Chasing the light

The sky changed from its early morning color to bright blue by the time I headed out, bright blue with a quickly spreading white cloud. But oh! that's not a cloud - it's fumes, coming from the vent with Halema`uma`u. White, billowing, spreading, beautiful.

I started my wandering by following that rising white. The Jaggar Museum was a good spot for an unobstructed view. I stayed there for a bit, snapping photos, absorbing the sight.

Time to walk... I headed to the the Kilauea Iki Trail, a loop that starts high on the crater's rim, that drops down to the crater floor. The trail description indicated that there was a 400 foot descent/ascent, equivalent to climbing down and up a 40-story building. The initial sections on the crater fall required eyes to watch where feet were to be placed. It was more than a bit uneven. Eventually the surface changed, becoming smooth, promoting easy walking. At that point the black rock started to wear white lines as decoration. Patterns of white crossed the black of hardened lava, patterns of white decorated the blue skies. From the higher elevation pieces of the trail I could see the rising plume of smoke from Halema`uma`u.







I originally planned to do a second hike this afternoon. Instead, I spent my time following interesting patterns in the sky. I walked part of Crater Rim Trail, I repeated part of the Sulphur Banks, I watched the colors of the clouds change from white to patterned white and gray.

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Dinner tonight was at Thai Thai (again). A tasty, somewhat spicy verion of Pad Thai made my stomach quite happy.

I was hoping to catch the glow from the crater this evening, but the rain that started late this afternoon is continuing to fall. I have a feeling that the rain against the roof may lull me to sleep tonight. And I do have two more nights to catch the volcano's glow. Fingers crossed...

Morning food

Morning, sky lightening...

I was up & ready to head out earlier than my B&B breakfast time. There is a farmer's market in Volcano every Sunday morning, and that seemed like a good way to start my day. Ah, that's what I need - bananas and tangerines! That should make a good supplement to my energy bar stash.

Next stop, breakfast.

Based on a conversation I had with Gary yesterday, I believe the breakfast menu is the same each day. Today's breakfast included some favorite foods, and it left me with more than enough energy to play. Breakfast started with a half of a papaya topped with bananas, pineapple, blueberries and yogurt. What a nice combination of tastes!

Next, fresh waffles, as many as I cared to eat. A bowl of strawberries was available as a topping, and both maple and coconut syrup were on the table.

There were hard-boiled eggs and cheese, English muffins, bagels. No one touched the English muffins and bagels; we all were happy with just the waffles!

And I can't forget the ever-present (local) Kona coffee! Yes, I know, I'm usually a tea drinker. And when I drink coffee it's usually decaf. Not in Hawaii though - my morning beverage of choice (here) is Kona coffee.

A good food start to the day...

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Hey! Rover here! I just have to jump in to share some photos from our home away from home!

We're on the top floor of a three-story building, one room (well, one unit really) per floor, surrounded by the oh so green vegetation of the rain forest.

Sulphur or sulfur?

Did you know there are two different spellings of that funny yellow stuff that was decorating the rocks along the Sulphur Banks trail?

Denise saw two different spellings on the National Park Service web site (at least she thinks she did...) and then she caught herself using both spellings. That's not like her, so I went off to see which spelling is correct.

The definitions I found were a bit confusing; one spelling appears to be British, the other US English. But it's a little weird.

sul⋅phur
1. Chiefly British. sulfur


sul⋅fur
1. Also, especially British, sulphur.
A nonmetallic element that exists in several forms, the ordinary one being a yellow rhombic crystalline solid, and that burns with a blue flame and a suffocating odor.

I think what that's saying is that the spelling sulphur is a British spelling, but I'm really not sure. Funny thing is, the spellings on the Hawaii Volanoes National Park site mostly use sulphur.

Hey, I wonder who gets to decide on spellings? No matter, I think the puzzle is solved - Denise can use whichever spelling she'd like!

--- Rover

From black sand to craters

Morning brought another good breakfast and good conversation.

And then... it was time to head south, to visit the Punalu'u Black Sand Beach. When I arrived it seemed as if every black rock was occupied with someone casting for fish. Ah, it's Saturday, and everyone is out, at play. I walked over some of the rocks, across the very black sand, hoping to see some sea turtles. The ever present turtles were missing from the beach today. Perhaps they were swimming, perhaps to escape the hordes of humans. The clock rolled past noon, and suddenly the ocean front spots were vacant. Ah, time for some camera play with uninterrupted vistas!

The sky was gray but still bright. It almost seemed to blend with the silver reflections in the water, contrasting with the very black beach and rocks. Fabulous.



I pulled myself away from the black sand, sea level, continuing north to enter Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. The road topped out at 4000 feet of elevation, a bit cooler than it was along the coast, cloudier, and oh! is that rain? I headed in to the Visitor Center to chat was a ranger, to pick up information on trails.

I discovered that Crater Rim Drive can no longer be driven in a circle. It is open from the park entrance to Jaggar Museum (heading west), and from the park entrance to Chain of Craters Road heading in a clockwise direction. From the Closed Areas and Advisories page of the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park web site:

A portion of Crater Rim Drive, between Jaggar Museum and the Chain of Craters Road junction, is closed indefinitely due to the new vent that opened within Halema`uma`u Crater in March 2008.

I learned a new word today - VOG, or volcanic smog. From the park's web site:

Visitor Alert - Kilauea is currently emitting elevated levels of sulphur dioxide gas and an ash-laden fume cloud from a new vent within Halema`uma`u crater.

Scientists at the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory continue to record elevated sulphur dioxide (SO2) gas levels at the summit of Kilauea volcano.

So far so good though. No noxious odors (other than the sulfur smell evident as I hiked through the Sulphur Banks this afternoon.

I visited the Jaggar Museum, then headed out to walk in somewhat damp conditions. The rain eased off to very light drizzle as I walked the Devastation Trail, through rain forest vegetation and on to stark black rolling hills, cinder fields left from the 1959 eruption.



From there I headed to the Sulphur Banks Trail, a thermal area with steaming cracks and bright yellow deposits of sulphur. That trail ended at Crater Rim Trail where steam rose along the very edge of the crater. A fascinating view...

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My home for the night was a bit of a surprise. I thought that I had booked a room at the Bamboo Orchid B&B, but as it turns out the room I had chosen was at its sister property, Volcano Tree House. The room I booked was the smallest on the property, at a very reasonable price. When I showed up, I was told that my room had been upgraded (at no additional charge!) to the Tree Top Suite. It's high in the trees, the top floor of the building. Somehow the name made me think I'd need to climb a ladder to get to my room. No ladder, just outside stairs to the third floor. It's more than comfortable, and I can hear the sounds of insects in the night. Sweet. (Breakfast? Yes, it's still included, at Bamboo Orchid, just a few blocks from my home for the next 4 nights.)

Dinner tonight was a yummy vegetable curry at Thai Thai. If I remember correctly I ate at Thai Thai every night of my stay in Volcano back in 2004. I could very easily do that again, although there is one other restaurant in Volcano that looks interesting; I think I'll try that one too.

After satisfying my need for food, I headed back to the Jaggar Overlook in the park to see if there was a visible red glow from Halema`uma`u Crater. Not tonight... as I got closer to the overlook it seemed that the clouds (or fog) dropped close to ground level. Maybe tomorrow.

If you're curious about the volcano's activity level, click to view Recent Kilauea Status Reports, Updates, and Information Releases.

Trees growing sideways

Denise said that we were going to take it easy today, but I think she forgot! She was pretty tired by the end of the day so I thought I'd jump in and write today.

We started our wanderings by visiting Pu'uhonua o Honaunau, a place of refuge. It's a National Historic park, although Denise seemed to spend more time trying to capture palm trees and reflections with her camera than she did with reading about the history of the site.

Then, we headed to South Point, the southernmost point in the United States. Do you know that the wind is so strong there that the trees grow sideways? (Well, not really - but there is a distinct sideways direction to the tops of the trees.) We stopped at South Point for a very short amount of time there, and then we headed to the jumping off point for the hike to the green sand beach.

Oh! Here's a shot of one of those one-lane two-way roads, and another of the view from South Point...





We bounced along dirt tracks of bright yellow, sharing space with other walkers and with occasional 4-wheel drive vehicles. The tracks were anything but smooth, and definitely not straight. It took us longer to get there than to get back because Denise kept wandering off to the side, heading closer to the ocean. There isn't a single track but a series of winding tracks so I'm not sure there is a straight path to get there anyway. It was a good wander.

The colors of the day were amazing. As we peered down a steep cliff to the water at South Point - the ocean was so blue! There was bright green groundcover, slashes of orange/yellow dirt, black rocks, and yes, a sand beach wearing the color green.

We saw the beach from on high; the beach is at the bottom of a cinder cone and the slope looked quite steep and very slide-y.

--- Rover

Breakfast conversations

A good first morning's breakfast...

I felt surprisingly awake this morning. I managed to get a couple of catnaps on the last flight yesterday, and somehow I still got a good night's sleep.

I was the only person at breakfast this morning. There were only 2 rooms in use last night, and the other folks headed out very early. Breakfast was wonderful - gingered pancakes topped with peaches, passion fruit, and whipped cream, wonderful. And although when I drink coffee it's ususally decaf, I opted for real Kona coffee this morning. I have a feeling this is going to be a morning coffee week.

Once he served breakfast, Greg grabbed a cup of coffeee and sat down to chat. Good breakfast, good conversation, a good first B&B night for this adventure...

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Oh! I need to jump in here with some photos. Denise was right last night with her guess that we would have a good view from bed. I thought you'd like to see, so here are two photos that she grabbed this morning.

--- Rover

What time is it?

Do you want to know what time it is for Denise and me as we wander the Big Island?

Hawaii is on Hawaii-Aleutian Standard Time (HST) which is 5 hours earlier than the east coast, and 10 hours earlier than Greenwich Mean Time (GMT).

To see the current time in Hawaii, click here.

Just thought you might be curious...

--- Rover

Dark, narrow, winding

Late Thursday night

Headwinds continued to push back at the plane as we crossed the Pacific Ocean, pushing our landing in Kona back by about 20 minutes. On the ground, we waited for stairs to be rolled up to the plane - two sets, one forward, one aft. walked down the rear stairs, treated (!) to the smell of jet fuel before the air cleared to reflect the tropics.

There was a method to my dressing madness today. I wore two shirts, sleeveless under long-sleeved. I needed my layers (including a layer of light fleece) for the plane, but a sleeveless shirt was called for by the nicely warm temperatures here.

Driving, south... following the instructions send by the Aloha Guest House - my home for the next two nights - I turned onto Old Tobacco Road south of Captain Cook, just before milepost 104. It's a single lane mostly unpaved road, winding through fields, past a couple of houses, all dark. I somehow managed to turn left instead of right at the last intersection. Luckily, someone came out of the house and was able to point out my faulty direction-following. Phew! Home for the night.

I came into the house and found a room with my name on it. What a wonderful room - and I can't wait to see the view in the morning. Instead of picking a room, I opted for this B&Bs Internet special. The rooms here range from $140 to $280 a night. The special? The 123 special is $123 per night, and the hosts assign the room. I was assigned the Halawi (also called the Horizon) room. It has a canopy bed right in the window, with a view of the coast (ok, ok, I think it has a view of the coast, but it's too dark to tell right now!). Do you want to see it? Click here.

I managed to nap for a few hours on the plane, but I think it's well past bedtime. It's midnight here, 5 AM at home...

It's time to sleep.

A three airplane day

Early morning, time for the first step, flying. Plane 1 of 3 for the day...

The trip to the airport was remarkably fast. It was early in Boston's rush hour with a good number of cars on the road. No slowdowns meant the trip to Logan took only thirty minutes. That's pretty amazing.

Baggage checked, no lines at security, a smooth transition to the world of travel.

The gate waiting areas were busy, packed with people. I walked a bit, from one end of the gate area to the other. A morning cup of Starbucks, a place to sit. In a wide hallway between gate areas there was a row of wooden rocking chairs in front of floor to ceiling windows. Ah, a good place to relax before my flight.

First plane off the ground, heading over the Boston Harbor Islands. A lighthouse was visible, islands, ocean. Hmm... I thought I was heading west! Not to worry, it was just a short jaunt over water before we headed towards Dallas.

A strong headwind pushed against us, forcing the flight to be a bit longer than scheduled. Luckily our landing gate was changed; instead of needed to walk the full length of two semi-circles, my inbound flight was just a few gates away from my plane to LA.

A two and a half hour layover at LAX gave me a time to grab some food and to relax. The American Airlines terminal here at LAX is a bit iffy from the food standpoint for those of us who aren't meat eaters, but I did find some more than satisfactory food. A bakery cafe had some interesting sandwiches - roasted eggplant and peppers on very tasty ciabata made me happy. But oh! I think I have time to find a brownie or cookie before I head for the next airplane.

One more plane, a long (five and a half hour) flight over water.
Destination: Hawaii.

Dreaming of Pele's creations

It's hard to believe that I will be headed for Hawaii in the morning. One more sleep, then time to fly, time to visit Pele's creations.

I'm dreaming of tropical air, of black rocks, black beaches, ocean waves.

Tomorrow...

Water, water everywhere

So wet! The rain has stopped for now after a day of continuous water falling from the sky. While it is clear in most places, (some) low-lying areas are wearing a blanket of fog. Beautiful.

The ground is still frozen, so the combination of snow melt and rain has created lakes on the pavement. It was an evening for a good walk though; I couldn't pass up the non-January temperature of 55 degrees. Ah, a warm walk, traipsing through puddles...

So gray

It was a gray day today, gray but still dry.

The temperature has been above freezing during the day for the past several days, yet there is still snow plastered to the trunks of trees from that very wet snowfall that we had on Monday. I suspect the plastered look will be gone tomorrow; the weather forecast calls for temperatures in the low 50s plus one to two inches of rain. Yikes! that's a lot of water!

Volcano watch

I just went wandering through Denise's photo galleries, and I found an image of flow-y rock from our visit way back in 2003. Oh! I'd so like to see this again.

We've only seen flow-y volcano rocks (that) one time. I'm hoping that we can find lava flowing on this trip. Even if we don't, Volcanoes National Park is just amazing - so I'm sure that Denise will find plenty of sights for her camera to capture.

I've been keeping an eye on the USGS Hawaii Volcano Observatory Kilauea status page though, just out of curiosity. Kilauea continues to be quietly active; (oh! that's a funny combination of words, isn't it?).

Oops! I just looked at the web cams linked from that site. It looks quite gray and gloomy. I also checked the weather forecast for Volcano for the upcoming week; it's showing a chance of rain each day. Denise is planning on wandering down to the coast while we're in the park, and the weather is different at sea level than it is higher up on the mountain. In case you're as curious as I am, here's some info on the weather in Volcano:

Local weather at Kilauea's summit (4000' elevation) varies daily and may be rainy and chilly any time of the year. Temperature varies by elevation. At the summit of the volcano, temperatures may be 12 to 15 degrees cooler than at sealevel. The coastal plain at the end of Chain of Craters Road, where lava crossed the road in 2003, is often hot, dry, and windy with the possibility of passing showers. Information courtesy of the Volcanoes National Park web site.

I'm chatting with the weather wizard, asking for a day or two with blue skies, or at least some partially dry days.

Don't tell Denise about the weather forecast. Oh, you're right - she was probably looking over my shoulder while I was borrowing her computer. No matter, I know that we're going to have a good trip anyway.

--- Rover

Crunch, crunch...

The sky is bright, the air is crisp, the snow is very crunchy. The snow earlier this week was preceded by rain, and the snow was also very wet, leaving it with a surface that speaks as feet traverse it. Crunch...

Streams were flowing, leaving lacy ice formations along the sides.

Wall art

I had the happy task this morning of finding wall space for MetalPrints of several of my photos. I prefer walls with empty spaces along with the photos, so it was a bit of a puzzle. It's solved now, and 3 new images have jumped onto my walls.

Oh, you want to know what I've added?

This photo is sized at 12x18, and it's in the room where my computer lives (and I do too!):

The two flower shots below are 8x12s, stacked in a vertical line with the sea gull photo that was done as a ThinWrap at the beginning of December. I've included the sea gull here again so you can get an idea of how they look on the wall. Interestingly enough, the shine of the MetalPrints works just fine with the more muted satin surface of the ThinWrap:

Little things

Sometimes it's the little things that make me happy. I'm a tea drinker, and I discovered many years ago that an electric tea kettle is the quickest source of boiling water to feed my tea habit.

Last weekend I picked up the kettle to the sound of a crack. Hey, what was that? I couldn't imagine... Everything seemed fine, and then I looked a little closer. I was holding a full kettle, about to pour. I saw that the top connection from the handle to the kettle had broken. The connection between the top of the handle and the metal body had snapped, scattering particles of whatever it was in the water. Time for the trash!

I pulled out my trusty stove-top kettle and set some water to boil. Slow...

I quickly placed an order for a new electric kettle, and my new toy arrived yesterday. This time I ordered a glass-bodied kettle. I watched the first pot of water boil. I watched the rolling boil, and wondered if it would properly turn itself off. Ah, bubbles, boil, rolling, off! Perfect.

My kitchen's new addition? It's a Chef's Choice Glass Electric Kettle.

I'm happy.

A good day...

It was a good day to work at home, avoiding the morning's snowy roads.

It was a good day for a middle of the day break, a walk in the snow.

It was a good day to welcome winter back for what I hope is a short visit. And yes, I know, there are likely to be quite a few more weeks of winter!

Looking to tomorrow

The weather forecast for tonight and tomorrow has been evolving. It started as a winter storm watch, now graduated to a winter storm warning. I guess the storm is really going to visit here.

The predicted depths are less than they were this morning but the potential for messy roads is certainly there. Right now the forecast is for 4 to 8 inches of snow overnight and another 2 to 4 inches tomorrow.

Hmmm... sounds like tomorrow will be a (good) work-from-home day. I'm so glad I have that option.

A puzzle solved

A puzzle waiting to be solved, a week's worth of holidays needing to be used, and soon...

It's winter here in the northeast. Escaping to escape to a bit of warmth and a lot of beauty seemed like a good thing to do with my prized time off. Hmmm... where should I go?

I know, I know, you already know I'm headed to Hawaii, but I thought you might be interested in my scattered thought process in getting to that decision.

I started by looking to the southwest, looking for a place to walk in comfort. What do I consider comfort at this time of year? No snow underfoot, temperatures that support walking without layers and layers for warmth. I looked at few southwestern national parks that have been on my "must visit" list for a while, including Joshua Tree NP in California, Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument in Arizona, White Sands National Monument in New Mexico. Funny, nothing from that list jumped out at me for a week-long visit right now.

Out of curiosity, I looked at airfares to Hawaii. Yikes! expensive... Then I jumped to the American Airlines site on the off chance that there were tickets available for miles. I never thought that would be a possibility. I've always assumed that (travel) using miles to get to places like Hawaii would need to be booked far in advance. Oh, how lucky. This time I was very wrong; not only were there seats available, depending on the day I chose to travel, those seats were available at the lowest possible award level.

That's it, the solution the my puzzle. Hawaii...

The last time I flew to Hawaii I managed a two-airplane jaunt in each direction. That's not possible with today's flight schedules on American Airlines. Given that I'm using mileage instead of money, yes, my flying can only be on American's airplanes. I've added a couple of hours to my outbound flight by choosing my first connection point to be Dallas instead of Chicago. It is winter after all. Even though I'm starting from an airport in the north, I'd prefer to avoid any additional northern possibly snow-plagued cities as I head for tropical warmth. My flight(s) out go from Boston to Dallas to Los Angeles to Kona. Coming home will be a two airplane trip, Kona to Los Angeles to Boston.

My next task, ground transportation. This will be a photography and hiking trip, so I need a car. When I first looked weekly rental rates were what I would consider to be outrageous - in the $425 to $450 price range before taxes. Luckily, I was able to get a rate less than half of that using a corporate rate. Funny thing, I just checked the prices again today, and they are all back to reasonable weekly rates. I switched my reservation to Hertz at a slightly lower rate than the reservation I initially made a week ago. Very odd. But hey - I'm not complaining.

Next, places to stay... I'll be splitting my nights between two B&Bs.

The first two nights I'll be at the Aloha Guest House in Captain Cook. That's just south of Kailua-Kona on the western side of the island. be starting along the western side of the Big Island with a two-night stay in Captain Cook.

Next stop, Volcano. I'll be spending four nights at Bamboo Orchid Cottage in the town of Volcano. That's just outside of Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, the source of my repeating visits to the Big Island.

Once I made the decision to go to Hawaii, the details of how to get there and where to stay fell together in minutes. I'm ready!

January gray returns

From yesterday's clear blue skies to today's shades of gray...

Today's dawn brought gray skies, somewhat warm temperatures, a more typical January day. It was quite a contrast from yesterday's bright blue.

Today's gray patterns

Yesterday's bright blue

Warm winter's day

Warmth in January, a magical day...

Sun and unseasonable warmth called for a nice long wander today - by foot, with camera, walking through snow, over sand, by the sea.

Chill winds

The sun is back, bringing a cheerful look to another cold day. I had a wander to the coast in mind today, but the chill wind kept me a bit closer to home. I started the day with a brisk exercise walk then went out again with my camera.

It's funny, I've been in a bit of a funk the last few days (yes, in spite of settling on a wonderful end-of-month vacation). Today I finally realized that my funk was driven by camera withdrawal. January 1st was a coastal wander day. It was followed by a not-very-much-accumulation but two weekend days of snow. This week has been cold, and the early winter darkness prevents camera play after work days. I know, I know, it's only been a bit over a week since my last good play day, but I really think that's what was getting to me. I'm much happier now that I've had today's camera wander. It was short, it was a battle to keep my fingers warm, but it was good.

Excited...

I'm so excited!

I was peeking over Denise's shoulder yesterday as she was busy at the computer. It looked like she was putting together the pieces of a trip. That surprised me since we were in Death Valley just a month ago. I know, I know, she usually does use the cold days of winter to try to figure out places to visit later in the year, but from what I saw she was looking for now.

Oh! we're going to the Big Island of Hawaii. And we're going soon. When? This month!

We're going to bounce across black rocks formed from Pele's lava, and we're going to bounce on beaches that wear special colors. I think (I hope!) we'll be able to play in green sand and in black sand too.

I thought I would try to help a bit, so I just wandered through Denise's stash of maps and books. I pulled out a map of the Big Island and a topo map of Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. Then I found a copy of the guidebook Hawaii The Big Island Revealed stashed on one of the bookshelves, so I pulled that out too. Oh, you're right - we probably don't really need the guidebook since we'll be spending a good chunk of time in the park. But sometimes it helps to refresh our memory.

I'm so excited! I know, I know, I already said that. But I am (excited, that is!).

--- Rover

Snow lines

An ocean afternoon

With a weather forecast calling for the upcoming weekend to be full of snow, today seemed like a good (quiet weather) day for a walk by the ocean. The New Hampshire coast was calling to me once again.

There were signs warning of coastal flooding. I drove to one of my (walk along the shore) starting spots, Jenness State Beach, where I found that the ocean was encroaching on the beach leaving just a thin edge of sand for walking. Hmmm... I think I'll try a different beach today!

I jumped back into my car heading to the south and west. I just had to stop for a quick photo in a parking lot behind a restaurant across the road from the beach. The wetlands were overflowing. There were pieces of boats decorating the restaurant's property. The two below? They were on the edge of the parking lot, a place that is normally devoid of water. It looks like they are floating (or sinking) doesn't it?

I headed to Hampton Beach, a long stretch of beach that is also very wide. There was plenty of sand for walking, decorated by a bit of snow. I even had the treat of watching two people exercising a very pretty horse. He was on a lead running with his person, sometimes in a straight line, sometimes in circles.

It was a day for walking, for listening to the quiet roar of the ocean.