hawaii

Green Sand Beach

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There are four of them in the world, made from olivine being ground up into smaller and smaller pieces. Really neat!

What I do when drunk in Hawaii

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Yep, this is pretty much what I would do when drunk in Hawaii. Which happened, once. After a blue drink. So, I'm allowed.

Right.

Allowed.

I can't say I particularly like the sensation of drunk or even tipsy. I especially do not like it when walking back to the condo. With Mom along side me, though, it was amusing. We stopped at a rocky beach and watched the ocean for a bit. I stacked rocks. I have no idea why I stacked rocks, or why I can stack rocks when drunk so much better than I can when sober, but there you go. What I do when drunk in Hawaii.

Dried Fern

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Along the crater rim in Hawaii.

Spider web

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"Oh, look at that spider web!"

"That's cool."

"Going to take a picture of it?"

"No. I'd need to get close to take a good picture of it, and I'm not sure I want to lean down that far. I don't know where the spider is, I don't want to disturb it or break it or ..."

"Okay."

"..."

"..."

"Stand here, I'll use you as my counter."

Fern curl

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Kalij Pheasant

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While hanging out near the volcano on Hawaii, Mom and I went to the Art Center near the park's Visitor's Center. While walking from the Art Center to the parking lot, we went through a picnic area, where we ran into a male Kalij pheasant courting a female Kalij pheasant. It was interesting to watch, the movements of the birds, how they reacted to us, and when they decided to avoid us.

Fern out of focus

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Sensations

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When we were walking around in the Volcano national park, we stopped in the restrooms at some part of the park. YES, I KNOW. SHOCK.

After using the toilets (what? everybody does, we're not special there), I went to wash my hands. I turned on the water, wetted my hands, squeezed out soap, lathered up my hands, the went to rinse.

I happened to have turned on the water at the precise flow necessary for the water to come out of the faucet as a tube. The temperature was close enough to skin temperature and the water flow so smooth that, hands in the water, I couldn't feel the water. I could feel the pressure of the water, but could not discern by touch that I had water flowing over my hands. It was a fascinating sensation, almost like a glass rod pressing on my hands. After toying in the water for a bit and rinsing my hands, I called Mom over and suggested she do the same.

View down into the extinct part.

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Turns out, when you're at the top of the crater looking out towards the active caldera, you can see the trail that exists at the bottom of the extinct caldera. And there's a path. That you can walk.

That's right, there are people at the bottom of that hill.

We had parked at the Lava Tubes overflow parking, so saw this view on the hike over to the Lava Tubes entrance and main parking lot. The path down to the bottom of the crater was near that entrance, we think, across from the Lava Tubes entrance sign. Unsure about that.

What we are sure about is that the hike down, across, and back up was not the journey we wanted to make so underprepared. Or maybe not at all, given the hike back up for Mom.

So, we just looked at it. Maybe next time.

Lava Tubes

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Right, the Lava Tubes from yesterday. Whee!

So, after Mom and I hiked from the overflow parking lot for the Lava Tubes, parking there in error, to the main parking lot and the Lava Tube entrance (an easy 1km hike), we walked up a short distance, then down the paved switchbacks to the tube entrance. Which, by the way, totally looks like a cave you'd see in an Indiana Jones movie if said movies had handrails surrounding said caves. Oh, and signs pointing you where to go for the treasure:

There was a nice bit of stairs waiting for someone to wait at them, maybe hear a lecture on the lava tube formation (which, incidentally, was from a flow of lava having a slower flow cool on top of it and harden, as the now-buried flow kept moving), or record jungle bird sounds (which is what Mom and I did).

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