Dream Trip 2009

Great Travel Moment

In retrospect, we hiked precariously close to the volcanic plume flowing into the ocean off Kalapana on the Big Island of Hawaii. With each step I remembered that large pieces of land do suddenly drop off into the ocean from the instability of newly hardened lava flows. I continued instinctively and slowly. A new island is forming here, rising up two miles from the ocean floor and named Lo'ihi. Where lava meets sea, billowing clouds and smoke flowed off the edge of the earth, unfolding into myriad shapes over the ocean. Figures of every mind's imagination were continually appearing and disappearing. I could watch endlessly as bright cumulous clouds were being born every minute against a stormy grey sky. This moment stays with me still because I was close to the origins of the earth, close to creation.