My younger (adult) son J is here visiting. It’s a big deal! The first time either of my sons have been able to come to the island to see the compound.
We’ve been doing a lot of driving around. The truth is, the compound is pretty far away from everything, as befits the habitation of a wannabe, well, compound-dweller. But spending three days coming from the airport and going to the beach and then the botanical garden was a bit much, so we decided that Monday would be a stay-at-home day. Then, at 04:40, a new fountaining episode started at Kilauea. We had thought about going the day before, when the episode was predicted to start, but we didn’t and Pele obliged by waiting until Tuesday. We decided to set out before breakfast and see if we could get to the crater before the episode stopped. We got there and, amazingly, got a good parking spot in time to see the fountain and lots of steaming vents. Shortly after we arrived, it started raining and the fog and steam eventually got so thick we couldn’t really see the fountain anymore. We decided to leave, and later learned that the fountaining stopped a few minutes later. Our timing was perfect, and it might well be a once-in-a-lifetime thing for J.
—2p