A Few Fall Days in Hawaii

I had to go to Hawaii on business for a few days so i tried to enjoy it. Not much of a story here, i visited relatives, went to a birthday party and a lot of meetings. I ended up on both Oahu and the Big Island but i never had any time to do anything too exciting. Seems like a suitable time to post the pictures, since it's a busy holiday week.

The one big thing i did on Oahu was go to a birthday party and stay overnight in these beach cabins at Bellows Air Force Station.

The cabin was hot, very dirty and "rustic". You could see all the way through that crack in the corner. The bathroom was infested with spiders.

The location, though, was ideal.

Mid-day was very nice

Sunset was very nice

Sunrise was very nice

This may be the first rainbow i've seen at sunrise. A "Dawnbow."

Part II: A Day on the Big Island

On the island of Hawaii i had to go to several meetings but had just enough time to drive around the island and go for a walk that evening in Hilo. I hadn't really done anything in Hilo but walk around downtown a bit. This time i walked around near the airport a bit and the next day along the coast in Kona. I was there about two weeks before houses started getting destroyed by lava. The smoke was clearly visible just outside of town as the forest burned. There also was a lot of visible damage from a hurricane a few months prior.

The inside of my hotel looked like it could be used in the Hawaiian version of The Shining. The rooms had been updated to be much nicer.

An abandoned resort possibly damaged by the hurricane.

A bunch of Banyon trees line the old resort portion of Hilo. They have signs that show when they were planted. It looked like most of them were planted in the 1930's.

A semi abandoned golf club. There was a seedy undercurrent to Hilo that reminded me of True Detective.

There's a huge public park along the waterfront made up in the style of a Japanese Garden.

It was dark by the time i came back and i passed by that golf club.It was infested with feral cats.

Two cats visible in this picture. One walking into the parking lot and one peeking out from a bush on the left. Just right at this entrance were about 8 cats.

A swimming hole in a neighborhood.

A death hole near Kona

There was really thick Vog on the Big Island and since there were no trade winds it spread all over the island.

Part III: The Way Down

To avoid turbulence our flight took a slightly different path down to the islands, and i was able to see some new parts of Alaska.

The uninhabited south end of Kodiak Island looks really cool for wandering around.

This is Katmai National Park. All the brownish grey "snow" is actually ash from a massive volcanic eruption in 1912.

I had never heard of these islands. The Semidi Islands are 100 miles past Kodiak Island and 40 miles off the mainland. The nearer island is Chowiet Island and the farther large one is Aghiyuk Island. I could see that some of them were entirely surrounded by high cliffs. They are home to 2.4 million birds. I wonder how loud that is.

This poor digital zoom is of the farthest west i have ever seen in North America. These are the very last volcanoes on the Alaska Peninsula. Beyond are the Aleutian Islands. The most distant is Mt. Frosty, then Dutton. On the right is the complex that makes up the better known Pavlov Volcano. It's really weird that we came this far because this is 200 miles West of Kauai! Longitude of -162.8.