Hilo, Hawaii

We drove from Volcano today, to Hilo, Hawaii, which is on the east coast.  It's the only other city of some size on the big island of Hawaii.  This was the first thing I saw down on the main street, while looking out to the harbor.

As we drove around town, we started seeing a whole bunch of Banyan trees.  They are just amazing in their size and complexity! There is a road that goes by a park, with a divider in it, and Banyan trees are the only thing planted there.

We went to Rainbow Falls, and while wandering around there, saw this beauty of a Banyan.  The number of individual trunks just seems impossible to count.

And to top it all off, so to speak, here is perhaps the largest tree we saw, in a park in Hilo.  I did this shot while waiting at a red light, and it was only after I took the first photo that I noticed what appeared to be a homeless man sleeping on the grass in the foreground.

Lava Day

We spent today in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, starting out in the morning.  The first thing we did was walk through a lava tube.  They are formed when molten lava flows along and the bottom and sides of the lava begin to cool, while the center lava remains a liquid.  Then the top cools and you have a "pipe."  When all the liquid has finished passing through, you have an empty tube.  Lava tubes can be small or they can be huge, as this one is.  You can see some people way off in the distance to give you a sense of size.

Then we spent a good part of the day driving down Chain of Craters Road, stopping at every pullout to get out of the car and walk around on the lava and photograph.  The extensive lava flows that we saw were astounding.  Some lava has flowed for miles, from the Mauna Loa volcano, all the way to the sea.  Here two trees have been surrounded by molten lava while standing up, and the trees caught fire on the bottom of the trunk, burning it.  They then fell over onto the now cooled lava and were bleached by the sun.   A spectacular sight to see an occasional white tree on the black landscape of the lava flow.

Volcano!

Today we arrived on the big island of Hawaii.  We drove for two and a half hours to where we are staying in the town of, believe it or not, "Volcano."  It is only a mile and a half from Hawaii Volcanoes National Park.  They stay open at night so visitors can see the glow of lava from the lake in the caldera, if in fact there is any visible.  Well, we hit the jackpot according to the park ranger.  There was a large bright pool of molten lave about a mile away from us.  This is what it looked like from a distance.

I didn't have a telephoto lens with me, but the ranger had set up a spotting scope, so I put my camera lens up to the eyepiece of the scope and was able to get this view.  This is a boiling, leaping mass of lava that shoots globs and streamers of lava into the air!  It was absolutely spectacular to see in person through the spotting scope, and I was thrilled I could capture this image with my camera.

Within an hour or so, two more pools of lava became visible, for a total of three!  The ranger was astonished.  It would be a really big deal to see just one lava pool, and tonight, for about 15 minutes there were three!  It was a rare and astounding sight to see!

Haunauma Bay

I am shooting photographs at a furious pace!  I had to go out today and buy a small portable hard drive in order to store everything, I have so many photographs so far.  So today we went to a magical place that is picture-perfect.  This is Hanauma Bay, on everyone's list of the best beach on Oahau.  It is made up of about 3/4 of an old volcano cinder cone, open on one side.  You can see some of the dark lava in the shallow water.  The population of fish swimming in and around the lava underwater is just astounding.  We went snorkeling and in the first minute I saw about 7 or 8 fish!  It as if I was swimming in a fish tank.  We spent most of the day there.  Then the women went downtown together, and I went exploring.  I had my heart set on hiking up Diamond Head, but the trail was closed for repairs.  I was driving back to the hotel when I saw this stone wall, with a lot of people looking over it.  There was a beach about 200 feet below the wall, and so I started taking photographs.  I did find a trail and walked down to the beach, but it was after I had hiked back up the trail that I saw this scene from above, and while I was shooting this woman walked right through my picture!  Wow!  Lucky me!

The Moon and Venus

We all had to wake up at 5AM this morning in order to get to the Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor in time to get tickets.  Liz phoned at 5:30 as we were about to leave and said "You HAVE to come by and see the sight out of our window!"  We did and this is what we saw - A thin crescent moon and the planet Venus, against the background of Diamond Head, the remains of a volcano just south of Waikiki Beach where we are staying.  It was a spectacular sight!  Please click on the image to see it in more detail.

Hawaii - Diamond Head and First Sunset!

We left Los Angeles at 10 AM this morning and headed out over the Pacific to Hawaii!  Our first trip here.  Liz and Amy and Sarah are with us, and Gus will be here in a week.  We haven't had a grand family vacation since 2006 when we went to Nice and Barcelona together when Liz was on tour.  It has been non-stop since we got here, both day and night, for our first day so I won't be writing much except to say that Liz and Sarah's room looks out over Diamond Head.  Our room looks out over the beach.  We went to The Moana Surfrider Hotel in downtown Waikiki for drinks at sunset and then dinner.  So here is a photograph of our first Hawaiian sunset!

One Hundred Years of Marriage

This is Kathy and I with our friends Ken and Ronnie.  They lived across the street from us back in the early 1970's.  He and I were both sailors and we became friends as a couple.  They were transferred first to North Carolina, and then to Milan, Italy, where we visited them.  They are now in Charleston, South Carolina.  But here is the amazing thing - we were married on September 13, and they were married on September 15, in the same year!  And this year is the 50th anniversary for the both of us!  We had a dinner tonight in Venice, California, and our children and their children all came.  What makes my head spin is the thought this photograph of the four of us represents one hundred years of marriage!  Astounding!