For those few of you who may be interested in the volcano which is no more than two miles (less as the crow flies) from my front door, you might take a look at this site:
http://hvo.wr.usgs.gov. The site gives day-by-day updates of the current volcanic activity at both Mount Kilauea and Mauna Loa. Both are active volcanoes and Kilauea is often referred to as the most active volcano on earth. There has been no time since the first humans sighted the mountain about maybe 2,000 years ago that it has
not been active. There is a constant lava flow into the ocean from one vent or another. These vents and flows aren't always close to where you might go and see them, except by overflight, but they shift sufficiently from time to time to make a trek on foot late at night, armed with flahlight, worthwhile. About 10 years ago the flow was close enough to the end of the highway which leads to Kalipana (can't remember the route number now) that one could walk less a mile into the old lava field and watch the bright red molten rock come cascading down the mountainside and into the ocean where it sent up billowing clouds of steam. An hour or two after dark, viewed from a vantage point no more than couple of hundred yards away, it is one of the most fantastic sights I've witnessed in my life. In fact, take out "one of the" in the preceding sentence.
