Given how unpredictable life on the road can get–from Mother Nature’s temper tantrums to human errors to technical glitches–my first rule of travel is “every cloud has a silver lining.” Take for example my trip to Hilo to visit the HawaiÊ»i Volcanoes National Park that’s supposed to stay open 24/7 year round. This is as far as I got:

because of this…

So a precious day planned around hiking/biking across an active volcano was shot down both because of what was happening in DC and because, well, the volcano wasn’t feeling it that day. As soon as we landed, the guide at the tourist information desk told us the park could not manage to open on its own without help from the feds and that even if the park were open, all we would have seen would have been some steam. Sometimes KÄ«lauea does not cooperate with tourists’ tight schedules. But aloha anyway!

My second rule of travel is “no whining allowed” so back into the rental car we searched for the closest thing we could find that’s lava-related…

And boy, am I glad the no-blow volcano led us to the beautiful Punalu’u Black Sand Beach:

Indulge me in these next few photos… this place is every photographer’s fantasy island:

When I dug my feet into the black lava sand (which btw is jet black but under the super bright sun, the beach has a silvery glow),

and saw how it glistened in a silvery black against my grey nail polish, I had a momentary flashback of these photos from my closet:

Now I know why dark silver is my favorite color in the world, whether man-made or nature-made…

There’s a silver lining in everything if you choose to see it.