Didgets
If it's weird, it must be Volcano Village
By Vicki Viotti
Advertiser Staff Writer
The World Hula Conference in Hilo this week is drawing many, but those who haven't made plans for a Big Island trip can still take a twisted tour of the virtual VolcanoVillage.
One look at the animation of a guy riding lava waves confirms for cybersurfers that they're not in Kansas anymore. Navigating through the various site features is easier through the plain text links at the bottom of each page than the blindingly arrayed logos.
They can visit the Land of Odd, a cracked landscape they can manipulate with a mouse (with luck, without crashing their computer). They can purchase a $15 deed to one square foot of lava, with tongue-in-cheek promises that they can visit their property.
The origins of VolcanoVillage.com three years ago was as a home for the 1980s Kilauea photography of its webmaster. Steve Young, who launched the site a year before he graduated from Volcano tourist to resident, created the graphics from his own photos, though he spends more time these days as a pizza baker than a photographer.
"It's just kind of a goof thing," Young said of his site. "But hopefully it gives a real sense of the village. I dub the town the Land of Odd, because we're in Hawai'i with sunshine and beaches. And yet we're living up on a volcano, we're sucking in vog, and we love it here. There's a little oddity in that alone."
