Images, words, Hawaii memories

The words from our wander on the Big Island emerged while we were traveling, and the photos popped up a bit after our return. Words without photos, and photos without words...

I've just picked a few photos to scatter among the words. I know, you already read our words! If you're interested in seeing some of the places described in words through our eyes, click here to take another quick look through our Hawaii 2010 blog entries.

--- Rover

Look over my shoulder

My photos from my Hawaii wander have jumped from my camera and are now available for viewing. You can start with the top level gallery, Pele's wonders - Winter 2010, or you can click on the photos below to enter a specific gallery.

A few favorites:

Circling the Big Island:


Hawaii Volcanoes National Park:


Signs, warnings:


Words? You can find my ramblings in my blog entries tagged Hawaii 2010.

Photos? soon...

I haven't forgotten. I know some of you are waiting for my Hawaii photos. I'm still wandering through them, soon...

In the meantime, this sign at Punalu'u Black Sand Beach brought a smile to my face.
Yes, I was really far from home!

Snap!

Finally! East to west time zone changes are much easier (for me, at least) than west to east. I've been really dragging, having huge problems falling asleep at night. I've been setting my alarm for my normal waking time, staying up all day. Still, sleep was elusive; that 5-hour time change seemed to be getting the better of me.

I think my body finally had enough. I felt exhausted all day yesterday. I came home, still forced myself to stay awake until 9:30 PM. Ah, time to sleep! For the first night since I arrived home, I fell asleep immediately and slept until 6 AM.

Ah, I've finally snapped back into the Eastern time zone.

Sensitive

A Hawaii memory, a name I needed to find...

One day last week I was wandering not too far from Sulphur Banks when I saw a boy and his grandfather looking at something along the side of the trail. I stopped to chat, and to see what they saw.

Fascinating.

There was a small plant, something that was low enough to be classified as ground-cover. If you touched the open leaves they curled up, changing from a stem with leaves splaying to the sides to a rolled stick-like form. Wait long enough, and the leaves uncurled again.

I just did a quick search using the words plant leaves fold on touch. Ah, the power of a Google search... I quickly found the name of the plant. Curious? Click to read about the Mimosa pudica, also known as Sensitive plant.

It was hard to get a decent photo since the plants were waving in the wind. But sometimes something with a bit of blur is better than nothing at all.

Just a glimpse...

Denise has been using her non-sleeping non-work time to go through her photos, but (as usual) it takes her a while to decide, to select the ones that she likes the best.

In the meantime I thought I'd grab a few to whet your appetite.

The three I've chosen?

The first is a shot of me sitting on a big round disk with arrows pointing at different land features. It sort of reminds me of a sun dial. Oh! I guess I should tell you where we were when the photo was taken, shouldn't I? We were standing at the top of the Pu'u Huluhulu Cinder Cone.

The second is the ever-present plume (of sulphur dioxide) coming from Halema'uma'u Crater in the Kilaeua Caldera on a day when the wind was blowing in the normal direction (if there can be a normal direction!). This was a day without a poor air quality warning since the plume was headed away from the open sections of Crater Rim Drive.

And the last one is of the waves and the sun setting into the ocean, in a park just south of the Kona airport.

Keep checking back for links to the full photo galleries - I suspect it will take Denise a few days to finish her selections, not too long...

--- Rover

Timezone challenged

I expected to be a bit timezone challenged, but this is more than I expected.

Going from east to west I seem to be able to snap into the change. West to east is quite another story though. I've been back in the Eastern Time Zone for two days now. Yesterday was really annoying. I felt like I was sleepwalking until well after noon - which makes sense in a way, since the 5-hour change (from Hawaii-Aleutian time) means that noon at home is 7 AM in Hawaii. I think the morning was a little better today, but I am still wide awake now, and it's after 11 PM.

I know, I know, it's only been two days, and I really expected the adjustment back to my home time to probably take five days. I suppose I'm just being impatient.

I guess I'd better break out the melatonin!

Early

5 AM. Early...

Those crazy winds I felt on the ground yesterday must have extended high in the sky. The flights landing in Kona were all late, pushing through the winds.

The plus side of the wind? It took only 4 1/2 hours to travel from Kona to Los Angeles. We landed at 5 AM instead of the scheduled 6 AM. Amazingly enough the terminal was already alive. Starbucks, an Americano and a cinnamon scone (yes, I know, not the healthiest breakfast, but it tastes good!) gave me a good start to the day.

It's time to wait for my next big bird.

Completing the circle

One last good B&B breakfast, and it was time to complete the counterclockwise circle of the Big Island. I made a quick trip into the park, to check the plume rising from the crater, to say farewell to Pele. Until next time...

It was a driving day, a day with a few good stops along the way. I headed from Volcano to Hilo, then north along the east coast, to the northernmost point of the island, then down the west side to Kailua-Kona. How many miles? According to Google Maps, my route was 161 miles, estimated to take 4 hours and 22 minutes. Of course that distance is before I added a couple of side trips. Yes, it would have been much shorter to go in a clockwise direction - but that wouldn't have taken me to the black sand beach at Polulu Valley, and that was on my list of must visit places.

Driving... up the wet side. It rained from Hilo pretty much all of the way to Waimea. I could easily have stopped to grab some photos of the beautiful green countryside that I was passing through, but somehow standing on the side of a road in the rain didn't sound too appealing at the time. Green rolling hills, cattle and horses in pastures, beauty, all images in my mind.

From Waimea, I hopped (the short way) across the peninsula for a quick visit to the Pua Mau Botanical Garden. I hoped to play with my macro lens but I didn't even put it on my camera once I realized how strong the wind was. Somehow trying to get close-up photos of flowers when they were moving wildly didn't sound like it was going to make me happy. I had a nice walk, a visit with the huge bug sculptures, and then...







I retraced my route back to Waimea because I wanted to absorb the vistas from the road over Kohala Mountain. It's a narrow road with few places to stop - but at least the road was two lanes! When I did find spots to pull over I found it quite difficult to stand in one place. The wind was doing a good job of attempting to push me over!

Ah, Hawi at last. A quick turn back to the east, a road that started curving and traveling over one-lane bridges. Ah, the end of the road, the jumping off point for a visit to another black sand beach. From the top, the beach was visible, as were sculpted and heavily treed cliffs beyond the beach. Given more time, I probably would have climbed up the other side to see what I could see. Today I was quite happy with a walk down, across the beach, along the shores of the river heading inland.



The walk down was quite steep. It started steep and smooth, then became rocky and muddy. Mud? Slippery! Down, down, down. Finally, the beach. Black sand, bright green plants along the edges, rocks stacked in straight piles, a path along the river, crashing waves. So beautiful.

Walking up was easier than walking down. Funny, I wasn't the only person who felt that way after walking the trail.

I turned the car in the direction of Kailua-Kona. I still had plenty of time since it was only 4:30, and my flight was scheduled for 10:35 PM. Overnight to LA.

I spotted some windmills, and headed down one of those one-lane two-way roads to get a closer look. This time the sides of paved road were smooth grass, which means there was no problem passing oncoming cars. It seemed that the cars I danced with along that road had the same idea that I did - to get closer to the windmills.



Next stop was a beach park behind the airport. I walked on the black rocks, fascinated by the wild waves. I was back far enough not to get wet, but I did see one person who was quietly standing, watching, get totally soaked as a wave crashed against the rocks.

I stayed, playing a bit with my camera, until the sun sank into the ocean.



Beach parks have places to change clothes. No need to pull a quick change in the car, I have a ready-made place to shed the day's sweaty clothes. Long pants are definitely a much better choice than shorts for the long flight home.

End of the day, end of my quick trip... I'm sitting at the airport, waiting. The waiting areas at the Kona airport are under cover but open air. The wind continues to howl, enough that I donned a couple of layers to keep me warm.

Apparently all of the inbound flights (from the east) have been delayed, fighting a headwind on the way over. My flight is a turnaround - it was due in at 9 PM from Los Angeles, and is scheduled to head back to Los Angeles at 10:35 PM. It's 9:45 and the plane has just arrived.

No matter, if that big bird was fighting a headwind on the way to Hawaii we should be riding a nice tailwind on the way back.

Red glow

Darkness fell, and I just had to go back into the park.

Pele's treat - Kilauea was glowing in the night. Dark, a red glow, stars above. I stood and watched for a bit, absorbing the silence and the beauty.

A little more magic

Oh! Denise has been doing a lot of the writing on this trip. I think it's my turn!

Breakfast at our current B&B is the same each day, but that's more than OK. Fresh papaya is always wonderful, and papaya + bananas + pineapple is even better. Yum. Gary's waffles are really good too. They have a somewhat secret ingredient, taro. That's the plant that is made into poi. I don't know if I would like poi, but I know that Denise & I both like the waffles. One more fabulous breakfast day before we head home... I think that Denise is getting spoiled here. But that's not a bad thing.

The white plume rising from Kilauea pulled us to the Jaggar Museum before we started our morning wander. And that was after we ignored the warning signs flashing as soon as we entered the park informing us of "poor air quality". The wind direction had changed, and it was carrying that plume of sulphur towards us. Funny, it didn't smell that bad, and my breathing was fine too. I find it interesting to watch the changing shape of that rising cloud.

Once we were done watching movement in the sky, we headed out to the end of Hilina Pali Road. That's a nine-mile one lane two way road. If you haven't already figured this out, that road configuration is not a favorite of Denise's. She really prefers two-lane roads. I guess I can't blame her. This road wasn't anywhere near as bad as the road to her first B&B here, but there were still sections where it would have been difficult to pass an oncoming vehicle. A good chunk of the road had a smooth grass or rock section next to the pavement, but there were some sections where the surface next to the road just dropped away.

The terrain changed as we drove. There was a section of old (brown) lava rock, places that housed stark dead trees. Oh! those trees were beautiful, and there was no where to stop. Ah, I guess we have memory photos for that section. The road ended in an area filled with swaying grass, volcanic rocks visible too. Hilina Pali is a cliff (or fault scarp) that is 1500 feet high and 12 miles long. It's the starting point for some long - as in overnight - hikes. We bounced just a little bit down one of the trails. I could hear Denise thinking that she'd like to have time to do more exploring here. I know she hasn't done any overnight hikes in a long long time. I wonder if that's what she is thinking, or if she thinks maybe we should just do some all-day explorations here. Uh oh. We're really out of time for this trip. Denise doesn't need an excuse to return to this park - I know we'll be visiting here again.



Time for a longer walk... we turned our feet to the trail to Pu'u Huluhulu. That's a really funny name; it means Hairy Hill. The walk was across old lava fields, from the 1974 Mauna Ulu flows. At the end we climbed the short Pu'u Huluhulu to get to a spot where we could see a frozen and flat lava lake. Then we turned around and walked back the same way we came. Denise did her usual straying from the "path" when she saw something that interested her camera eye. Oh, you want to know why I put path in quotation marks? If it hadn't been for periodic piles of black rocks, you wouldn't see a trail at all. We were bouncing on old(er) lava, so it wasn't as black as the lava we bounced across yesterday, but I still didn't see much of a mark on the ground.



We came to what most people thought was the end of the hike, but Denise saw a path leading off through some woods. We followed that for a bit, then came out into a different moonscape kind of area. Very interesting.



Next stop, Sulphur Banks. Oh, you're right, we've been there before on this trip. Denise keeps getting pulled back by the steam and by the wonderful bright yellow sulphur decorating the rocks.

Denise had one more place she wanted to wander today, a trail that we'd never set foot on before. We pointed the car down route 11, heading to the west, to the trailhead for the Ka'u Desert trail. At the beginning of the trail there were trees scattered in rough aa lava. And then there was sand. I think we walked a couple of miles down the trail, then we reversed direction. Very interesting...



We definitely need to visit again so we can bounce down more of that trail!

--- Rover

Battery power

I learned something interesting when my camera misbehaved back in December and I travelled to Death Valley with a rented camera body. The body came with one battery, and I grabbed the two that I had for my own (identical) camera as backups.

My camera batteries (yes, proprietary rechargeable batteries) were two years old. I hadn't noticed that the battery life was diminishing, but that fact jumped out at me as I used the newer battery that came with the rental body. I could still shoot with the older batteries for more than a day, not the couple of days I was seeing with the rental.

Before I headed out on this trip I bought two new camera batteries. At the end of the day today - my fifth day of camera play - I needed to charge one battery. That was the first charge of the trip!

Sometimes a simple thing like purchasing new batteries is a really good idea.

Pele's breath

As I was close to reaching the high point on Chain of Craters road on my journey back from the sea, I looked to the left to see steam rising.

Curious, I headed to the steam vents on Crater Rim Drive. Oh! It definitely wasn't my imagination! Pele was putting on quite a (steam) show this afternoon. Steam rising, overpowering, hiding the scenery. A truly eerie look.

---

An after-dark visit to the observation area behind the Jagger Museum gave me my first glimpse of light coming from Halema`uma`u. The glow was subtle, a slight light obscured by VOG. I have a feeling I'll head over there tomorrow night to see if Pele is kind enough to share her bright light.

Black

The sound of rain hitting the roof above my head lulled me to sleep last night. That's apparently normal rain forest behavior, quiet rain, every night. There was still wet in the air this morning, not fog, yet not quite rain either. I supposed I used that as an excuse to start wandering a bit later than usual. I finally took the time to watch the video shown in the park Visitor Center each hour.

I chose to ignore the heavy mist. Chain of Craters Road was calling to me.

As I got closer to the sea, the wind blew the gray away and the air grew warmer. By the time I finished the Pu'u Loa Petroglyph trail I shed my extra layers, back to hiking in shorts and a sleeveless shirt.

Next stop, the end of the road. It was time to wander across the very black rocks, paying attention to the general path I'd followed so that I could easily find my way back. Trail? What trail? I was picking my way across a very messy surface, smooth sections, ropey sections, broken sections, lava cooled to shades of black. There were sparkles coming from some of the rock, glittery blue against black.







I spent more time wandering there than I expected. Somehow I thought I'd do another hike in the afternoon. But a good six hours elapsed between when I left Crater Rim Drive (at 4000 feet of elevation) in the morning and when I returned from sea level late in the afternoon. I guess you could say that I lost track of time!

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.

---

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...

---

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...

---

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