VOG, Kilauea, Ka'u Coffee and Volcano Winery

So, I mentioned "VOG" in an earlier post. Vog is 'volcanic fog' and it is pervasive and a health hazard. It is a result of Kilauea opening up a vent in 2005 and spewing tons and tons of volcanic air pollution. From the www.konaweb.com site...
"Madam Pele is a mysterious goddess. She can sleep for years, but when she wakes up, one of the ways she lets everyone know it is by sending a plume of sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere. Sulfur dioxide reacts with other gases, moisture, dust and sunlight to form vog. Molten lava flowing down the flanks of Kilauea often pours into the sea, where it interacts with sea water to produce hydrogen sulfide, sulfur dioxide, and other chemicals."
This 'vog' really hit me hard the first couple of days and it has really impacted the flora and fauna of the area. Since I am an asthmatic I am very careful to bring my emergency inhaler and I do take daily medication to prevent asthmatic bouts....but sometimes, it just hits me pretty hard. The first couple of days were a little bit of a struggle to breathe!
I eventually adjusted but I was very surprised that this even existed in Paradise!
 We spent one whole day walking on the wild side of Hawai'i- checking out the area of the Kilauea Volcano. This is one of the active "young" volcanos that continues to erupt on Hawai'i.

Hawai'i is the youngest of the islands...except for the newly formed Lo'ihi Seamount (a submarine volcano). In about 10,000 years it too, will become another of the Hawai'ian Islands. We also could see Mauna Loa (the largest of the active volcanos on the Island) with snow on it!

 We toured the Jagger Museum, which was pretty cool and told us a lot about volcanoes in Hawai'i. We actually know a lot about volcanos and calderas, living near Crater Lake and skiing for 35 years in Mammoth, but Hawai'ian volcanoes are very different. 
Kilauea was pretty awesome.

It was a sunny but cool blustery day so we warmed up near one of the steam vents.

And then, we were ready for a drink, and lunch!
We stopped at the Volcano Winery. The wines were pretty sweet, because of the climate, so while the wine tasting was fun, we didn't buy and of the wines. Here are their vineyards and Kevin and Rich goofing around in front of the winery! Rich was the DD that day!

We did eat at the Lava Rock Cafe. The food was fantastic! I had the shrimp and crab salad. Aarah had the shrimp and crab rolls, and Rich and Kevin had burgers. The food is very good, but the service is 'Island style'. When they get there, they get there. Oh well, we weren't in a hurry.

We also stopped at the Ka'u Coffee Mill. This is a plantation that took over some sugar cane sites and let me tell you, the coffee is better than "Kona Coffee". We had a lot of fun tasting the coffee (after wine tasting! ha ha) and actually brought some of the dark roast home to remember the scent of the delicious coffee!

That morning we decided we needed to have some pizza....so I made a whole wheat pizza dough. We had a Pizza Margharita (Kevin and Rich had some ham and leftover sausage on their side) but it looked so beautiful with the fresh mozzarella, garden fresh tomatoes and garden fresh basil I had to take a picture! It was delicious! Not paleo, but heck, it was VACATION!!!!

Of course, we had salad...and wine. I think wine is paleo. It's made from grapes, right??