To give you an idea where all of this took place: Look at the map on the left. Belly Acres is on the wet side of the island (Hilo side) in the SouthEast. Hilo is, by the way, the wettest city of the United States with twice as much rain as Seattle, but much more sunshine ;)

The lava tree photos deserve an explanation. About 150 years ago a very fast-flowing lava stream rushed through a forest of Ohia trees (very hard wood). The mosture in the trees cooled the lava a little bit so that hard crusts formed around the tree trunks. Normally that wouldn't really make much of a difference because more lava would come and melt this away again, or the whole area would be covered in lava and one might see a deep hole in the cold lava where the tree trunk once was. But in this case there are many of cracks and caves in the ground and the lava ran off in a very short time. So the lava-encrusted trees were left behind. Voila - lava trees.

Let me also say something about the lava tubes. There are actually two of them in these photos. One of them, the larger one is in a beach park near to where we stayed -- I forget the name now. The other one is near Kalapana. You can climb into this second one through a very narrow tunnel, a few hundred meters inland from the coast and then crawl through the tube underground till you reach an opening in the cliff -- overlooking the ocean. It's an amazing adventure.