Poke Market (YUM!)
L&L for Gabriel (yum!)
Volcanoes national park (WOW)
Seaside Restaurant (oh...my?)
Saturday was a nice, leisurely day. The weather while we've been here has been kind of shitty. Very rainy, very dismal, very not typical of Hawaii if you go during the non-rainy season. Which we didn't, so the weather was pretty on brand.
We woke up, had our coffee and breakfast, and tooled around a rainy Hilo for a little bit before heading to Poke Market. We had gone the day before, but it was at their closing time, and when you're at a freshy freshy poke place, anytime other than the hour they open means their poke stores will be low to non-existent. We know what's up. So we went at 11, and the two guys there were the fucking BEST. We chatted with them for about twenty minutes, they let us try everything in the case, they tried to get Gabriel into trying it (wrong tree to bark up, fellas!), and they were REALLY helpful about what I could and couldn't get on the menu. When we ordered, I felt confident I wouldn't fall into a sugar trap. And I mean. Holy fuckin shit.
GLORIOUS. Derek is not under diet restrictions like I am, so he could have whatever the fuck he wanted off the menu. Lucky.
Derek had the ginger soy marlin (I tried it, it was VERY sweet. Too rich for my blood, but DELICIOUS), and the spicy ahi with pickled daikon and pickled cucumbers (both an absolute treasure to the tastebuds, but too sweet for me to manage). He had rice, they drizzled their unagi sauce on it, it looks as good as it sounds as good as it tasted.
Now for mine. I had the spicy ahi, the spicy garlic marlin, the lomi tomato, and the crab salad on cabbage. I fucking INHALED that shit. It is the best fucking poke I've ever had. I really liked Ahi Assassin when we went, but I wasn't so blown out of the water by it that I have had the urge to go back. Not even once. But we definitely went back to Poke Market. I told the guys there that it was WAY better than Ahi Assassin, and they seemed so fucking pleased to hear that. When I posted this photo on Instagram and shouted them out for being the best fucking poke I've ever had, they mentioned something about a Honolulu pop-up and I swooned in the car.
Gabriel wanted nothing to do with poke, but we knew that going in. So we went and got him some reliable L&L. We try to eat on the local economy and stay away from chains when we travel, but sometimes, chains can't be helped (and sometimes, the chains are locally started, so...I mean...does it REALLY go against eating on the local economy? I'll leave that up to the lawyers). Gabriel has been loathe to try L&L back home, but we talked him into being "adventurous". Did it pay off? The evidence speaks for itself:
He is enjoying the fuck out of that katsu. He didn't eat the mac salad, and he didn't even bother with the sauce (which is the second best part!!!!), but he ate fucked the shit out of the chicken and rice. He munched on that all damn day, which worked out, because he's 12 and growing like a weed and always fucking hungry.
The weather still wasn't cooperating, but we headed up to Volcanoes National Park, anyway. And I am so. fucking. GLAD. The weather turned out to be fucking CRAZY amazing for dramatic landscapes. I'm not promising they'll be award winning, as I historically am garbage at landscapes, but I mean, the atmosphere made it really easy to have zero landscape skill and still come away with an amazing photo. (Ugh. Bad news from the future. These photos are NOT the dramatic aesthetic I had hoped to achieve. They are boring)
First up was a flow from July of '74. Here's Gabriel, hanging out in front of a little lava bump out cave thing:
We wandered around this flow for a bit, and then drove on to the next one when the mist started misting a little too hard for our comfort levels.
I can't remember the 70s year of the next flow we stopped at, but we spent about two hours there. It. Was. INCREDIBLE. The mist really bogged us down HARD, but it made the already alien environment look even more eerie and odd.
I really wish these photos had done a better job of relaying how strange everything looked. What I mean to say is, I wish I had done a better job taking photos of how strange everything looked.
Derek found these on the side of the road. They were just drenched in mist droplets. I know it LOOKS out of focus, but it isn't. It's just covered in dew.
I really loved this rock. It looks like an ear. I wish I could make the rocks look richer, and in all honesty, I could. If I felt like photoshopping the photos, but I don't. I have too much other shit to do.
These are the lava fields we first visited. The 1974 flow. The mist hadn't really set in yet, it was just grey outside. I wish this provided better scope, because this landscape is massive and bleak, but also so full of strange and interesting plant life.
Look at these things! Just THRIVING in the most barren looking land I've ever seen with my own two eyes.
SO. It turns out, volcanic rock is a lot more complex than the term "rock" lets on. It can be more than just a bumpy black piece of dried lava, and it can be more than the other things I knew were formed from the different bits and pieces cooling at different rates in lava (like quartz, or obsidian), it can just be colorful fuckin' rock. And it's god damn AMAZING. Like...I didn't do shit to the photo of that rock, it just...IS that colorful. The short reason why is mineral make up, but the longer reasons why are pretty fucking interesting. I did a lot of reading and learning about the composition of lava rock, but I figure the best thing to do rather than synthesize it is just leave a few related links at the end of this post. It isn't going to be everything I read, just the things I think explain what's going on the best (including a refresher on geology as it relates to volcanic rock. I took a geology class a few years ago and fucking loved it, but I definitely do not have a brain for the physical sciences. Give me something I can interpret on my own and not be WHOLLY wrong when I do so, please!)
There are just all these pockets of alien looking plants in these fields. I was having a fucking blast, pardon the pun, exploring everything with my macro and getting into all the nooks and crannies of the rocks to see what (or who!) was living inside.
It looks like there used to be a tube of some sort in there, and it rusted and had to be removed. But nope. Just a little lava tube, with all of its mineral goodies making it a weird, gorgeous, colorful little rock hole.
Gabriel didn't want to bring his camera. I have no idea why. We charged it, we offered to pack it in our camera bags, we even offered him our TG5 that is usually reserved for underwater/The Littles (who did not come to big island, because we didn't really want to get close to the usual touristy surfaces), but for him, his cell phone was just fine. So while he does have his cell phone in hand, it isn't to be on social media or chat with his friends. He was very involved in taking photos of what we were doing.
It's just so fucking COOL! Look at all of those colors!!! Again, I didn't fuck with the colors in these rocks at all. They weren't edited. They just look like that.
I became pretty convinced these were just really complex spider webs, but it didn't stop me from being interested in them. They look like constellations.
Gabriel found this completely whole, perfectly covered in dew droplets, spider web, and I was so excited to get a perfect shot of it! Except the wind was blowing and the web wouldn't stay still enough for me to do so. This was the best shot I could muster, I didn't even bother setting up my tripod for the shot I really wanted. It is a beautiful web, though. It is the first of two lovely little droplet webs that were buffeted around too much by the wind for me to get a good shot of.
Another interesting little plant in the crevice of a rock. This is a 100% crop, as far in as I could go, and it is still tack fucking sharp. Not bad for a broad with a weak ass arm that struggles to keep her macro from shaking when she takes hand-held shots! And that is hand held. No tripod on that one, though I SHOULD have used a tripod. Here is the full shot, JIC you're interested, and then a shot of the bottom of the plant:
I fucking love my macro. I was so mad when Derek bought his, because even though he bought it third party and used, it wasn't an inexpensive lens. But uh, I wanted my own pretty immediately after using his, and now it is my second go to lens after my wide angle (which has really become my primary portrait workhorse. Other photographers may disagree, but I LOVE the warp it gives)
Look at the fucking color and texture on these rocks. It's fucking mindblowing and fascinating. I was awestruck and giddy and I would just...bust out laughing every few minutes because my brain didn't know how else to process how crazy my joy with all of this stuff was, in a landscape that was so absolutely foreign to me.
Again I have to promise you that I did nothing to these photos. I didn't color alter them. I didn't add things that aren't there. These rainbow slicks just...ARE. They're all the fuck over these rocks, and people were fucking MISSING THEM. Like, we literally photographed this lava field for two fucking hours, all three of us never once thinking there was a dull moment, all of us completely enraptured by what we were seeing, and during those two hours, we saw people park, get out of their cars, wander around for a few minutes, and then get back in. WITHOUT LOOKING AT THE SMALL STUFF!!!!! And like, look, there isn't a competition for who is the most interested in the minutiae tourist (though I would win, I think, for whatever that's worth), and not getting down to look at the micro doesn't make you any less interested or fascinated, or able to enjoy the lava fields. But come the fuck on, guys, like...stop for a minute and look, because it just gets a fuckload more interesting!! I've worked really hard to cultivate a lot of my interests in Gabriel, and a lot of the ways I live my life. For the most part, he has balked at all of them and forged his own path. Which is great, he's always been his own little human with his own way of doing shit, and I dig it (even when it makes me mad). But he HAS adopted my insistence on taking the time to really investigate the world around me, to get down and check out the small stuff. To peek into the trees and look for the bird nests, or the spiders and bugs, to find interesting little flowers and weeds, and if I had to choose ONE THING for him to take on, it would be that. I'm glad it worked out, not just because I'd feel like he missed out on so much if he didn't, but also because the hours I spend doing this are not spent in aggravation on his end, he's doing the same thing.
LOOK AT THAT VAST ARRAY OF COLOR AND TEXTURE, MOTHER FUCKERS!!!!! Just so fucking cool.
There are my boys, looking for stuff to photograph and then photographing it. I fucking love them.
How. Fucking. WEIRD is this place? So fucking weird. It's a god damn magical delight. Earth is the fucking coolest.
What are you, little fungal penis growth?? This thing was maybe...MAYBE...half the size of a dime. Super small. UPDATE: This, I THINK, is a cladonia floerkeana. A little lichen often called British Soldier lichen, which is kinda funny because it is named after German botanist Heinrich Gustav Florke (but with an umlaut, because obviously). The most I could find on it is that it's pretty fucking common in the forests of Britain, specifically peat bogs. A bit more digging unearthed another nickname, the Bengal Match. Alright. ALSO, that they are most commonly called "Gritty British Soldiers"...here. In fucking America. What..ok.
There's that ear again! I really wanted to get a great, punchy shot of that. I did not.
It was so fucking misty. Visibility wasn't so great. This was when we first got out of the car, and as you'll see in a few photos, the mist just...closed the fuck in on us.
This shit looked to me like the cover of a Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark book. That shit looks like a head. I called this place "Valley of the Dolls", and told myself that if I posted a photo on instagram of it, that's what I'd call it. I will not be doing that, as none of these photos are any god damn good. But had my delusions of grandeur been visions of accuracy, that's the title I would have granted it.
I had such high hopes for these photos. UGH. I am so fucking BAD at landscape photography. Just the worst.
Here's the other spider web! This guy was REALLY getting jostled around by the wind. You can kind of tell, if you look at the blurred plants in the background. They have a very swirly look to them because it's just so god damn windy.
I loved this. Just a fern growing AROUND a big hunk of rock. What a magnificently odd place.
And then the mist rolled in harder, and we had to go.
I took this shot from the car window right as we were pulling away.
There's the mist! Swallowing us whole.
I could have stayed there taking photos FOREVER, but it started to rain again, and we had to hustle back in the car.
I really wish these photos had done a better job of relaying how strange everything looked. What I mean to say is, I wish I had done a better job taking photos of how strange everything looked.
Derek found these on the side of the road. They were just drenched in mist droplets. I know it LOOKS out of focus, but it isn't. It's just covered in dew.
I really loved this rock. It looks like an ear. I wish I could make the rocks look richer, and in all honesty, I could. If I felt like photoshopping the photos, but I don't. I have too much other shit to do.
It's just so fucking MISTY. I loved it. It was super quiet there, too. Like being in a horror movie.
These are the lava fields we first visited. The 1974 flow. The mist hadn't really set in yet, it was just grey outside. I wish this provided better scope, because this landscape is massive and bleak, but also so full of strange and interesting plant life.
Look at these things! Just THRIVING in the most barren looking land I've ever seen with my own two eyes.
I assumed these were spider webs and not some sort of very interesting fungus, but whatever they are, I could not stop looking for them and trying to get good photos of them all covered in dew droplets.
SO. It turns out, volcanic rock is a lot more complex than the term "rock" lets on. It can be more than just a bumpy black piece of dried lava, and it can be more than the other things I knew were formed from the different bits and pieces cooling at different rates in lava (like quartz, or obsidian), it can just be colorful fuckin' rock. And it's god damn AMAZING. Like...I didn't do shit to the photo of that rock, it just...IS that colorful. The short reason why is mineral make up, but the longer reasons why are pretty fucking interesting. I did a lot of reading and learning about the composition of lava rock, but I figure the best thing to do rather than synthesize it is just leave a few related links at the end of this post. It isn't going to be everything I read, just the things I think explain what's going on the best (including a refresher on geology as it relates to volcanic rock. I took a geology class a few years ago and fucking loved it, but I definitely do not have a brain for the physical sciences. Give me something I can interpret on my own and not be WHOLLY wrong when I do so, please!)
There are just all these pockets of alien looking plants in these fields. I was having a fucking blast, pardon the pun, exploring everything with my macro and getting into all the nooks and crannies of the rocks to see what (or who!) was living inside.
It looks like there used to be a tube of some sort in there, and it rusted and had to be removed. But nope. Just a little lava tube, with all of its mineral goodies making it a weird, gorgeous, colorful little rock hole.
Gabriel didn't want to bring his camera. I have no idea why. We charged it, we offered to pack it in our camera bags, we even offered him our TG5 that is usually reserved for underwater/The Littles (who did not come to big island, because we didn't really want to get close to the usual touristy surfaces), but for him, his cell phone was just fine. So while he does have his cell phone in hand, it isn't to be on social media or chat with his friends. He was very involved in taking photos of what we were doing.
It's just so fucking COOL! Look at all of those colors!!! Again, I didn't fuck with the colors in these rocks at all. They weren't edited. They just look like that.
I became pretty convinced these were just really complex spider webs, but it didn't stop me from being interested in them. They look like constellations.
Gabriel found this completely whole, perfectly covered in dew droplets, spider web, and I was so excited to get a perfect shot of it! Except the wind was blowing and the web wouldn't stay still enough for me to do so. This was the best shot I could muster, I didn't even bother setting up my tripod for the shot I really wanted. It is a beautiful web, though. It is the first of two lovely little droplet webs that were buffeted around too much by the wind for me to get a good shot of.
Another interesting little plant in the crevice of a rock. This is a 100% crop, as far in as I could go, and it is still tack fucking sharp. Not bad for a broad with a weak ass arm that struggles to keep her macro from shaking when she takes hand-held shots! And that is hand held. No tripod on that one, though I SHOULD have used a tripod. Here is the full shot, JIC you're interested, and then a shot of the bottom of the plant:
I fucking love my macro. I was so mad when Derek bought his, because even though he bought it third party and used, it wasn't an inexpensive lens. But uh, I wanted my own pretty immediately after using his, and now it is my second go to lens after my wide angle (which has really become my primary portrait workhorse. Other photographers may disagree, but I LOVE the warp it gives)
Look at the fucking color and texture on these rocks. It's fucking mindblowing and fascinating. I was awestruck and giddy and I would just...bust out laughing every few minutes because my brain didn't know how else to process how crazy my joy with all of this stuff was, in a landscape that was so absolutely foreign to me.
Again I have to promise you that I did nothing to these photos. I didn't color alter them. I didn't add things that aren't there. These rainbow slicks just...ARE. They're all the fuck over these rocks, and people were fucking MISSING THEM. Like, we literally photographed this lava field for two fucking hours, all three of us never once thinking there was a dull moment, all of us completely enraptured by what we were seeing, and during those two hours, we saw people park, get out of their cars, wander around for a few minutes, and then get back in. WITHOUT LOOKING AT THE SMALL STUFF!!!!! And like, look, there isn't a competition for who is the most interested in the minutiae tourist (though I would win, I think, for whatever that's worth), and not getting down to look at the micro doesn't make you any less interested or fascinated, or able to enjoy the lava fields. But come the fuck on, guys, like...stop for a minute and look, because it just gets a fuckload more interesting!! I've worked really hard to cultivate a lot of my interests in Gabriel, and a lot of the ways I live my life. For the most part, he has balked at all of them and forged his own path. Which is great, he's always been his own little human with his own way of doing shit, and I dig it (even when it makes me mad). But he HAS adopted my insistence on taking the time to really investigate the world around me, to get down and check out the small stuff. To peek into the trees and look for the bird nests, or the spiders and bugs, to find interesting little flowers and weeds, and if I had to choose ONE THING for him to take on, it would be that. I'm glad it worked out, not just because I'd feel like he missed out on so much if he didn't, but also because the hours I spend doing this are not spent in aggravation on his end, he's doing the same thing.
LOOK AT THAT VAST ARRAY OF COLOR AND TEXTURE, MOTHER FUCKERS!!!!! Just so fucking cool.
There are my boys, looking for stuff to photograph and then photographing it. I fucking love them.
How. Fucking. WEIRD is this place? So fucking weird. It's a god damn magical delight. Earth is the fucking coolest.
What are you, little fungal penis growth?? This thing was maybe...MAYBE...half the size of a dime. Super small. UPDATE: This, I THINK, is a cladonia floerkeana. A little lichen often called British Soldier lichen, which is kinda funny because it is named after German botanist Heinrich Gustav Florke (but with an umlaut, because obviously). The most I could find on it is that it's pretty fucking common in the forests of Britain, specifically peat bogs. A bit more digging unearthed another nickname, the Bengal Match. Alright. ALSO, that they are most commonly called "Gritty British Soldiers"...here. In fucking America. What..ok.
There's that ear again! I really wanted to get a great, punchy shot of that. I did not.
It was so fucking misty. Visibility wasn't so great. This was when we first got out of the car, and as you'll see in a few photos, the mist just...closed the fuck in on us.
This shit looked to me like the cover of a Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark book. That shit looks like a head. I called this place "Valley of the Dolls", and told myself that if I posted a photo on instagram of it, that's what I'd call it. I will not be doing that, as none of these photos are any god damn good. But had my delusions of grandeur been visions of accuracy, that's the title I would have granted it.
I had such high hopes for these photos. UGH. I am so fucking BAD at landscape photography. Just the worst.
Here's the other spider web! This guy was REALLY getting jostled around by the wind. You can kind of tell, if you look at the blurred plants in the background. They have a very swirly look to them because it's just so god damn windy.
I loved this. Just a fern growing AROUND a big hunk of rock. What a magnificently odd place.
And then the mist rolled in harder, and we had to go.
I took this shot from the car window right as we were pulling away.
There's the mist! Swallowing us whole.
I could have stayed there taking photos FOREVER, but it started to rain again, and we had to hustle back in the car.
We drove all the way down the mountain to the seaside arch, and the views were just...we had to stop along the way to see even more lava fields, with even more differenter lava flows. The patterns are amazing, and I will admit that I felt like a smooth poser, taking texture shots like some kind of amateur, but I did not let that stop me kissing it.
Lava as far as the eye can see, but also sky. Sky after where your eyes see lava. The weather has kind of improved...it isn't misty...but it certainly wasn't nice and sunny now that we were lower in altitude.
Look at that texture, though!!! The gold looks like someone just...scratched away at the lava surface, but that isn't the case. That's just what the lava looks like. Geology is fucking cool!!!! I won't lie, I DID try to figure out EXACTLY why each color occurs in the lava, I really did. I learned so much shit, but not why each field has rocks with these textures and what each specific color show means. I know it's mineral composition and cooling time that allows for certain minerals to grow the way they do, but I wanted to know WHICH minerals made these look golden, and which minerals made the lava look like a record players covered in an oil slick. I had a friend named Reed a long fucking time ago that was studying geology...went all the way to Scotland to do it. I kinda wish I still talked to him so I could ask him exactly what's up.
I felt so silly, just thinking "how alien!" to myself over and over, but that's where my head was at.
There's Gabriel, just kinda blending in to the background, exploring the lava fields. Did I mention he was god damn enthralled with VNP? He loved it. Couldn't get enough. He was bored as fuck by things like the sea arch (and...you know...fair), but he pretty much fell head over heels for everything else.
There's Derek, a forever hot man piece in a once hot lava field.
Gabriel, hamming it up in lava loving style. He stole Derek's jacket and didn't really wanna give it back.
See? A record with an oil slick.
You can see all of the scorched earth from the lava flow. It's fucking cool.
And then, just...little ferns. Little Ferns everywhere.
We stopped fucking around in the lava fields and made our way to the sea arch. Honestly should have just stayed with the lava fields.
What's that? Having trouble viewing the arch? Let me help.
STILL having trouble??? HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE! It's the sea arch!!!
Aha! THERE it is. Now, I am not trying to undervalue the spectacle of nature. This is a VERY dramatic arch. The waves are loud, the spray rushed over the cliffs, the water is always churning...it is a sight to see. MY complaint is our vantage point sucks. I wanted to be closer, but the original viewing area was closed. I think it was closed from erosion or something similar, and we are very lucky that they opened up another viewing area. I am so glad I got to see this. It just...it made for boring photos because I am really not talented when it comes to landscape photography and having to get creative with a less than spectacular angle.
BUT LOOK HOW RED!!!! Ugh. So fucking cool. Could have checked out the rocks forever.
Just a small little infographic on where we were for your ingestion. You're welcome!
Oh! Oh little wish flower! I wanted to use it to wish for better weather, but as the rest of my blogs will show, I did not do that.
Lava as far as the eye can see, but also sky. Sky after where your eyes see lava. The weather has kind of improved...it isn't misty...but it certainly wasn't nice and sunny now that we were lower in altitude.
Look at that texture, though!!! The gold looks like someone just...scratched away at the lava surface, but that isn't the case. That's just what the lava looks like. Geology is fucking cool!!!! I won't lie, I DID try to figure out EXACTLY why each color occurs in the lava, I really did. I learned so much shit, but not why each field has rocks with these textures and what each specific color show means. I know it's mineral composition and cooling time that allows for certain minerals to grow the way they do, but I wanted to know WHICH minerals made these look golden, and which minerals made the lava look like a record players covered in an oil slick. I had a friend named Reed a long fucking time ago that was studying geology...went all the way to Scotland to do it. I kinda wish I still talked to him so I could ask him exactly what's up.
I felt so silly, just thinking "how alien!" to myself over and over, but that's where my head was at.
There's Gabriel, just kinda blending in to the background, exploring the lava fields. Did I mention he was god damn enthralled with VNP? He loved it. Couldn't get enough. He was bored as fuck by things like the sea arch (and...you know...fair), but he pretty much fell head over heels for everything else.
There's Derek, a forever hot man piece in a once hot lava field.
Gabriel, hamming it up in lava loving style. He stole Derek's jacket and didn't really wanna give it back.
See? A record with an oil slick.
You can see all of the scorched earth from the lava flow. It's fucking cool.
And then, just...little ferns. Little Ferns everywhere.
We stopped fucking around in the lava fields and made our way to the sea arch. Honestly should have just stayed with the lava fields.
STILL having trouble??? HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE! It's the sea arch!!!
Aha! THERE it is. Now, I am not trying to undervalue the spectacle of nature. This is a VERY dramatic arch. The waves are loud, the spray rushed over the cliffs, the water is always churning...it is a sight to see. MY complaint is our vantage point sucks. I wanted to be closer, but the original viewing area was closed. I think it was closed from erosion or something similar, and we are very lucky that they opened up another viewing area. I am so glad I got to see this. It just...it made for boring photos because I am really not talented when it comes to landscape photography and having to get creative with a less than spectacular angle.
BUT LOOK HOW RED!!!! Ugh. So fucking cool. Could have checked out the rocks forever.
Just a small little infographic on where we were for your ingestion. You're welcome!
Oh! Oh little wish flower! I wanted to use it to wish for better weather, but as the rest of my blogs will show, I did not do that.
We were less than enthused with our view of the arch, if I'm being honest. It was cool for sure, but they had to close off the first lookout point with the good view due to reasons, so we got the subpar access. Derek and I were underwhelmed. Gabriel was HUGELY underwhelmed. BUT!!!!
On the way out of the area, we saw humpback whales!!! A momma and her calf!!
We also saw an influencer in the wild getting cited for being in a restricted area. What a time to be alive!
That pretty much wrapped up that day. We went to a place called Seaside for dinner that was completely enrobed in geckos. So much so that one of them joined me for dinner:
Hey, little feller!
We started with Hamakua mushrooms (Hamakua is a region of the island. There IS a mushroom farm there, but we didn't get to go. Closed due to coronavirus) and they were fucking TREMENDOUS. Derek went and used the bathroom when they were brought to the table and I had the hardest time not eating every last morsel.
I had a local moo cow ribeye, local asparagus, and local veggies, all keto, all delicious.
Derek had furikake crusted salmon with the sweetest smelling sauce (he said it tasted like unagi sauce). It smelled AMAZING. I wanted it.
Gabriel was throwing some kind of hissy fit over something, he refused to tell us what the deal was, and he wouldn't even glance at the menu. He could have ordered ANYTHING, but flat out refused. So I ordered him a kid macaroni and cheese, and he ended up trying to eat my fucking steak. I WILL KINDLY THANK YOU TO FUCKING NOT, YOU LEECH.
And then we drove home and that was our day. Derek and I had to wake up super early for our adventure the next morning, and honestly, I think it was my very favorite day of the trip. Stay tuned!!
As promised, here are a few links to learn about lava rock, in case you are curious, but too lazy to do your own googling:
The mineral composition of lava/A summation of Hawaiian eruptions (from nps.gov)
A vague refresher on how lava cools and why it has different surface structure/appearance (from usgs.gov)
Types of lava (from instanthawaii.com and a more Hawaiian, less government page)
How to classify igneous rocks (geologyin.com)
3/27/2020 EDIT:
Derek and I have really been hard at work trying to figure out what some of these rock compositions are. Looking up igneous rock or lava rocks is surprisingly unhelpful, and we've been really working on learning what makes these incredible rocks look the way they do. We've been making educated guesses based on what we know about igneous rocks (for instance, I feel like I pretty accurately determined a lava outcrop littered with feldspar, while Derek figured out that the rainbow slicks on these rocks is titanium), but we haven't stopped looking for concrete answers. The USGS sadly retired their Ask a Geologist feature last year, so I ended up emailing VNP for info, and another geologist in the UH system, we'll see who answers first, but Derek, sexy fucking genius that he is, found a paper that is a fucking bounty of answers about lava composition. I can't recommend this enough, it is a wealth of information:
Field Interpretations of Active Volcanoes by Ken Hon, Jenda Johnson, and Cheryl Gansecki With contributions from Terry Reveira, Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park, and the USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory
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