For our first official “exploration” of the summer, my mom and I took my 5-year-old daughter into Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park the other day.

First we sat on the grass on our green and blue blanket, watched and talked about the birds (as they watched and talked about us) and ate crab sushi that we brought with us.

Then we looked around in the Volcano Art Center, especially at a kids’ juried art exhibit. That was pretty neat and we discussed that maybe my daughter will want to enter it next year.

We talked about stuff like this sign on what is now the Volcano Art Center. It’s all about the history. I don’t know how much of that sunk in, but I’ll keep telling her and hopefully one day she’ll have pictures in her mind of her great-great-great-great grandfather who, in his older years, drove a “hack” that took early day tourists up to the Volcano. It was a two-day trip.

Elsewhere in the park, we looked at and talked about the steam coming up out of steam vents in the ground, talked about ‘ohi‘a trees and their lehua blossoms, and, remembering having done this before with her Papa, she decided all on her own to do some native gathering of ‘ohelo berries. (She gathered two.)

We checked out Halema‘uma‘u Crater, even though the vog was thick and awful there. While there, we hooked up with a couple of our good friends who work at the Hawai‘i Volcanoes Observatory.

Jim told us that a part of the crater collapsed the day before:

Past 24 hours at Kilauea summit: At 1:38 PM (Hawaiian Standard Time) Tuesday afternoon, a large collapse within the summit vent occurred, resulting in a loud booming sound heard across the caldera area, shaking that could be felt at the Jaggar Museum, generation of a dark brown plume, ejection of ash and lapilli, a very-long-period seismic signal, and an inflationary tilt offset…. (more here at the USGS website)

Here is the English missionary William Ellis’s account of traveling to Kilauea in 1823. It was exactly like our exploration today to Kilauea, except, you know, it was in 1823 and totally different. His was the first Western written account of a visit to the volcano.

Also there, at the Volcano Art Center, we bought  Dietrich Varez’s children’s book Lehua: A Legend of Old Hawai‘i, because explorations are all about learning about a place and its culture and history. 

It’s about the volcano goddess Pele and her sister Hi‘iaka, and includes the story of Kamehameha and the Naha stone without identifying either. I threw in some background of that story and must go take my daughter to see the Naha stone now, which is, of course, here in Hilo.

It was a neat day. I think we all three really enjoyed it. My little girl soaks up information like a sponge; it’s fun to provide it for her and watch her think about it, ask questions, and file it away.

We are planning to make a scrapbook of our activities during this Summer of Exploration, complete with pictures and words and some of the things we’ve learned.