SICILY--Mount Etna

Saturday was the last day of our Sicily trip and we wanted to go out with a BANG, though not literally, we hoped! We headed to Mount Etna—active volcano near Catania. We were really excited for this since we had seen the Volcano on the first day of our arrival, but had just driven past it. There is a crazy amount of lava rock everywhere, but then this volcano has gone off many, many times—is does little spurts often today. The last significant eruption was in 2003. As we drove up we could see the cloud of steam coming from one of the peaks (I think it is always there, possibly to appease the tourists, hee, hee).
We drove up as far as our car was aloud--it was gorgeous to see the golden fall leaves right up against that black lava rock. We then paid too much money and headed further up the mountain, crammed into a large “jeep” with lots of other tourists. It was a very “bumpy bus ride”, but was kind of fun too.
The wind where we got off was intense and thus started the torture of Gabriel Moss by his parents who weren’t about to miss this experience, even with a terrified, screaming 4 year old in tow. He just knew he was going to be blown off the mountain and was most often either latched to my leg, or clinging to my hand and begging me not to let go. Yes, to all of you who were also on the mountain that day, without children under 10, we do believe he will thank us for it one day (or not, but it was a cool experience for the rest of us).
We all hiked out to the places that had blown in 2002 and 2003. They were steaming and so cool, but you could get freakily close to the edge and I did picture the scenerio of Eli or Adam slipping under the rope-line and sliding down into the crater. Hence the, “boys, not so close!” remark—I think that should suffice! Uh-huh.
It was so cool up there. To think of the power lying just below us, that could go at any time—thrilling!
There was a cute Italian geologist that spoke some English and took a liking to Eli, with his questions and curiousity. He found rocks for Eli and told us all about the volcano.
The coolest thing was the ground of lava rocks. When you touched the ground it felt slightly warm, but if you dug just a couple inches down the tempurature was significantly hotter—so fun. Even Gabriel let go of my hand for just a minute to crouch down and feel it. Of course, I took this opportunity to take a picture. Gabriel quickly noticed I was not right at his side and screamed to me that I was not supposed to go away from him!!

After around an hour we headed back to the vehicle and headed a little waze down. Then we took a funivia ride the rest of the way down—probably Gabe’s favorite part of the trip.