Driving between two giants

I headed out from Hilo around noon, but first I checked out Hilo's famous Rainbow Falls.  Not able to get a good rainbow picture from the typical tourist vistas, so its possible I may have done a little climbing to nab a successful rainbow view . . .

Rainbow Falls

Rainbow angle

Jack Ass crossing sign :-)

Then I headed inland with hopes of visiting the space observatories on top of Mauna Kea.  Driving up Saddle Road which passes in between the summits of Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa, I was very aware that I could see neither due to the clouds, but I persisted up the Mauna Kea road anyway.  I made it to about 10,000 feet elevation to the astronomy visitors center, but due to the rain and low clouds visitors weren't allowed up the mountain.  I did get to see a movie on the dozens of space telescopes I might have seen, which in itself was pretty cool, and I bought a couple of telescope t-shirts, which went to support the observatories.  I then headed down the mountain toward the northwest coast and Pu’ukohala Heiau National Historic Park.  En route I encountered many of these interesting signs.


Pu’ukohala Heiau was the site of a number of temples for ancient Hawaiians, including the one built by King Kamehameha immediately before his campaign that united the islands into a kingdom.  There were two preserved temples on the site.  There apparently had also been a temple to the shark gods out in the bay which was visible until the 1960's.  After hiking around this park, I headed north up the coast to visit the birthplace of King Kamehameha and sweeping vistas of the Polulu Valley.

Temple built by King Kamehmeha

King Kamehmeha birthplace statue

Polulu valley

Polulu

As I finally headed toward my hotel in Kailua-Kona, clouds were once again gathering.  I checked into the hotel and then decided to get the rental car gassed up and cleaned before carrying my stuff to the room.  Big mistake.  As I pulled back into the hotel parking lot it started to rain, quite possibly the hardest rain I have ever seen.  The water in the parking lot was nearing the middle of the tires of the SUV.  Despite the fact the storm appeared as only a tiny green dot on the radar.  It lasted for almost an hour, during which I say trapped in the car.  By the time I finally waded across the parking lot to the hotel, they were cleaning up flooding in the lobby.  Pretty intense. 

I leave for Oahu in the morning and will be on Waikiki for a couple of days for a conference, and am very excited to get to see Lisa, Andy, and family (previous stars of the July 31, 2010 post).

Aloha!

Hilo

I stayed in Hilo last night.  Hilo is actually the largest town on the island, but is on the wetter and less tourist friendly side of the island, so there are not really any national chain hotels.  I chose to stay in a Hawaiian chain and it really had a personal touch.  On checking two people tag-teamed a five minute introduction to the overwhelming number of features and amenities the hotel has including emergency candles in the room, a museum down one hall, dining options etc.  The hotel was older, but everything was very clean and nicely kept, like there was a pride the people too in the place.  My room had a balcony that overlooked not only the ocean, but also a very impressive Koi pond area (one of the amenities).  I thoroughly enjoyed the stay.

View from my room

I had been very interested to go to Hilo.  Not because there were a lot of things that I wanted to do here, but because it is a place I have heard of since I was a kid.  My grandfather was in the Navy during and after WWII and stationed all over the Pacific.  But one place I clearly remember him talking about was Hilo.  I can't remember the details, but the name really stuck in my mind.  So I decided to take a walk and discover the place.  My hotel was off Banyan Way, a road lined with banyan trees that had been planted by celebrity visitors dating back to the 1920's and 30's.  I kept thinking that it was probable that he had strolled this same street looking at the trees with their celebrity planters, that he may have visited the nearby Liliuokalani Gardens, and walked along the seawall.  It was a nice connection to make to the place.

Banyan Way

Amelia Earhart Banyan

Liliuokalani Gardens

The only other thing I knew about Hilo before this trip was that it was hit by two tsunamis in the 1950's and 60's.  During my walk I saw some memorials to the tsunamis, including the old town clock, which was preserved and still stuck at the time the waves hit from the 1960 tsunami.  It was very sobering to think about everything around me being underwater with buildings and cars and people being dragged out to sea.

Town clock Tsunami memorial

Volcano to the ocean

After I changed clothes in a parking lot and figured out how to hang all my clothes and backpack items around the car to perhaps dry.  I headed south along the chain of craters road.  As advertised there are a chain of craters, lava fields, and eventually sweeping views of the ocean.  Once I reached the sea, I headed east toward the end of the road . . . or at least the current end of the road.  That is to say where the road was ended by a lava flow a couple of years ago.  They actually have the road blocked a mile or two from where the lava flowed, so I parked and started walking.  Eventually there were a series of rough road ahead signs, then I was there.  They had bulldozed a rough road through the lava so that scientists and park officials could still reach the other side.  I decided to follow this and see if I found anything interesting.  A couple of miles in I crested a hill and realized that the lava flow still went as far as the eye could see.  I have to admit when I heard that a lava flow blocked the road, I imagined a narrow stream of lava, not a stretch miles wide.  I knew that it was like 10 miles to the area where lava was actively flowing, so I eventually turned back, but decided to do the return trip out in the lava field proper and saw an amazing variety of lava forms from mounds and pillars to braided ropes.  Very cool.  I even saw a weird turquoise colored lava formation.

Surrounded by lava

Lava flows meet the sea

Where the road was ended

Colored lava

Life finds a way

Swirly lava

Rain and Hiking

I awoke this morning to what can only be described as driving rain.  I got ready, went to breakfast in the Hotel Restaurant. Still raining.  Read a book and caught up on email in the hotel solarium, still raining.  In fact I talked to my waitress at breakfast and the rain first hit yesterday afternoon to the West and apparently washed out the road near the Black Sand beach I went to yesterday afternoon.  Which was when I drove through there, apparently people canceled last night because they couldn't reach the volcano . . . so I must have just made it.  In fact, I do remember it starting to rain as I was leaving (see clouds in pictures).  Thank you lucky stars.

Anyway, around 11 I decided it was enough waiting and headed over to the visitor center and talked to a ranger.  My plan for the morning had been to do the 4 mile hike into and across the adjacent and slightly less active Kilauea Iki crater.  The ranger said it should be doable in the rain, so I went for it.  I bought a "weather-proof" jacket at the hotel gift store and set out.  Within 15 minutes my new jacket was completely soaked inside and out, my shoes were soaked and muddy, but the hike was fun.  On the bright side the rain kept down the crowds and it kept it cooler.  The hike was supposed to take 2-3 hours, I finished in 1:45 and even stopped in the bottom for a while to explore and took a mile or so side-trail to the Thurston Lava Tube near the top.  Unfortunately the rain kept me from snapping too many pics on my phone, but it was definitely worthwhile.  The lava tube was neat, but after the relative seclusion of the crater, I got claustrophobic with the endless line of tourists trying to access this relatively short trail with umbrellas (eye poking deices) in hand.

View of the Kilauea Iki Crater and trail from the rim (look closely, there are people down there).

Perched on the Rim

I made my way eastward from the beach and soon found myself in Volcanoes National Park.  I arrived a few minutes after the visitor's center closed, so decided to drive around the rim of Kilauea to the Volcano Observatory.  From the observatory you have the best vantage point into the current lava lake.  Apparently a couple of months ago the lava pool had risen all the way to the top where it could be easily seen from this location, but had since subsided several feet deeper into the mountain.  However the constant emanation of steam from the lava lake, probably aided by the drizzling rain was quite impressive.  A ranger indicated that the observatory was open all night and that after dark the glow was spectacular.  He also indicated that the crowds always come right at sunset, and suggested to wait an hour or two later.

Kilauea Crater from the Jagger Museum and Observatory

So I decided to head to the hotel, grab dinner, and come back that evening.  My hotel was actually one of the features of this trip I had been looking forward to.  It was a splurge, but I managed to get one of the rooms in the Volcano House hotel which is located within the National Park, perched right on the rim of Kilauea.  I checked in and my room was a ground level, crater facing, and had a window and small porch that looked directly out onto the crater.  Amazing view.  I could even see the gases from the lava lake.  After taking a shower and looking at my dinner options a steady rain and low clouds had moved in and completely obscured the crater.  The hotel restaurants were quite busy, so I ran into the nearby village (Volcano) to find dinner, spicy Thai noodles with mango sticky rice desert).

View from my hotel room, beyond those trees was the crater wall.

I then headed back to the observatory.  The clouds were still low over the crater and I couldn't see anything.  It was also raining pretty hard.  I huddled over the eaves of the building with about 15 other people, including the Austrian couple I mentioned earlier, and waited it out.  About an hour later we were rewarded as the clouds rolled out and the intense glow of the lava lake was lighting up not only the gases and steam coming out of the crater, but also the mists that were still in the area.  I tried hard to get good pictures, but it was very challenging.  Eventually I headed back to the hotel and checked out the view from my room, still cloudy, but clearing.  Within 15 minutes I could clearly see the lava lake glow from my window.  A wet, but exciting evening!

Lava lake after dark

Black Sand Beaches, Carmen San Diego, and the Wind Farm at the End of the World

As I head down the coast I hit two National Historic Parks: Kaloka-Honokohau and Pu'uhonua o Honauna.  Both were important Hawaiian cultural sites.  I did a bit of a hike at Kaloka-Honokohau, but even at 10am it is so hot and the sun is so intense that I decide to take a shorter route.  Nice ocean views and some exhibits on traditional fishing practices.   Pu'uhonua o Honauna was known as a place of refuge and was somewhere that people could go to claim amnesty under Hawaiian traditions.  There were still original Lava rock walls and several wooden structures and statues present, as well as a expansive lava flats that were eroded by the sea.  I was enjoying the beautiful view and then it happened: I saw an unmistakeable scene from my childhood.  The carvings and structure that were in the background of Where in the World is Carmen San Diego when she was hiding out in Hawaii.  I later did some internet surfing and confirmed my suspicion.  Very cool!

As I headed south I passed through the Kona coffee producing region.  Kona is far from the only place you can grow coffee in Hawaii, but it is a 15 mile stretch of mountainside that has an optimal combination of altitude, temperature, rain, and super rich volcanic soil.  As such it was where the Royal Hawaiians got their coffee, and it is still prized for its flavor.  I had been looking forward to visiting a Coffee Plantation.  Unfortunately, I discovered they are all closed on Sundays.  Luckily I did find a roadside coffee shack, so I could at least have a little taste while I drove through.

In this area, I also by chance passed a sign that said "Painted Church" and pointed down winding mountain roads.  I took a quick turn and a few miles later discovered this tiny white church perched on a hill.  I went inside and discovered an amazing array of murals on the walls.  Apparently the priest who built the Church in 1899, who had no artistic training, just started using common house paints to start beautifying the church in his spare time.  For someone with no training the murals were very impressive.

Further south I started to see the influences of the more active Mauna Loa volcano.  This included more lava fields, impressive sea cliffs, and beaches with interesting colored sand.  I made a side trip to South Point.  Which is just that, the most southerly piece of land in the United States.   While there I watched people dive off 200 foot cliffs and discovered that our most southerly point is also the site of a large wind farm.  Nearby was supposed to be a green sand beach, one of four in the world, unfortunately there are no roads to the beach.  I started the walk and reached the ocean after a mile or so, but then found out that after reaching the ocean it was another two and a half miles to the actual green sand beach.  It was in the mid 90's, high humidity, and I had no water left.  I was torn, but ultimately abandoned the quest.  Later in the day I talked to some tourists from Austria (who ironically used to live in Charleston).  They had paid some locals to take them to the beach in 4 wheelers.  They reported the beach as being tiny and not really green.  So I'm feeling a little bit better about my decision.

Lava flows and the wind farm at the end of the world

I consoled myself by finding a nice black sand beach at Panaliuu.  It wasn't very sunny, so I don't know if the photos do it justice, but it was quite a beautiful place. 

Panaliuu black sand beach

Island Hopping

Today, I woke and left my hotel by 5am, but, advantage to traveling +6 hours, this was no problem since I had already been up for hours :-)  I caught a shuttle to the airport and boarded my plane for Kona on the northwest coast of the Big Island of Hawai'i.  The flight afforded beautiful views of Diamond Head's crater and some of the other islands including Molokai.  Molokai is the setting for the audible book I have chosen for this trip which details the history of the colony for Hansens Disease (Leprosy) on Molokai.

Diamond Head from the air

Upon approaching the Big Island it was immediately apparent that it is much more volcanically active than the other islands.  The Kona airport sits right in the middle of a not-ancient lava flow and I was struck by the dark colored volcanic rock that was everywhere.  I quickly made my way off the plane and into my rental car.  Time to start driving!

Airport lava and distant Mauna Kea

How about this weather?

So this is my third trip to Hawaii and I know it to have a super stable climate with temps rarely climbing above the mid-80’s and a constant breeze and daily hit and miss showers, but rarely more than that.  And with that in mind I didn’t really look at the weather.  Well, apparently Hawaii has had a weird weather pattern this summer and for the last month has had high temps, high humidity, and limited breezes . . . and I knew it from the moment I stepped out of the airport and felt the 105 degree heat index.  To top it off there is a tropical depression (Kilo) off the coast that appears to be meandering toward the islands and may bring heavy rain all week.  Should be interesting . . .

Off to my hotel in Waikiki now, so tired, but I'll definitely do some walking of the beach before bed!

Waikiki

Hawai’i

I have a conference on Oahu this week, so I’m headed out early and going to do a tour of the Big Island!  I’ve always wanted to go and it is the only island that I haven’t been to (or at least sailed around).  So I’m super excited.