See Beautiful: Volcanic Edition

A couple of weeks ago when I posted about the hubs swimming with an Iron Dog, I mentioned we'd gone to the Big Island for my Big Birthday. Today I thought I'd share some of the beauty of Hawaii with you!

We spent a few days in the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park and it was amazing! (It would have been even more amazing if the rain had let up a little more often.)

Here's a picture of the Kīlauea crater during the day (during a rare break from the rain!).

We lucked out while we were there! Usually at night, the crater looks like the pic below. You normally can't see the lava - only the glow from it on the crater walls. Pretty cool, eh?

But while we were there, the lava lake rose 80 feet from where it normally is, so we also got to see it looking like this:

You should really "bigify" this one!

It was AMAZING! The park was crazy-busy with folks coming to see the beauty of the lava doing it's thing. The pic above was taken at 10:00pm when the park was slightly less busy.

We went on some great hikes in the park, including one across the Kīlauea Iki Trail which started in a rain forest and then down across what had been a lava lake in 1959. In some places the lava rocks looked like something out of an earthquake movie, but we "saw beautiful" in the rocks and in the hardy plants that were managing to grow up through the rock.

Of course we also saw beauty in the power of the ocean.

The bright blue water against the black lava rock was so gorgeous!

There was also beauty in the flora...

Banyan trees, flowers and ferns were everywhere

...and fauna of the island.

Turtles sunning themselves, a red anemone, and a bird in a tux!

I found some beautiful shells and bits of creatures at the beach, but "took only pictures."

The place we stayed when we got to the Kona side of the island had this happy smiling rock built into the wall along the bay. That little rock has every reason to be happy, living in such a beautiful place!

I hope you are happy with your placement in the world, just like this little rock is! Now get out there and see some beautiful!

But wait... what's a PoochSmooches post without a pup pic?! It's always fun to go away, but it's fabulous to come home to your pup!!

This pic is funny because Rita is (for some reason) afraid of the front of the car and had NEVER gotten in the front seat before, but she was so excited that we were home, she jumped in the front before I'd even had a chance to open the backdoor for her. Funny girl.

{This Moment} See Beautiful is a once a month Blog Hop, every 2nd Friday of the month. Simply create a blog post that made your day, week, and/or month … inspiring you in Seeing Beauty.

Blog Hop inspired by See Beautiful.

Thanks to Sugar the Golden Retriever for hosting the See Beautiful blog hop!