As I understand it, this is a sunken part of the Kilauea volcano and that big mound on the left hand side is a big burp of lava that came up just last year. The smoke in the background is from the main caldera. This is a great example of the Hawaiian language, isn't it? Pooh-ooh Oh Oh! Translation: say… I think we'd better go-go now-now!
You can't see in these pictures, but there were hikers down in the crater. They were so small you had to look really hard and watch for movement. We were way up there on the rim! It's hard to judge distances in Hawaii. And you never know if the ferns are normal-sized or giant tree-sized ones, like below. We were on the path down into the Thurston Lava Tube and were standing at about the middle of this tree–it went equally far both up and down.
That Fern Forest was amazing. So primeval. You expected a dinosaur to come munching along any minute. It reminded me of a scene out of The Lord of the Rings or something.
Here's the entrance to the Lava Tube. If it looks dark and scary–it was! For those of you who may not have heard of these before, a lava tube is formed with the top layer of a stream of molten lava cools and forms a crust, with the still-liquid rock flowing beneath it. Sometimes the liquid rock will all drain out very quickly and leave the tunnel empty. Sometimes the roof is so fragile it will fall in, other times it is very sturdy–although quite porous, as we found out as we got dripped on the whole way through.
This is Mike coming out the other end. It's quite a long lava tube and you can go further, but they recommend hard hats and spelunking gear, so we declined. yes, those are stupid American tourists going into the hard part without the proper gear–(laugh).I didn't take any pictures actually inside the tube, because it was so wet and we were working very hard to avoid gigantic puddles. It was also very dark. "Lighted" was an exaggeration of this tour's benefits. 
Contrast the rainforest above to the other side of the island and the endless sea of black a'a lava… what a difference between the wet and dry sides of the island!
