Our helicopter tour outfit was called Blue Hawaiian Helicopters.

First we had a safety briefing.

And then our friendly guide led us out to our helicopter.

It was an American Eurocopter AS350.  Nice, but not exactly roomy.

Our guide even took our picture.  Just look at us and consider that we're about to sit side by side in one bench seat in that helicopter.  But not to worry -- the seat was built to accommodate four, so we were hardly crowded at all, pretty much.

Bill strung all his helicopter movie clips together and the result was too long for one Flash video.  So here's part one of Bill's clips.

And here's part two.

Our pilot's name was Zach.  The lady sitting next to him was named Bonnie, which occasionally caused a little confusion, especially during roll-call.  "Bonnie?"  "here/here"

You can see lots of stuff from the air that you'd miss otherwise.  Like this rock quarry.  There are lots of rocks on an island formed by volcanoes.

Farms.

And homes.  Zach pointed out that many of these houses have small farms out back.  The economy is weak and there are few jobs available, so people raise their own food.

And then the houses just stop.  So why don't people build out there, beyond the last row of houses?  Because they can't get insurance out there.  The lava could come any time, and out there is where it's most likely to show up.

Signs of recent lava flow.  Wait, look up there, near the top of the picture.  Do you see it?  A faint glow of red at the head of what looks like a little stream?  Our first glimpse of the real thing.

There it is again, at the bottom of the picture.

A real, genuine lava flow.  They say we're lucky today, as flights a week ago weren't seeing this much activity.

Now it's more obvious what's going on.

Not too many years ago there was a forest, but now....

In fact, once there was more than forest here.

As recently as 1986 this was Royal Gardens subdivision, complete with roads and sewers and power and luxury homes.  Then Kilauea started oozing hot rock, and this is what's left.

Look out the window!  There's still one house left.

It belongs to a lucky fellow named Jack Thompson.  His is the only house in the neighborhood still untouched by the lava flow.

He's surrounded, though.  No power, no water, and what's left of the roads will take you nowhere.

The only way in or out is via helicopter or by four-wheeler over rough lava.  But Jack isn't moving.  In fact, he's renting his house to adventurous tourists who really want to get away from it all.

But uh, oh.  Three weeks after our trip we learned that Jack's luck had run out.

Here comes the lava again, and this time Jack has to say a final goodbye to his little slice of heaven in the middle of hell.  You can see some great pictures and read all about it here.

There's the lava again down there between Bonnie's knees.  It was right out that window that just for a split second as the helicopter banked that Bill caught a glimpse of a real lake of fire, just like the one that fried Darth Vader.  He didn't get a picture though, and Zach wouldn't go back there again because of danger from volcanic gases.

We just had to make do with this river of molten rock.

Kinda pretty, actually.

And just look at all that pahoehoe.

It looks like a forest fire, but it's not.

It's the planet's innards bubbling up.

Doug almost but didn't quite get a photo of that red lake.

Now we're leaving the active area.

Quite a sight.

Now we're into prettier scenery.

Hey, there's even a waterfall down there.

Several, in fact.

And that concludes our helicopter ride.

Back on the ground, safe and sound.