AR standing amidst the carnage takes a healthy power bar break. Slipstream from a passing tourbus caused a little wobble from her front wheel. ‘Course, it didn’t help that she’d left the handle bars unattended while making a friendly wave and salute. (Don’t scare me like that next time 🙂 We enjoyed a beautiful ride on the crater rim of the Kilauea Caldera passing through rainforest and desert. Included was a side excursion tip-toe through the dark Thurston Lava Tube. Our guide described a lot about what makes the earth tick and offered up many explanations for what we saw before us. (Pele’s fault mostly) The desert area was in stark contrast to the typical and expected Hawaiian lush green tree fern flora. This devastation trail resembled a rock strewn Martian lunarscape. Steam, volcanic smoke, and sulfur gas oozed from primordial rocks. I overheard a bit of humor on the trek out of this historic natural hell. A woman perceived the volume of steam to have intensified from her observations when going in. Someone, in his calmest gentlemanly school teacher voice assured her: “okay everyone — let’s hurry back to the bicycles…”