Can I bore you with some vacation pics?

Great photos! Thanks for sharing. I really liked the ones of the glass.

I've been to Hawaii a couple of times. If I got a job offer there in front of my wife, she would say "TAKE IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
There is the isolation.............but in paradise? Paradise or Canada? What was the question?

I love Hawaii. Been there twice. First time went solo, backpacking from hostel to hostel for 4 weeks (I had just been laid off during during the telecom crash... what better way to change ones spirits). Second time with my wife for two weeks. Visited Oahu, Big Island and Maui. Fantastic places.

Bless your heart...😀

Between my wife and I, we have had many opportunities to move to the US (several states involved, including some with very nice weather) and also some other much nicer places. Each one is it's own decision, looking at what the offer is, and all manner of other considerations.

She currently works for a US based company, and I used to work for one. In fact some of her direct reports are in the US, as well as the people she manages in Canada. She also has responsibility for some Caribbean countries and will be in the DR later this month - I won't go with here as I'm holding out for the trip to Jamaica for the jerk chicken! I've already been to the DR once and don't need to go back.

When she moves up another level, there will once again be pressure for her to move to the US, and once again we will sit down and discuss it as we always do. Most likely we will stay in Canada - not everyone wants to live in the US thanks...

Cheers, Al

We are not big "shoppers" so I didn't go in that store specifically. I posted this photo before - first time I've seen one in person, and it was at the Rolex boutique:



Spoke to a few people there and mentioned to one that even though I was wearing an Omega, I did have a Rolex - a red Sub. He said "Oh is that the one with the red and black bezel?"

Clearly not vintage guys at all there. 😉

Went to a Rolex store in Maui also, and they tried to sell me a Platinum Daytona first, then a Platinum Day-Date. 🤦

So now to the Big Island part 1 (I'll use BI - easier to type out). On Oahu we stayed at a condo building that also rented by the week, and as I mentioned in Maui we were at a resort. On the BI we booked a place through AirBNB. We flew into Kona and it was pitch black, so we drove to the "ranch" that was really a gated subdivision about 30 minutes away, and pulled into a dark driveway. No streetlights anywhere outside of the city so at night it was very dark. We stayed in a little apartment above the garage:



It suited us perfectly - we had kitchen facilities, a place to sleep, shower, etc., and that was all we needed. The owners sat us down and for about 90 minutes shared some of the popular places to go and things to do. One of the things that they shared with us that that of the 13 climates on the planet, the BI has 11. So they said that they often tell people that they live 20 minutes from Hawaii, and what they meant by that is with elevation changes, you can go from tropical to very not tropical quite quickly. In fact much of the BI looks like the surface of the moon (sort of) but with a few weeds growing around:



Lava flows are everywhere of course, and often they are not covered by much in the way of plant life. The lava you see in the photo above and in most places is called Aa lava, and it's very broken up and rubble like. As we were driving around we saw a trail off the road - I wanted to hike it but we never got the time:



What struck me about the trail and surrounding landscape was the abrupt change from trees to almost no vegetation:



But even in the desolation, a small splash of colour:



So we had pre-booked rental cars on each island, and when we arrived the company didn't have the 4WD vehicle that we had asked for. We were mildly upset, and this did really affect our plans actually, but life is short so we just got on with it driving the little Nissan. I'm glad we opted for the "full coverage" because the first time Jacqui took it off the main road so we could watch some whales cruising by on the coast, it didn't fare too well on that Aa lava!


So along coast there are 7 valleys. Some you can access by trail, some by vehicle, and some you can't really get directly to - you would have to hike into one and then camp as you made your way from valley to valley. The first one we went to was the Waipio valley:



Since we didn't have the 4WD vehicle we were supposed to have, we ended up taking a little shuttle into the valley, and it was beautiful:





The guide who took us down lived in the valley, so he was able to get us to places that I probably would not have gone on my own. As much as everyone we met was friendly and welcoming, there are some "tensions" that can arise in specific areas, so we knew enough to not take liberties as tourists that would upset the locals.

So the other valley we did was Pololu valley. Access only by foot, steep hills going down, and more warning signs than you could shake a stick at...well deserved because one slip and you are off the cliff at some points on the hike. But once you make it down, the views are well worth it!



I have yet to identify this bird...





Or this one:



Stunning beach:



And the section inland was very green and lush:





I do like these shots...sort of macro but not really...



And here you can see the valleys down the coast:



And at the end of that hike we drove back to Hawi and stopped at Sushi Rock - for those like Hijak who go to the BI regularly, this is a good place if you like Sushi (and even the other food is good - we ate their twice):



To be continued...

I didn't try to take pics of the car's underside - that took the brunt of the scrapes. 😀

Thanks - glad you enjoy them. I am a "quality through volume" shooter with a camera. Click away and hope that in the end I get a few worth keeping. This trip I did okay I think...saving the best for last!

If you have never driven the Road to Hana, here's a cell phone video I shot to show what the road is like...


Cheers, Al

More BI pics! So this island has a world class observatory on the summit of Mauna Kea. The summit is about 14,000 ft, and the visitor center is at about 9,200 ft. You need a 4WD vehicle to get from the visitor center to the summit, so once again our plans to get to the top were thwarted by the rental car company. 😡

Here is a shot I took of the Observatory...



Now I'm no stargazer, so other than a few key things in the night sky I am usually at a loss. But the visitor center offers guided tours of the night sky once it gets dark, so we made our way up to that level one night...best iPhone shot I could get as we were driving up and just cleared the really misty part...



We had a great time up there, and they pointed out many stars, constellations, etc. Several serious amateur astronomers had their own very expensive looking telescopes set-up for people to look through. It was all pretty cool - they used red lights to help people get around, and the various curbs has what looked like large Super Luminova dots on them to help people avoid falling on their faces.

So one night I was inspired by this and also the lack of light pollution to try my hand at a star shot. Here at home there is far too much light around to get good clear star shots, so this was great because it was very dark there. I only had my 55mm kit lens with me, and I had left my very sturdy Manfrotto tripod at home, but I was able to borrow a rickety one from the people we stayed with. Ideally a remote shutter release would have been good, but since I didn't have one with me I had to improvise. I could use the shutter release timer but still the tripod was so unstable I was getting blur from the camera moving just from the shutter. I was also doing some shots in bulb mode, and the timer doesn't work in that mode. So I held a black object (my wife's purse actually) in front of the lens while I hit the shutter release, then moved it away from the lens. This allowed the camera to move around a bit from me touching it and not blur the image - this one came out pretty good I thought (Orion's belt can be seen here):



So one place we wanted to go was South Point - this is the most Southern spot in the US, at least for now (another island is brewing under the water to the South of the BI). Here a bunch of young people were jumping off the cliff:



So now I can answer the question my mother used to ask me when I was a kid...if everyone else was jumping off a cliff, would you do it too? The answer is no! 😀



When we talked to our hosts they mentioned "green sand beaches" and that intrigued me. Of course I'd heard of black sand beaches, but not green sand. These were near South Point, so one day we started driving...the coast there was again rugged and beautiful:



We even saw some locals enjoying the sand and water:



This seal was big! And he/she kept giving us raspberries (the noise) every couple of minutes.

It's hard to see in the above photo, but the seal is on green sand. You can see the green better when it's contrasted with other colours of sand, so here against red sand:



And this shot from another location shows the green sand against the black sand:



So the black sand is basaltic rock that is from volcanic activity, and the green sand is another mineral often found in the volcanic rock. It's called olivine. Here is what it looks like under the microscope:



The black grains are basalt, the white are small grains of coral, and the green is the olivine. If they look like small gemstones, it's because they are - olivine in large gemstone size is commonly called Perdot - a lime green gemstone. Closer look at a couple of grains:



There were larger green sand beaches a few miles away, but again a 4WD vehicle was needed to get there, but at least we saw some of them.

So we tried lots of Kona coffee on this trip, and we eventually found one we liked. Most of what we had was underwhelming. We had more success with another crop there - macadamia nuts!



We brought back a bunch, and we found this place to be quite good - not the biggest name in macadamia nuts in Hawaii, but these are better than the big name brand you see around IMO:



Okay volcano stuff is next...

Cheers, Al

So now some volcanic activity! This is the place to be if you are a volcano freak like me:



So after wandering through a lava tube, we looked at the hikes we could do, and decided to start on the Kiluea Iki trail. Kiluea Iki is a smaller crater that is part of the larger Kiluea caldera. It is an active volcano still, but molten lava hasn't been seen in this crater for a long time. So here we are moving along the trail above the crater, and you can see the Kiluea Iki crater below (with a worn path and some people walking) and the more active Kalema'uma'u crater off in the distance:



Another shot along the path to the far end:



Now we have made the descent into the crater itself, and you can see the crater floor. Unlike the Aa lava that looks like rubble, the here there is quite a lot of pahoehoe lava (pronounced like pahoy-hoy). It looks like rolling pavement, but as you can see there are large cracks and places where it has collapsed, so being careful where you walk is a good idea:



A close view of a section of that lava rock - I love seeing stuff like this:



As I mentioned, this is an active volcano still, and this is a steam vent that you don't want to get too close to:



There were smaller steam vents all over the crater floor. We made our way across and up out of that crater, then explored some other areas of the park. Steam was venting from places all over the grounds:



These were cute little finches and we saw them all over the BI:



We made our way up to the Jagger museum, and waited for the sun to set. Once it did the show from the Kalema'uma'u crater began:



You can't see the lava directly, but the glow is certainly there! However that night the sunset was the true star of the show - no touching up here - this is just the raw file converted to jpeg and with my watermark added - it was spectacular:



It was a truly great day! But still wanting to see some actual flowing lava, there was only one way. We hopped in the car the next day and drove to Hilo, and at the airport we met our ride:



All the following photos I took from the helicopter. So the lava that is constantly flowing from Kiluea generally flows underground in those lava tubes. Every so often it will back up in a tube, the lava breaks out somewhere - here close to a town:



Apparently it stopped in some guys back yard after burning his fence down, but no houses destroyed this time.
You can get an idea of the age of the lava flow from it's colour, so the darker it is the older it is. The lava that is more silver is more recent, and if it looks a bit like mercury, then it could be just minutes old:




Okay now we seem to be getting closer to some action - we can see vegetation burning:



As we flew around it was clear this was not just a big open space - here the remains of a road, and apparently this was once an area with many houses - all destroyed now:



We circled around another small vent in this area, and you could see molten lava bubbling up inside and splashing around:



More recent lava:



Now here we finally see a breakout!



We circled back around and found another really active one - this was incredibly cool:



Then we were off to see some waterfalls:





Then back to Hilo - the strip of stores facing the water had some cool things for sale, and a pretty good Mexican place where we had lunch. There is also a farmer's market in this area (you can kind of see the tents if you really look) and they had fresh foods, and crafts as well:



So while on the BI we went to quite a few galleries, and I was particularly attracted to some glass work, and some Koa wood pieces. The glass work was pretty nice I have to say, and the theme is right up my alley. This one had a lovely crackled appearance, and with the right lighting would look like flowing lava:



This one was more opaque, but the contrast was stunning:



The Koa wood was nice - saw this watch box and was tempted:



In addition there were a couple of very nicely done cabinets I would have loved to buy:





I did end up finding a nice curly Koa wooden box that I have on my dresser...I could go broke buying this stuff!

Anyway, so ends the journey. Hope you enjoyed the photos. If we ever go back (perhaps stopping on our way to Australia) we will definitely focus on the Big Island - it was by far our favourite of the 3 we visited.

Cheers, Al