This is a map in Jagger Museum that shows the various distances from the lava flow.  On the night of Mar 12 (page 4),
we made it as far as the Steam plume viewing area in the dark.  I'd really like to get out to the very end someday.  
Yesterday Robin and I took a hike out.  Word was that a chunk of the coast had fallen into the sea and there was a
brand new flow entering the ocean.  It had been raining for a couple of days and we decided it was a good time to go
since it wouldn't be too hot out there on the lava.  At the time we decided to go, I was on the Internet discovering a
mother lode of photos and information which I will link for you to save myself a lot of work.  I will also select from those
pages stuff that is related to what I'm talking about and showing here.  The main page is USGS Hawaii Volcano
Observatory (HVO) and the specific page for Kilauea is Current Update of Kilauea Volcano, Hawaii.  Here is also a page
that provides the latest updates of photos Kilauea Eruption Updates.  We left around noon, very much on the spur of the
moment.  It was raining fairly hard and had been for a couple of days so we packed up umbrellas, ponchos, etc. and
headed out.  Our goal was to park at the Ranger Station at the end of Chain of Craters Road (see photo above - click
photo for a larger image) and walk the full distance out to where the lava flow is roped off, a walk of roughly 3.5 miles
each way.  Sometimes we don't know when to come in out of the rain, as it were.
It's sort of a drag to have to drive all the way around to get to where we're going.  Before the
lava, we would've had maybe a 10 mile drive from our house to get there.  But then if there
was no lava, why would we want to go there?
And now, thanks to the Internet, we can see things we haven't been able to see for ourselves.  Above is a small map of
what's where in regards to the lava flows and such.  There's our old friend, Kilauea on the left with Halema'uma'u
Crater.  For reference, I marked our house with a "+" and you can see "Kamu", which I have been calling Kaimu  .The
active vent right now is the Pu'u O'o vent, the rightmost crater shown on the map.  The lava flow is occurring roughly
halfway between the end of Chain of Craters Road on the left and Kaimu on the right.  Below are a few pictures I
found on the Internet.  They are photos taken from Current update of the eruption of Kilauea Volcano, Hawai'i.  If you go
to that page, you'll probably find much more current information than what I'm giving you here.  But this is what prompted
us to go out there when we did - to see the new lava flow.
<-- On our walk of 7/16 (page 31-32),
we came into Royal Gardens on the
right side and traveled across right to
left.  Those streets you see run
perpendicular to our path.
4 August 2006
Campout flow reaches the ocean
Left. Campout flow finally reaches the sea in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, forming small bench at base of sea cliff.
The new bench is about 55 m long and 8 m wide. Royal Gardens subdivision visible in top middle of photo. Right. Close
view of lava spilling over sea cliff and growing bench.
Bite taken out of East Lae`apuki lava delta July 30

At 12:47 p.m. on July 30, a 10-acre chunk of the west
side of the bench broke off and fell into the water. Black
line marks approximate edge of the bench before the
collapse. During the collapse explosive activity
bombarded the older lava delta and sea cliff on the
western side of the bench, sending spatter and rock
debris up to about 40 m inland—nearly half the distance
to the rope barricade.
You can see the rope boundary line that we walked to.  We started out at the very left end and made our
way up along the rope until we had a good viewpoint where I set up the tripod and waited for darkness.
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Photos 2, page 11
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August 6, 2006
Lots more about Kilauea
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