Hilo. Here we are with Fred, our pilot at the airport.

The helicopter tour took us to the spot where lava flows into the ocean. The lava is entering the sea where the steam is heaviest on the shore. The plumes of steam on land are coming from the lava tube that is bringing the lava from the Pu`u `O`o vent, which is 12 kilometers up the mountain.

After the thrilling helicopter tour, we went into the Kilauea Volcano National Park. Here at the summit, we are standing next to one of the many steam vents around the park. Rain water drains down cracks in the earth to where the rocks are hot enough to boil the water.

This is the interior of the Thurston Lava Tube. This is an old lava tube that allowed lava to flow from the summit down the slope of Kilauea. The bright dots are drops of water dripping from the roof.

After touring the volcano, we drove to the west to see other parts of the Big Island. Here is the famous Black Sand Beach on the southern shore.

This is the view from the southernmost point in the U.S. The colors of the ocean were beautiful.

This is a lava tree formed when a flow of lava surrounds a very wet tree. The lava cools around the trunks and forms these hollow structures. This one is about 10 feet tall.

Statue of King Kamehameha the Great