JOHN vs. CATHLEEN & THE VOLCANO

More stellar days tick by -- hiking the remote valleys south of Pololu, snorkeling with sea turtles off of Puako, touring Hilo's busy farmers market in the rain -- but I can't shake my Vulcanian obsession. With two days left in the trip, we pull into the town of Volcano, just outside Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, near dusk.

"We'll just check it out," I tell Cathleen. "I won't be unreasonable."

Perhaps because we've been driving most of the day -- we swung down from the Kona coast, sightseeing along the way -- or maybe due to the autumnal crispness in the air (Volcano sits at 4,000 feet above sea level), the evening has a heaviness to it, as if we are trying to force too much out of one vacation.

We find a room, scarf down a Thai dinner and head into the national park at 8 p.m. Seeing the eruption up close entails a 20-mile drive down Chain of Craters Road -- to sea level -- then a hike of varying length, depending on where the lava is flowing.

We park in the dark amid dozens of other cars on the side of the road and walk a few hundred yards to a ranger station, a temporary structure built for portability when threatened by lava flows. (As if to emphasize that threat, just beyond the station, the road's double yellow line disappears almost comically beneath an old flow, and a speed limit sign juts from the solidified lava.)

There we learn the hard truth: The oceanic display requires a hike of two-plus miles. The rangers have set flashing beacons along the route, one every third of a mile, to help guide hikers, which is no meaningful comfort for the pregnant.

Cue the soft sell. "Hey, honey," I say, "we could walk out there just a little ways, see how it goes . . ."

For the uninitiated, walking on hardened magma is like stumbling over a miniature mountain range, complete with bus-sized canyons, sheer drops and ankle-snaring crevasses (see: fall risk).

And so my pregnant wife and I find ourselves stepping uncertainly across this irregular terrain, guided by the dim glow of our headlamps and following distant blinking beacons like shepherds tracking the North Star.

We make it to the third beacon before conceding that attaining the viewing spot would take half the night. So we retreat, shutting off our lamps and basking in the sparkle of a billion stars before heading back.

'I Smell Sulfur'

The next morning, we learn of one last hope: A ranger tells us that the approach from the east side, outside the national park boundary, affords a closer view of lava-hitting-ocean with a shorter hike. It is treacherous at night (no beacons) but, he assures us, fine by day.

Our drive down from Volcano takes us east of the park, through the funky town of Pahoa -- coffee shops, colorful stores, seriously dreadlocked hippies and kids on skateboards toting boogie boards to the beach -- then into a no man's land where lava flows had wiped out entire subdivisions. The road ends before acres of hardened magma.