Activities

• Kahaluu Beach Park Keauhou Bay, snorkel gear $8 per day

Pretty Hapuna Beach (Susan Seubert) [enlarge photo] FEBRUARY 2007 ISSUE • Table of Contents • Secret Hotels of the Riviera Maya • James Turrell: Sky High • Dubai: Just Add Money • Eat Like a Local: Melbourne • Five Hotels: What 99 Pounds Buys in London • Road Trip: Hawaii • 40 Best Vacations

Day 2: Keauhou to Volcano

Even as Highway 11 drifts inland and up into the mountains, the amazing ocean views keep on coming--because the drop-offs to the water are so dramatic. I'd love to stop and appreciate the scenery from the patio of a roadside coffee shop, but Will is sound asleep in the backseat. Besides, before I have time to consider the repercussions of pulling over and waking him up, giant raindrops are pounding the windshield.

The sky remains gray and spooky as we turn off for Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. About one quarter of the way around Crater Rim Drive, the 11-mile loop circling the 400-foot-deep Kilauea Caldera, we stop to check out the Thomas A. Jaggar Museum. There we learn that back when Mark Twain visited, the crater regularly spewed orange lava into the air. Today, the crater is a forbidding black hole, nearly three miles across--pretty impressive, even without the lava show.

Further around the loop, I run up to the edge of the Halemaumau Overlook for another view of the caldera. Yellow-green gases billow from wrinkles way down in the crater, emitting a powerful rotten-egg smell. (By now, we've seen signs saying that pregnant women and small children should avoid exposure to the fumes, so Jessica and Will hang out in the car.)

Still further on, we navigate steep stairs across a fern jungle to walk through the Thurston Lava Tube, a natural tunnel formed by lava hundreds of years ago. Sparsely lit, with rounded rock walls and water dripping from above, the tube looks like a place the Scooby-Doo crew would wander into.

The weather is clearing, so we double back and turn onto Chain of Craters Road, which drops from 4,000 feet to sea level in about an hour, zigzagging through three distinct landscapes: vibrant green rain forest, low shrubbery and grasses sprouting from old lava, and bleak sections where everything's covered in newer, molasses-like layers of jet-black lava.

Will is asleep again by the time the road runs into a makeshift ranger station; a few hundred yards later, the road really ends, because in 2003 lava flows covered it. Jessica insists that I go solo for a closer look. I follow a marked path and scramble over hardened, uneven lava, snapping pictures of a NO PARKING sign jutting from below. I'm sure the ground feels hot simply because it's black and the sun is beating down, but I can't get the thought out of my head that red lava is working its way to the surface below me, and I hightail it back to the car.

We try to eat at restaurants when they're least crowded--with a toddler, that works out best for everyone--and we're the first group for dinner at Kiawe Kitchen. William wants a closer peek at the restaurant's brick oven, and it's slow enough that the two cooks smile and chat as they slide our pizza inside. Turns out they're from New Jersey and Long Island, home turf for much of my family, and we play the "Do you know . . . ?" game. The ingredients are fresh, everything is delicious, and we get the check paid right as the place is filling up.

I'm a little concerned about the Volcano Inn, where I booked a room earlier in the day, because the rate is a below-market $69 and the man I spoke to requested cash. I'm even more worried when we struggle to find the place, which is across the highway from the other shops and hotels outside the national park. But upon inspecting our room, the Hapuu Cottage, I realize the inn is just a simple, small operation, and a bargain at that. Huge windows look into dense rain forest, and there's a fridge and plenty of space on the floor for William's inflatable mattress. Rain on the tin roof seems deafening at first, but soon lulls us all to sleep.

Lodging