Why Did the Lava Cross the Road?

Last week, my family (The Spews plus my parents and siblings and their kids) spent a heap of time in Hawaii and had a glorious time.  When we went through Volcano National Park, my wife and I were most surprised--that much had changed since our visit during our honeymoon twenty years earlier.  One could not get nearly as close to the crater since it was spewing out rocks the size of washing machines, and the road that went to the edge of the island closed a mile earlier.  There had been a lava flow in 2003 that changed things pretty signficantly although these two pics do not do it justice:

Lava 1992

vs.

Lava 2012

Sure, it just looks like the lava crossed the road despite our best efforts to hold it back, but it was much, much deeper and broader.  Of course, this should not surprise us since the entire Volcano park experience testifies to how the island is still becoming bigger and how flows continue to change the topography of the island, but to realize that there are rocks younger than our marriage and younger than Teen Spew mentioned in my previous post still seems pretty strange.

Anyhow, when we got to this part of the park, we ended up dragging our families much further than expected, as the road is closed about a mile down from where this pic was taken.  Before, you could just drive up to the flow, hop out, take pics and hop back in (also the traffic was far greater this time).