It rained in Hilo on Friday. I suppose that’s not news over here on the Big Island. People seem to have adapted to the rain. In Honolulu, a good rain will often wash out planned road work, for example. In Hilo, road crews just don their rain gear and proceed normally.

But the rain has its positives. It means the weather is cool. And rainbows like this one appear now and then.

Hopefully our good friends on the Big Island will excuse us for not making contact on this trip. We’re just cruising and trying not to have any appointments or deadlines. Next time, we’ll call.

I did feel bad yesterday afternoon when I saw a tweet (that’s an individual message sent via Twitter.com) saying that the Big Island Press Club’s annual dinner was about to get underway just down the street. If I had seen that earlier, we would have planned on attending. So it goes.

Later in the morning we drove up to Volcano to visit the Volcano Art Center, park HQ, and the museum overlooking Halemaumau.

A few quick observations. In my mind, I was flashing back to the photos taken in 1920 when Meda’s grandparents visited the volcano on their honeymoon. In those days, everything was hands on. Today, visitors are being kept far away from the crater at Halemaumau, with prominent signs warning of potentially deadly gases.

At the park HQ, we watched their movie about the 1959 Kilauea Iki eruption and the subsequent flank eruption in Kapoho.

I’m sure that I was the only person in that little theater to have seen the Kilauea Iki eruption in person sometime at the end of 1959.

I think that was also when our family stayed at the Volcano House and I played a game of cribbage with “Uncle George” Lycurgus, who at that point was 100 years old. I recall that as quite an exciting event, although perhaps not matching the excitement of watching the lava fountaining in the dark of a cold volcano night.

I recently came across the little pamphlet tracing Uncle George’s history, which he autographed for me, although that signature is a bit hard to read.

Other news. Former Star-Bulletin editorial page editor, Diane Chang, has made a soft landing at the University of Hawaii after being laid off late last year as editor for Pacific Media Publications, the Gannett unit that published a string of community newspapers on Oahu. Chang is now director of communications for UH Manoa Chancellor Virginia Hinshaw, as well as a student at the UH law school, according to a UH news release I missed the first time around.

We picked up some Italian take-out from Aloha Luigi, a little downtown Hilo restaurant that gets pretty good visitor reviews. The food was a bit disappointing, although there was a lot of it. The red sauces were weak, nothing to rave about. But we picked up a supply of wine with a quick stop across the street at the KTA Supermarket on Keawe Street before heading back to our hotel, where we ate looking out over the lights of Hilo, such as they are, then enjoyed the appearance of Ryan Ozawa and others on Andy Bumatai’s new interview show, back at 9:30 p.m. on K5.

More adventures on tap for today!