Aloha part 3

We're here for one more week. We've been to a bunch of beaches: Hapuna, Disappearing Sands, Punalu'u the black sand beach, Pahoa, Boiling Pot, Wawaloli, Papakolea the green sand beach, and probably others like the one down the street.  Noah's been boogie boarding at a bunch of them. We've seen waterfalls, caves, steam vents, empty calderas, and farmers markets. We've tried different shave ice. 

We went to Volcanoes National Park last weekend which was a couple hours' drive. We've been listening to different podcasts in the car, particularly Mars Patel, Origin Unknown, and Grim, Grimmer, Grimmest. We hiked and drove around the park and we got to go in a cave that has just opened up. When we walked around the steam vents, which were very cool, I mean hot, we walked through a sort of fern forest which lots of cool plants and fiddleheads. 

 these are fronds of a fern

 Can you see the steam? This is a steam vent

 These are ferns - when they're rolled up like this, 

                              they're called fiddleheads

We stayed the night in a campsite with cabins, and made friends with a Hawaiian scout troupe while we cooked our hotdogs. After leaving, we drove to Papakolea, the green beach. We turned down a $20 per person shuttle and decided to drive a short ways and then walk there ourselves, up above the beach. The ground was reddish clay and it was a rocky trail so we were looking at our feet a lot. Then when looking up, the ocean looked extra blue. The green beach was more greenish than green. There was a cliff we had to go down, with ladders and stairs, and a steep hill of sand which Noah climbed. 

The kids are hungry for social interaction other than each other. They annoy each other and Aviva is particularly good at this. If there's a question, she gives the same answer as Noah, who will then change his answer. So then she'll change hers and then he'll change his....They get along a lot of the time and then they fight a lot of the time. And there's a lot of time. They have potty humor which cracks them up and that includes burps, which always impress each other. It is very unfortunate and rather unpleasant for the adults present. They've been told they can do it when no adults are around, but they are constantly forgetting or maybe "forgetting." There are tantrums and fits and we've gotten some noise complaints from our neighbors.... This covid time is hard for the kids and it's hard for parents and apparently it's hard for the neighbors also, unfortunately, thanks to us.

Noah has been really wanting to make a fire. A bunch of the beaches don't allow fires but there's one near us that does, so Noah and I brought some collected wood and some hotdogs to the beach last night.