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Speaking of ash and acid....
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That little red dot is the lava. That steam is seriously bad news. The air we were breathing, as far away as we were, was bad. Very, very bad. The ranger was wearing a gas mask. I forgot mine at home.
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One more lava-and-steam pic.
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This is the Mauna Loa trailhead. That's my rental car. The beautiful blue jeep. I took a picture of it in case it wasn't there when we returned - four days later. It had all of our stuff in it. And it's at the top of an 11 mile road. I really didn't want to walk down, either.
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The very start of the four-day hike. Little did she know, she was happier right now than she would be for a very long time.
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Blissfully ignorant of the pain my feet were about to endure.