Lava!

We managed to avoid the rain long enough to find some lava for Franny to perch on.

Gotta build an ark

Greeting from the Big Island. It's soggy to say the least. It's not a surprise that it rains in Hilo in the winter. It's kind of annoying that it's trying to set some kind of record while we're here. We had another epic downpour today, flash floods and all, despite the predicitons that the storm was moving out to sea and things should be quieting down. They're worse at predicting weather here than in Portland, which is kind of weak as it is. I'm aware of the technological limits, but I figure the paid professionals should be able to do at least as well as the tourists looking out their hotel windows. Just sayin'.

Yesterday, we took a drive up the northeast coast of the island just to see something different. We also saw Rainbow Falls right in Hilo, which was very impressive given all the water on the island right now.

We did get up to see the volcano today, including some dry spells so we didn't have to see the whole thing through rain-streaked windows. Even in the rain, it's still very impressive. There is no vantage point on the ground to see the current lava flow. It's over a ridge and is only visible safely from the air. However, the rain soaks into the older flows and the still-hot tube that was carrying lava last year was an obvious steak of steam down the side of the mountain. The stil-hot older flows are the reason it's not safe to view the current active area. It's all fun and games until somebody breaks through the crust and vaporizes in a molten rock puddle.

Incidentally, I once again had to pay for internet access. I'm sitting in Starbucks right now for $10/24 hours of service. Anywhere else, I'd feel totally ripped off, but there doesn't seem to be free access anywhere on this island, so I take what I can get. Even the hotel wants to charge you for plugging into the wall.

Also, congratulations to the Giants. You can tell the kind of fan I am these days. The game had just started when we got on the plane Sunday, and we forgot about it until dinner last night. We had to ask a waitress who won. Very sad. Very disconnected.

Aloha

Since I don't have the internet, you get a delayed action blog post. Actually, I do sort of have the internet. The hotel finally installed wireless internet, but in an evil twist, you have to pay separately for it, far too much, in my opinion. So delayed it is.

1/21/08: I made it to Hawaii today. The flight from Portland was fine, and a good day to leave too. It was somewhere near freezing when I left and the temperature was set to drop throughout the day, including freakishly low wind chills.

I unintentionally spent the day as a guide. My coworker hadn't flown in quite some time, so I got to shepherd him through the vagaries of self-check kiosks and post-9/11 security. Then I spent the flight to Honolulu with a woman who claimed it was her first real flight, whatever that means. At the least, it means that she didn't understand much about airplanes or what the beeps meant, what the flight attendants were talking about, or how to work her seatbelt. She was quite friendly though, and although she didn't let me sleep or read, she was pleasant enough to talk to and the conversation helped pass the time. (For the record, she was older than my folks. Don't get any ideas.) Then on the flight to Kona, I sat next to a guy who had never been to Hawaii before and was fascinated by Diamond Head, the various islands, the sparsity of those islands, and the volcanoes. He sounded extremely Japanese, but he said he was from Las Vegas. He is a sushi chef and is moving to Kona for three months to help a friend of his open a restaurant.

Plus, we saw whales from the plane. I always heard they were big, but they looked like ants to me.

James and I went to a second floor open-air bar called Lulu's for dinner. Rick and I had gone there last year, and we had added a dollar to the collection of signed bills stapled to the walls and ceilings. I distinctly remember standing on the bar (overlooking the street) to reach the ceiling to staple it up (they didn't mind), but we couldn't find it anywhere. Oh, well.

1/22/08: Despite being in Hawaii, today was mainly boring, what with all the working and such. Saw some lava. The weather was fine, I guess, but we were inside for most of it.

I did learn more about the big ocean water pipe I found last year. I found someone who could give me a more complete description of what they are doing there. It turns out they have several big pipes bringing up seawater for different uses. They do grow the Maine lobsters, but they also grow several other things, including shellfish, algae, and seahorses, 'cuz hey, we need more seahorses. The factory bottling expensive Japanese health water is still there and actually has its own pipe, and is currently the only use of the water that is really making money. I also found out about another use of the water. The water from 3000 feet down comes up about 40 degrees. They also have a pipe that brings water from about 70 feet down which runs around 75 degrees. Somehow they harness the temperature differential to make energy. I have no idea how much of that energy is used to pump water 3000 feet up the side of an underwater volcano. I assume there must be some extra, or they wouldn't bother doing it, but nobody I worked with knew much about it.

Other than that, it was pretty much just working. I did see a gecko and some mongooses (mongeese?), but no whales today.

1/23/08: We finished work in Kona this morning. Kona has the traffic problems of a much larger place. The problem is that, for some reason, they seem to lack any traffic planning. Everything is build as cul-de-sacs or neighborhoods built off the one main road through the area. This means that everyone in the area has to use that one road to get anywhere else. The state is widening a portion of it, but the never ending construction is actually causing even more trouble for the time being. I'm not sure how the locals deal with it.

We drove across the island to Hilo this afternoon and into the Hilo rain. It isn't always raining in Hilo (We had great weather last year.) but it's more likely here than in Kona. We got settled in and ate dinner at a place that seemed to be filled only with locals. I like that.

1/24/08: I'm on the internet for real this time. I had to break down and pay so I could get plane tickets. So while, I'm here, I'll check in with the world.

Today was a long day. Better weather though. Sunny most of the day. Among other things, I visited the volcano today, although I was working and never actually saw it. I did find that the eruption has changed significantly since last year. At that time, the lava was flowing entirely through a tube and exiting underwater, making lots of steam, but not being directly visible. However, in the meantime, there was an earthquake that collapsed the tube and the lava started flowing above ground again, but in a different area. Unfortunately, however, I will only be able to see this lava if I learn how to fly. It is in the middle of previous lava flows, which are much too dangerous to walk on. This is the same unstable new ground that collapsed to cause the earthquake.

Before I headed up that way, the radio stations kept playing civil defense messages, a sort of non-emergency emergency broadcast. It was detailing the lava flows that are potentially endangering a particular neighborhood. It kept saying that only residents are allowed in the neighborhood and that all remaining residents have been informed. However, at the volcano, I found out that the neighborhood was completely surrounded by miles of lava something like 20 years ago. "All remaining residents" turns out to be one apparently very stubborn guy. He used to have to walk to and from his house, but apparently he recently got some sort of ATV that can get over much of the lava.

On a low note, my entire trip so far has been marred by a cold. I kind of thought/hoped that warm moist air might help, but no luck. Too bad.

We're off to Honolulu tomorrow for another long week. Talk to you there.

Promised Pics of Hawaii (1 month late)

Here goes nothing. Can Dave post a picture? How about 5?

Some sort of natural lava arch. I just liked it.

The beginning of many miles of lava that crossed Chain of Craters Road in the last 20 odd years. 10 or 20 miles down the road it also covered an entire town. Not crazy fast like the movies. No, these poor people had to watch their town covered and destroyed in slow motion. Apparently some people have started to rebuild above their old houses, even though it just a thick layer of rock. As one local put it, that's where you build if that happens to be the only pile of rocks that you own. I guess if you had beach front property, you made out like a bandit, what with all the new rocks in your front yard.

This is where the lava was actually entering the ocean on the day we were there. Unfortunately, we didn't have time to walk out to it. Apparently it's quite a fireworks show at night.

I saw a lot of postcards that appeared to have posed pictures kind of like this, but as far I could tell, this was the real thing. I was standing on about 6 or 8 feet of lava that had crossed the road and trapped a sign. I was impressed that I could read this one. Another sign that might have been a speed limit sign had all of the black paint burned (melted/boiled?) off and was just white.

Here I was standing in the crater if Kilauea looking down into the caldera, or maybe vice-versa. Anyway it was steaming all around us and it struck me as odd that I was standing around playing tourist in the crater of an active volcano. Not active like Mt. Hood is technically active. This one is currently dumping molten lava into the ocean. What a strange place for a photo op.

Update from the Islands

I wanted to pass along an update about my trip. I'm a few days behind on this. Oh, well. Don't start this unless you have some time. I went a little Tutu.

Flew to San Francisco, flew to Honolulu, flew to Kona. Aloha Airlines is awesome. They put us on an earlier flight to Kona without even blinking. The Kona airport is a very cool little island airport. Mostly open air with only roofed waiting areas. The only walls were to separate secure areas from heathens. There was a statue of a couple of island women holding leis or whatever. I remember that statue from when we lived in Hawaii, but I can't for the life of me remember whether I was actually there or just saw it on a postcard or something. It was a long time ago.

Kona was pretty cool, although touristy. They also had a ridiculous amount of traffic for a place that didn't appear to have anywhere to go. We tried to go to Southern Most Point after work one day, but we didn't get very far before we just gave up.

One morning eating breakfast at the Lava Cafe, we happened to see a bunch of humback whales playing around, spouting and breaching and such. My first humback whales, and at breakfast no less.

I couldn't believe one of the places I worked. There is a four foot diameter pipe running about 3000 feet deep into the ocean, bringing up exteremely cold seawater. They use it to grow things like lobsters and oysters and such that normally live in much colder areas. Pretty cool idea. That place I could believe, but apparently they have some extra water. So, another company takes that water, desalinates it, puts it in bottles, and ships it to Japan. Apparently the Japanese do not have so much in the way of truth-in-advertising, and they sell this stuff for something like $7 as health water. As one woman put it, in Japan they have a plant that takes water from 1000 feet down, so our water is about three times as pure. I'm in the wrong business.

The place we stayed in Kona reminded me of our house when we lived in Hawaii. Cinderblock walls, louvered windows, and no insulation between rooms. The landscaping was nice though. It claimed to be the only hotel chain in the world owned and operated by a Hawaiian family.

The trip across the Big Island was interesting. Oahu has the H1, H2, and H3 -- full-on interstate highways (yes, on an island). The Big Island has a curvy two-lane road full of potholes. Nice views of the volcanos though.

I liked Hilo. It was not very touristy, more of a regular city full of regular people doing regular things, but with a Hawaiian flavor.

We got to work at the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. Very cool. On the way up, we drove through the vog -- volcanic fog. It was actually a pretty obnoxious odor, but you don't get to do that every day. After we got done working, we wandered through the park and went to see the lava. We saw where the lava crossed the road and got to climb across it for a while. We could see in the distance where it was flowing into the ocean out of the lava tubes, but we didn't have time to go out to it. Maybe next time.

Flew to Honolulu, early again, and we've been there ever since. Too many tourists for my taste and it costs too much to eat, but still beautiful stuff to see. No good Waikiki sunsets yet -- too cloudy. Work's winding down. Good thing too; it's time to go home. I miss Franny and the Mizz.