Halloween at Dunkin'

Tuesday is our ritual Dunkin Donuts morning, and we were tickled when all the people behind the counter were all dressed up for Halloween!  I saw the women and kind of figured out their costumes, but was puzzled by the guy.  I couldn't figure out what he was supposed to be.  When I took their photo he was holding a banana.  Oh wait, he is a banana!  Duh!  Great fun on Halloween!

Monday Afternoon, I-95

We had a great weekend with our friends in Rhode Island.  There was a driving rain all night, but the weather for the trip home was really nice, if a bit windy.  Traffic was fine until Connecticut.  What's with Connecticut, anyhow?  (That's a joke for my sisters...) So we sat in traffic in New Haven just after the Q Bridge for 15 minutes, and then we sat in traffic in Westport for 30 minutes, which is where I took this photo.  Look at the traffic that disappears into the distance!  Other than that, it was an easy ride home.

Playing With Drones

Dick and I had planned to do some flying with our drones, but all day yesterday was taken with the trip to Newport.  So today we were going out to do some photography of the landscape, but it was sprinkling off and on, so we decided to go fly nearby.  We went to a high school field, and got in some flying.  I did this portrait of the two of us, as my drone flew overhead.  Dick's drone is on the ground.  We both had fun and Dick got some nice photographs of trees with fall colors.

Madeleine

We drove down to Newport, RI today.  I have always wanted to come wander around here.  I had been here years ago on assignment but never got to wander around the town.  We went to Fort Adams State Park.  Out on the tip of the peninsula, I saw this beautiful two-masted schooler come around the point.  She is the 72 foot "Madeleine" which takes people for a sail on the waters around Newport.  A beautiful sight on a gorgeous day.

Trauti's Garden

We are up in Massachusetts visiting our friends Dick and Trauti.  We have known them for over 50 years!  Dick and I both started as photographers at the Rochester Times-Union in 1964, and we have remained friends all these years.  Dick and I moved on to Newsday, and then he moved to the Providence Journal-Bulletin for 27 years before retiring.  They bought this house in Massachusetts,  when he was hired at the Journal,  where they planted a garden, and have kept it going all this time. It is just beautiful, particularly in fall, as you can see.

Studio Lighting

I went to Photo Expo today, in Manhattan.  It is a giant show of photographic equipment, including cameras, lenses and lighting equipment, as well as printers, backgrounds and every imaginable accessory.  There are demonstrations all over the floor of the Javits Center showing how to use lighting equipment to light portraits.  I am not sure what was going on here, because there was no one doing a demonstration, but this woman was sitting in a portrait lighting setup, and passers by were taking her portrait.  What I like about this photo is that it looks as if this woman is kind of lost, sitting in some kind of cell, rather than in a studio.

It's Gone, Finally...

...and I missed it!  Half of the buildings at the Glen Cove Plaza had been demolished while we were in Hawaii.  But the buildings on the side I photographed were still standing, and nothing seemed to be happening.  I drove by most every day, and nothing changed.  Then there was a weekend, and I didn't drive by on Monday.  When we went to Dunkin' on Tuesday morning, this was the scene!  Oh Nooo...  I missed it!  Amazing that one day made such a difference.   I picked this view because the handrails and the stairs are a benchmark so that you can compare the two photographs.

Halloween Donuts!

Our Tuesday morning ritual is coffee and donuts at Dunkin' Donuts.  We used to go to Starbucks when I first retired nearly 10 years ago, but they changed their awards program, so I am boycotting them...   :-)  We really enjoy Dunkin' because we know many of the counter people and they look forward to seeing us on Tuesdays.  We order the same two donuts each week, and I was surprised and laughed when I saw that Dunkin' has renamed all of its donuts for Halloween.  If you are curious about what we order, Kathy gets a Boston Scream, and I always order an Owl Fashioned!

It's Different This Year

Do you know what is different about this Jack-O-Lantern this year?  Right.  It is on the back porch steps, not on the front porch, where our jack-o-lanterns have been since the beginning of time!  Kathy put some flowers on the back steps to welcome clients, and since they usually come in the evening, we decided that the back entrance was the best place for the jack-o-lantern.  As for the face on the punkin, it is the same face I have carved for the last billion years!   :-)

Old Bridge, New Bridge

They announced last week in church that this road would be closed because they were replacing the bridge.  A new bridge span was being put together in the parking lot, to the right in this photo.  I assumed they would be using cranes to move it into place.  I was wrong.

When we were going into the church just down the block, the old bridge was gone.  When we came out of Mass an hour later, the new span was in place already!  How did they do that?

Well, they had this amazing machine, which is painted red, and is made up of what looks like two trailers fastened together with heavy red pipes.  I counted about 140 tires on both of the trailers together!  The machine drove under the old bridge, jacked it up, and then drove to the parking lot, on the right in the photo, and lowered the old bridge to the gray I-beam supports which is where it rests now.  Then the machine drove under the new bridge, also on the I-beam supports, lifted it slightly and drove it over to install it where the old bridge was!  Man oh man, what a cool operation.  I wish I had gotten to see the whole process.

This is the old bridge, now stored while it awaits being dismanteled.

And this is one of the two trailers still holding the new bridge up, while supports are adjusted.  It is an enormous machine.  72 tires underneath just this one trailer alone!

Lava, Lava, Lava & More Lava

Well, this will be my last post of photographs from Hawaii.  It has taken me a while to choose from so many landscape photos of the lava fields.  I am absolutely fascinated by the fact that lava flows are everywhere, and they can be so different in their appearance.  It depends on what type of lava is involved.  Some flow like molasses, and other kinds are kind of chunky and they move along the ground as well when they are hot, and when they cool, they are hard as rock.

There are older, gray colored flows, now covered in some places with newer, darker flows.

This is lava in a vertical wall, and it looks gooey, and it is easy to see almost human shapes in the forms.  I cannot imagine how this was formed on a vertical wall!

This is another area of older and newer lava flows, and in the distance you can see vegetation that is growing on the lava.  

This is a completely different type of lava and I have no idea what caused it to form like this.  There is hope for me, however.  I have just purchased "The Roadside Geology of Hawaii" and plan to start reading it to understand these landscapes better.

And here is one of the more liquid lavas, which formed wrinkles as it flowed and cooled.  So now it is time for me to get back to work, and to try and find photographs back here at home.  I do have a few photographs that I have already done, that I know you will love.

Hooray For Lava Fields!

I have been outside most of the night learning to use a new telescope that was donated to our club.  We will be loaning the scope to a high school student who will be working on a science project for the next two years.  So I just came in from outside and it is after 1 AM.  I had picked this photograph to go with another post on lava fields, but I am desperate for a post, so I can get to bed!  I do love this photograph of Amy & Liz celebrating that they are seeing lava fields, I think.

I Didn't Get to See the Submarine!

USS Bowfin is a fleet attack submarine that fought in the Pacific during WWII.  Bowfin was launched on 7 December 1942, exactly one year after the attack on Pearl Harbor., and when I was 6 months old!  We didn't have a lot of time to spend at the Pearl Harbor Museum so I only got to see this submarine from shore.  They do have tours of the sub but that was not to be on this trip.

More Lava

So many different landscapes on the different islands of Hawaii.  This is an area where black lava flowed all the way to the ocean.  Next to this area is a black sand beach which is also amazing to see.

On the way to the black sand beach, we stopped to look at a lava field, and I saw this.  I was first drawn to this scene because of the light colored grasses.  Then I saw the small opening in this lava flow.  Not sure if this is a miniature lava tube that is nearly filled up.  It is interesting in any case.

Rebirth

One of my first posts from Hawaii, was of a giant lava tube that you could walk through, it was so large.  This is a view of some ferns growing out of a small, fractured lava tube in a huge lava field.  The black behind the ferns is the dark interior of the lava tube.  These tubes can run for long distances, and in some places, when the tubes have cooled, the lava fractures and you can see into the tubes.  But what I love about this photograph is the sense of rebirth - that these ferns can grow on lava that to the eye looks completely inhospitable to any plants at all.

The Beautiful Pacific

I know, I know...  You are most likely tired of my continuing posts from Hawaii.  You are probably thinking "when is he going to stop beating this to death?"  Good point.  After the scenery we saw there, it is hard to come home and get excited about all the familiar scenes in our neighborhood.  Anyhow, I am nearing the end.  This is a really nice view of the beach outside our hotel, and of the beautiful Pacific Ocean.  What a joy to wake up every day and see this outside the window.

The Tears of the Arizona

The USS Arizona sank on December 7, 1941 and all her fuel talks were filled with oil as she went to the bottom.  Because there are still the remains of more than 1000 servicemen still within the wreck, there has been no attempt made to recover the oil.  Each day a small amount of oil leaks from the hull and can be seen as a colorful sheen on the surface of Pearl Harbor.  This is called "the tears of the Arizona."  The National Park Service systematically monitors the wreck to make sure there is no risk of larger oil spills from the ship.

The Banyan Tree

This is an amazing Banyan tree in the courtyard of the Moana Surfrider hotel at Waikiki Beach.  It was planted in 1904 as a seven foot tree.  It is astounding to see in person.  We stopped here for hamburgers one night. It is not a bad location.  The beach is on the far side of the tree, and this is the perfect place to watch the sunset as you eat.

Hawaiian Mountains

We were unable to schedule renting ATV's at Kualoa Ranch, where this photograph was taken.  They didn't have five of them, then they didn't have four of them.  We were driving to the north shore to the surfing beaches and saw these amazing mountains.  Turns out it was the ranch.  We stopped to photograph this scene just because of the mountains.  I have no idea about how they formed, but mountains like this with deep cuts back into the main body are something that I have only seen in Hawaii.  I will have to do some research and report back to you.

New Growth

I am in love with all the lava flows we have driven through on more than one of the Hawaiian islands.  I love the feeling that you are living on the moon.  But this is a completely different landscape. I think it is so beautiful, and I love the subtlety of the colors, and the bleached trees.  There is a lava flow under all this green, and I am guessing that it happened at least hundreds of years ago,, if not thousands, but I don't know for sure.  In the top of the photograph you can see a more recent lava flow - everything is gray.

Ahihi-Kinau Natural Area Reserve

OK, so after all the people we are back to the landscape.  And you might get bored seeing lava flows.  They are all over the Hawaiian Islands, because volcanoes are what formed the islands in the first place.  Do you remember my photographs of the fishers - the two young men and a woman?  Well, this lava flow was on the west side of the island of Maui on the road we took to get to the fishers.  What a stunning landscape!  This lava flowed down the Haleakala volcano all the way to the sea. I am having trouble coming up with the date of this lava flow.  It is between 500 and 1000 years old, as best as I can determine.

People Pictures

I have been posting so many landscape photographs that I realized that I need to show some people photographs.  So here are various photographs from the trip.  This is everyone eating shrimp from a food truck.  

Here we go again, more shrimp from a truck!  This time I ate shrimp and it was astounding!  Louisana style, and hot!  Yummm...

Photograph of the women on a balcony at our hotel in Honolulu.

Amy and Gus doing a selfie.  Amy is the master of the selfie!

Amy and Liz and Sarah in the swimming pool at the hotel in Kona.

A Drive to the Sea

There is a winding road that makes its way down from the visitor center at Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, all the way to the sea.  It is called Chain of Craters Road.  I will show more photographs along the route in another post, but today I wanted to show you what you will find at the end of the road.  What we see in this photograph are lava flows that have come down this hill.  Older flows have had new vegetation grow on them, thus the green.

This the impressive Holei Sea Arch which  was formed from sea water eroding part of the lava flow that makes up this sea coast.  The top of the arch is fenced off, but because people do stupid things, there are signs and explanations warning people not to walk out on the arch!

This gives a sense of the cliffs made from lava flows.  What an incredibly rugged coast.  You sure would not want to be shipwrecked and then wash up on this coast!  Yikes!

This is another view of the different lava flows that came down the hill, and then made their way to the sea.

I took this photograph because I loved the triangular-shaped cloud above a small rise in the lava.

Wai'anapanapa

This is Pa'iloa Beach at Wai'anapanapa State Park.  Don't you love the Hawaiian names?  It is so hard to figure out how to pronounce them.  This is a view off the cliff of the lava flows that make up the coast.  You can see eroded openings underneath some of the lava.  What's really cool is that there is an ocean cave under where I am standing.

This is a view of the cave, looking back toward the entrance from the beach.  The cave is an opening hollowed out of the lava.  It was a really cool place to photograph.  You have to crouch down to make it through the small opening from the beach in the distance.

This is a view of the cave looking the other way.  A lot of people came and went in the cave, and I sat there photographing silhouettes of the visitors.  This was the most interesting silhouette - there were two young women in bathing suits, photographing each other with their cellphone cameras.

Rainbow Falls

When we left the town of Volcano, on the big island, right near Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, we drove to the town of Hilo on the east side of the island.  There we found Rainbow Falls which is 80 feet tall and pours into a pool below.  It is surrounded by vegetation that strangely enough, is not tropical, according to Wikipedia. It is a beautiful falls, but there was no sign of any rainbows.  We were there in the afternoon, and I am thinking that you would have to be there in the morning when the sun was shining on the falls.  Man, there are photographs at every turn in this landscape.

Along the South Shore of Oahau

We spent much of one day visiting sites and beaches on the southeast coast of the island of Oahau, which is the island that Honolulu is located on.  This first photograph shows the magnificent landscape and the two kinds of coast there, as seen from Halona Cove..  In the foreground is the coastline formed by lava flows.  In the distance is a beautiful sand beach at Sandy Beach Park.  Sandy Beach Park is a well known body surfing beach because of the waves there.  The waves, however, are really tricky, and dangerous.  That beach is informally known as "Break Neck Beach" and people have been disabled and even killed there, when they were dumped on their heads on the beach, by a wave.

This is a view of an area at Halona Blowhole Lookout.  At first I thought these towers of rocks were some kind of natural erosion, but then I realized that they are cairns - stones piled like this by people.  This is an area where waves crash all the time, so  I am not sure how long the cairns last.  It is such a strange kind of landscape to see these towers on the edge of the lava.

And this is the main attraction - the blowhole.  You can watch this for a long time, waiting for the perfect wave pattern to arrive so that water and wind is forced up through the blowhole and you are rewarded with this really cool effect!

In the Mist and Fog

On the day we visited Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, we had mist and drizzle and rain off and on all day.  We had bought some clear plastic raincoats to wear to keep us dry.   We were driving on Chain of Craters Road (more on that later) and we would stop and investigate craters and lava flows along the way.  I happened to be following Amy as she made it along this pathway to investigate a cinder cone and photograph it.  I love how she almost blends into the fog in the distance.