Hawaii - Post 4 - Volcanoes National Park

While on the big island we went over the top of the center of the island across the extinct volcano until we got to the live volcano at Volcanoes National Park.

Here's my family on the rim near where the steam vents are.  We didn't bring rain jackets or umbrellas so my wife bought a few at the ranger station.  I think my daughter's and mine are still in the luggage unopened.


The way into the Thurston Lava Tube.  On the way out, Pooteewheet ended up stuck with a tour group for a few moments looking at trees.  I think some of those people ahead of us, although I remember them all wearing the same outfits and looking sort of like a cult.  She fit right in.



In the Thurston Lava Tube.  Near the hotel there was another lava tube, unmonitored, and lots of people stopped to wander around in it.  Seemed dubious.  I wouldn't have been afraid of lava, but the idea of being under all that rock with an expert giving it a once over would make me nervous.


Up by the Jaggar Museum, overlooking the lava.


Here you can see where the lava is bubbling.  If you stare really really hard, you might be able to see the glow.


This is even closer - you can see the lava in this picture.  If you can't, here's a link to the Original so you see it without increasing your screen resolution.

And in Panorama - the link goes to a much larger panoramic view.

We headed down Chain of Craters road and stopped at the lava pits (sans lava).


My wife and daughter were excited that there were live Nene, or Hawaiian geese.  Eryn came back with a stuffed one.  Not real slash dead slash taxidermied.  But a toy stuffed nene.


The Nene stop was near a big area with a crevasse and lots of big rocks.  It was a neat place to hang out as there wasn't anyone around almost the whole time we were out there.  We had it all to ourselves.  Eryn and I originally thought that far rock looked like the Gorn rock from the original Star Trek, so we were trying to get a picture of us fighting for Mean Mr. Mustard.  But the closer we got, the less it looked like the Kirk-Gorn rock.


A random rock.  These things were sharp despite looking lumpy.  We saw a guy nearby from our car that had obviously fallen and cut up his knee.  I'm surprised he was still moving around.


And down to the sea caves by the Pacific Ocean.  Off in the distance you can see where the lava meets the sea.  You can't get there easily unless you bike from the back or hike in over hours.  We didn't do that.  But my brother, nephews, and dad came back later to hike to the lava.  They didn't bring enough water or dedicated flashflights so from the hotel we were getting posts about batteries wearing out, getting lost on the lava field, and leaving phones in undesignated places.  We thought it might all lead to tragedy.


The video version so you can enjoy the crashing waves.


Hōlei Sea Arch


A better view of the lava steam plume with the warning in the foreground that you're in all sorts of known risks for dying, none of which are eruption or lava related.

Hawaii - Post 3

I'm in training, so I should be coding about Angular 2, but I'll get to that.  Day one wasn't particularly exciting (I learned more from the first part of the Pluralsight class).  So these are still pictures from the Big Island.

We spent one day snorkeling - I mentioned my family all cut up our feet looking at turtles and fish and brain coral in the shallows.  My siblings took lots of pictures of their children, and fish, and turtles, and brain coral.  I figure I can find those on line.  I took a picture of the fact that you have to get a permit to drink on the beach, so you need to think about it in advance.  We were at Kahaluu Beach Park. Here are a million pictures, including turtles, yellow fish, girls in bikinis, and surfers.  We didn't see any sea lions.



My wife and I spent a few minutes touring the petroglyphs near where we stayed.  The idea of living in this hole in the ground, even if it was more of a roof at the time, is sort of frightening.  At least the temperature is pleasant so it wasn't like you were freezing in there.  Minnesotans tend to think about those things.


This whole area including far to the right and left and behind me is covered with carvings.  It was weird that you could just walk around, but it was also difficult to tell what was old, what was graffiti, what meant something, what didn't.  Except for one...


I think I know what this one means, and I suspect, although I can't be sure, that it isn't an ancient Hawaiian petroglyph.  But I didn't try to date it scientifically.

Hawaii - Post 2

This was my morning walk on the big island most mornings.  Along that shoreline and way past the Hilton over there  There's an Ingress portal on this point.  I can't recharge it from Minnesota, but it was a nice spot to link to that no one else wanted to walk to while I was in Hawaii and it gave me a reason to take the more difficult walk than along the side walk with the joggers.  I walked down to that little flat area of rocks when the tide wasn't in.  There were generally golf balls all over that area.  Reminded me off the Seinfeld episode where Kramer nearly kills a whale and George saves it.


When the tide was in you didn't want to be down there.


I walked past this most mornings too.  Apparently this path goes a LONG way between towns.  I was tempted to walk it, but I finally decided if it looked like this in this spot, it looked like this in every spot.


Some of the stranger morning photos.  This is the Zen garden.  KEEP OUT!  No trespassing in the Zen garden.


This is a plant that sexually harassed me once a day.  It sort of looks like it has a priapism issue.


A nice picture closer to one of the beaches.  This was not untypical of the beaches near where we were staying.  They were not great for swimming unless you wanted to get cut up.  As a matter of fact, when we went snorkeling in the shallows at one of the local beaches known for snorkeling, my wife, daughter, and I all cut our feet up pretty good.  I still have a bit of a scab about five inches long that's finally going away after over a month.  Brain coral.  Sharp.  Wear flip flops or surf shoes.  You will note a decided lack of pictures of sea life in my posts although we saw a lot: turtles, whales, dolphins.  No rays - if you're going to see the rays book WAY in advance.  It was the one thing we really missed by not planning ahead extensively.


That said, here's a sea turtle.  Bad picture, but it was pretty early in the morning and s/he was headed into the hotel area to visit some friends.


These are the turtle's friends.  There are two dolphins in there for the hotel dolphin encounter (we weren't at this hotel, but the walking path looped back and forth through the hotel grounds).  I felt kind of bad for them, but in the mornings they were zipping all over the place playing with each other.


There was a tendency to carry white rocks to where there were black rocks and make all sorts of initials in hearts graffiti.  So we made one for Klund.

In panorama...

Sadly, it didn't even last a day.  Love is fleeting.


Unless you take a video of it, then you have it forever.  Along with the soothing sounds of the waves in the background.


I ate this on the big island.  It's a loco moco.  I had a few of them to compare and contrast.  Rice, fried egg, hamburger, gravy.  The gravy was generally the biggest difference.  But it was seriously Minnesota food.  No spice, pretty straight forward meat and starch.  I'm surprised I can't find them on every corner here.

Hawaii - post number one of like a bunch

We went to Hawaii for my parents' 50th wedding anniversary over the holidays (Christmas 2016 and New Years 2017).  I've been to 48 states by my count, and this was the 49th, literally 25 years since the last one I think I added.  I might never get to number 50.  If faced with the choice of Alaska or Iceland or Scandinavian, I think Alaska ranks third.  Maybe for my parents' 75th anniversary.  It was my folks, my sister and her family, my brother and his family, and us.  13 total.  We spent the first 2/3 of the trip on the big island (Hawaii) just north of the Hilton Waikoloa Village.  And the last few days in Honolulu on Oahu.

Right about there...  That pool on the western edge by the three buildings is where we swam.  The beaches weren't so good for swimming.  Pretty darn rocky - even at the curated beach down the road.

The Big Island is pretty relaxing.  This is what the Christmas holidays look like.  I walked the beach or the road from the house we stayed in with my sister's family to the coffee shop almost every morning, taking a slightly different route when I could.  They are really into jogging in Hawaii.  I did not jog.  I've never stayed quite so far from a coffee shop while on vacation before.  Made me appreciate how much I enjoy a place to sit and read where I don't have to brew my own cup.

Mele Kalikimaka Makahiki Hou!  I think that's what the entertainment reporter on KQ used to yell at the end of the Aloha Friday song every Friday.


So just to give you an idea of how homey and unrushed it was, here's Allison scrubbing shoes in the rental.



And here's what folks expect when you say you're going to post about Hawaii.  This was the pool near the beach at the complex (pretty professional looking picture on my part, but it was hard to take a bad picture).  The girls spent a lot of time swimming right into the evening (it got dark!).  I was chaperone, trying to decide if $9.00 for a beer made any sense whatsoever, even on vacation.

Mall!

Hmm...where was I.  Wednesday last week.  Minneopa State Park.  Well, I can sum up Spring Break Thursday in one word MallOfAmericaAmusementPark.  I read my book, drank coffee, and tried to make up stories about the various strangers I saw, and Eryn ran around and enjoyed the rides for 8 hours.  It was slightly more than 8 hours, because we were out of the ticket line before 10 and she was on the rides past 6, but maybe I have to subtract Chipotle time, DQ time, and Teavana tea-restocking time (it was our not-a-big-out-of-state vacation, so a $40 canister of tea seemed acceptable as an alternative to plane tickets and a hotel)?  For my part, I read a few hundred pages out of a book of post-apocalyptic short stories and took a lot of short walks.  The Mall gives me a serious case of the blahs.  I hate consumerism.  And I say that as someone willing to walk around Target and just look at things without buying anything while my daughter is at guitar lessons.  Heck, the other day I bought a green garden gnome, stealthily hid him in the front yard garden where he's almost invisible, and named him Melvin.  I'm willing to enjoy consumerism with a generalized purpose, just not hundreds of specialty shops that make no sense to me. Although other folks probably say the same things when they see me buying a Deadpool graphic novel at the local shop for Eryn, or a board game at FFG. It didn't help that a trip through Games by James revealed they're selling the same game as FFG for a $20 markup, $28 if you had pre-ordered it for a discount using the FFG pre-order program.  I don't find it offensive.  I find it completely nonsensical.  How can anyone with a phone not look up what they're buying at the mall and decide, "I'm not f-ing buying that here."

As a bonus, while we were eating our DQ Blizzards, the stars of The Longest Ride made an appearance.  There were people in line for over four hours in their cowboy boots and hats to see them.  Brit Robertson is cute for someone born after I graduated from high school, but I can't imagine standing in line four hours to meet her (man, that would be sort of creepy, although there were women there my age who obviously were there to meet Scott Eastwood, barely born before I graduated high school) and I'd much rather meet her pimping Tomorrowland than The Longest Ride.

Regardless, we had fun.  Eryn was exhausted but happy, and I was full up on post-apocalypticism (nice! that's a good word, even if it doesn't really exist).

It Follows

My week of vacation has started.  And I'm going nowhere.  My plan is to get a ton of chores done, a lot of writing, and just generally relax.  Any going somewhere will have to wait for July and October.  But I really do intend to have an interesting week in the context of sticking around, even if it's taxes, making chili, reading, and doing some college phone screens for intern and new grad candidates.  Might not sound exciting, but you'll see.

So I started the whole week off last night by walking over to the 10:25 It Follows.  One of the nice things about my suburban life is that my house is near Target, Cub, and the movie theater.  It used to be near an ice cream shop (I miss Ring Mountain) and there are coffee shops, although they're not my coffee shops of preference.  So walking, even at 10:25 p.m. (and 1:00 a.m. with a stop at Cub for juice) is an option.  Chilly here still, but not so bad it wasn't a nice way to finish the evening.

I liked It Follows.  The teenage boys in the audience didn't seem to given their discussion on the way out.  But the fact that they were having a spirited discussion about what it meant and that it was driven by STD...if it got them talking about the merits of the movie, it couldn't have been that bad.  It felt a little old school.  No seriously creepy monsters (not in the traditional sense).  No slashing.  Just a nice, slow, reveal of more and more about what was following Jay, punctuated with proof that it wasn't in her head - some actual physical interaction with her friends - and some music/sound that was really superb.  At one point the noise from the television blended into the background sound in a way that was impressive.  When I explained it to my wife, I said the music/sound reminded of someone else, the guy who did Ghosts of Mars and Prince of Darkness.  Carpenter.  The sound was reminiscent of Carpenter, but better.

So well done.  Obvious avoidance of product placement.  No big name actors to distract.  Some realistic dialogue and behavior on the part of the teens.  A slow reveal without startling, so actually rather creepy.  Great, creepy sounds without an annoying music soundtrack (refer back to product placement).  Just a touch of moralizing.  An ode to cinema I remember from my youth in both style and sound.  It didn't scare me, but I definitely was happy I went.

Vacation: Part Last, the Video Journey

Ah, nonsensical videos from vacation, mostly devoid of people, so you can feel like you're sharing the grandeur of Colorado with me first person shooter style.  If you feel like looping, you can hang out in the windy mountains at 12,000 feet virtually forever, embedded in a New Age Scooter video.



Or spend 22 seconds watch a river in blackbox.  Watch for Jen's watch!


This is The Mist, coming to get you.  It just needs spooky music.  I should put spooky music behind all my vacation videos.  They'd be more interesting.


Moving camera and more river.  If you're easily nauseated, prepare for fast movement.


A river near Vail that's not as noisy as a river in the Rocky Mountains.


See, Rocky Mountain National Park rivers are noisier.  Do you have to pee now?

Vacation: Rocky Mountain National Park (aka more mountains and rivers and rocks)

There are almost 80 pictures in the set from Rocky Mountain National Park, so if you need to see some, including semi-duplicates which I usually delete but kept a few of for my wife in case there were different perspectives of her and Eryn near the river she preferred, head over to Flickr.  If you follow my wife, wait for her to finally find her power cord, pull her photos from her camera, and upload those.  I think she has thousands, including several hundred of what probably deer, though we had a spirited discussion debating it because they certainly weren't your white-tailed, Minnesota variety.  But I've learned never to worry about someone else's digital photos.  Therein lies insanity.

I read an article once by a wife who thought it was the height of romance that her husband organized all her digital photos for her: labeling, foldering, getting them online, organizing them into some sort of romantic I-hope-I-get-laid-for-all-this-work montage.  To him I say, you are a chump.  You'll be doing that forever.  Because now when you don't do it, you obviously love her less.  Obviously.  Even when she doesn't state it.  It's like being the guy to take care of the family and friend computers - once you fix one, you're doomed.  The best you can hope for is to figure out how to have fun doing something else while you reformat, delouse, and reinstall everyone's machine.  Perhaps that's when said husband organized his wife's pile of digital crap.

Here's a picture of some cairns, search for "out of control".  It's amusing.  They look nice here.  Add some verticality to my photo.


Here's another picture of the cairns.  See it there to the right, but before the big rock?  To the right of Jen.  She lost her sunglasses right there.  Lost them good.  I set everything loose I owned aside and dug around in the cold water until I worried I'd tumble in head first.  Antilitterati.org.


Eryn and Jen posing in the mountains.


Scooter! Scooter!  This is not what people want when they ask you to take their picture!  She said the water was very very cold.


We found a lake to walk around.  When we got to exactly the other side, it started to rain.  But at least it was far away from the two foreign tourists who smelled like they'd tried to sample every strain in Colorado.  Beautiful area.  Lots of snakes.


NOT a cairn.  Just some random rock giving a big f-you to the mountainscape because there's always one crab in the crowd.


The path to the Roger Wolcott Toll memorial rock. That one that looks like a mushroom is not it.  It's sort of to the left.  While Jen and Eryn were taking lots of photos of deer/not deer, I was hoofing it up to the memorial way back down a trail.  It was much further than I originally thought, so I jogged back at 11,000 feet or so for 1/2 a mile to make sure I didn't keep them waiting too long.  People you jog past at 11,000 feet think you're a nutjob.  I took a picture of this side path because I thought the area looked like the place Conan (the Arnold Conan, not the Momoa Conan) and his posse circled up to defend themselves against the Serpent Emperor and his nasty heart-piercing live snake arrows.  No snake arrows here.  Not even a snake.  Bit cold for them I think.  But I jumped around for a while pretending I had a big sword and making Arnold faces and yelling so someone would have a chance at the world's highest meme.


The memorial rock.  There's a compass-type plaque on the top.  I took a young couple's picture up there because they were going to go home with separate photos of themselves with a scenic rocky mountain backdrop.  "Hey, remember when we went to The Rocky Mountains and you took this picture?  And then I took this picture? I organized them for you so you know I love you."  That's right, he has ONE LESS PICTURE TO ORGANIZE! My micro-contributions to the sanity of the world will go unlauded unless I document them myself.


I think this is my favorite picture from vacation, and the reason I follow random trails even if it's a lot of exercise.


ARGH, WHY DIDN'T I RENT A BIKE?!  One interpretation would be that not renting or bringing a bike made it possible not to type here, "I failed so miserably at climbing 12,000 feet on my bike.  I had to bail somewhere around 3,000 feet."  It's cool he biked to the top, although he should have lugged that thing a few hundred feet up the trail behind the store to the very top of the mountain so he could say he made it all the way.  Stairs be damned.  Props, man.  I think this looks like a hell of a lot of fun, dropping dead from acute mountain sickness be damned.


From next to the gift shop.  Not as much snow as Glacier National Park, but still pretty cool to see it up there when it was so warm 7,000 feet below.  Lot of marmots running around nearby.  The goth group hanging out on the overlook realized they acted like the dramatic chipmunk and mimicked them for twenty minutes.  Marmots acting like dramatic chipmunks, funny.  Goth guys imitating marmots acting like dramatic chipmunks, not.


The hills are alive, with the sound of muuuu-sic, with songs Scooter has sung, for a thous-and yeaaars!  The hills fill Scooter's heart, with the sound of muuuuu-sic, his heart wants to sing every song it hears.... Next, I do I am 16, going on 17...


The tip top, up all the stairs that were vanquishing little children who would collapse to the stones in tears and complaints and groans.  Carry me!  Carry me!  Oh, Daddy, carry me!


A picture of the valley.  It was nice to just lean against the stone rail for a while and listen to the wind and feel the cool breeze, all Nausicaa like.  Think about it for a while, and then imagine that silence shattered by dramatic chipmunk goths.  See?  Uber annoying.  F-you peaceful, idyllic nature.  Somewhere down there is a rock flipping you off and somewhere up here are oxygen-deprived giddy goths about to laugh themselves unconscious from a seven year old meme.


Ending with a nice panorama (2048 here for scrolling) of the lake.