mahinui

On July 11, 2010, there will be a total solar eclipse, and it will pass through the Cook Islands.

With some luck and planning, I will be there!

Eruption update:

Kilauea – specifically Halema’uma’u – has been erupting for several weeks now, spewing out a steady seeming stream of sulphur dioxide.

If you go around dusk, you will see that this plume is glowing red. After dark the red is very clear, and best seen from the Jagger Museum.

The road down the mountain is closed. Apparently an earthquake caused the road to rupture.

There is periodic lava viewing off highway 130.

About the vog. Vog is the product of the sulphur plume. It is somewhat prevalent around and about most of the islands part of the time. When the trade winds are going, it blows off island. Otherwise, it has a tendency to settle in the areas around Glenwood if not blanketing most of the island, sparing perhaps the northern tip at Hawi. It travels across to Honolulu as well. When it is bad, you can taste it. We had one bad morning of it at Volcano itself – otherwise, the plume tends to blow over to Kona or off island altogether. We used surgical masks when working outside when it was bad, and then someone brought us over charcoal filter masks, which did not prove to be necessary.

Whatever you hope to find in Hawaii, it is probably found on the Big Island.

If it is a party that never stops, with the white beaches and hotels with bar service on the sand, go to Kona. Pay for a fine hotel, and soak it up.

If it’s fabulous waterfalls and gardens of tropical wonders, go to the east side of the island, and drive through Honomu to Akaka Falls. Go in the morning when the sunlight is on the water. Have lunch at the pizza place in Honomu, and check out Glass from the Past and the Ohana Gallery. Nearby is Onomea Bay and the botanical gardens – not to be missed if you have a love of plants and flowers.

Great food is all over the island – it’s worth it to check out Hawaiian Regional Cuisine, and take a tour of the restaurants where these great chefs practice their art. On this island, there is lots of organic food, grass fed beef, and the best eggs ever. If you run around a lot doing things, you will get really hungry, and food never tasted so good.

Snorkeling? Honaunau is amazing. So much reef, so many fish.

The volcano! It is a show that never stops. How rare to see the earth being born. And these days, Kilauea has new tricks up her sleeve. Watch the lava at night. Stay at the Volcano – make time in your voyage for this place. You cannot expect to experience it if you have to drive back to Kona at the end of the day.

There are star parties up high on Mauna Kea. Look through telescopes and see the rings of Saturn, moons of Jupiter, star clusters, or maybe even a comet.

The Green Sand beach, black sand beach, and all the beaches all over the island, each different, each carrying their stories.

You do not come to Hawaii to lay on the sand like a stone, but to begin to feel and embody the spirit of aloha. You begin to understand the crazy sorrow the last Hawaiian princess had riding over the land toward Waipio, her land lost to usurpers, her heart broken, her life force ebbing away.

Oh, the music. The slack key guitar, the hula, the hula drums. The laughter. Laughter is alive on this island.

The island is alive. You can feel the ancients stirring, because time is different here. Maybe you will get to see the hula at Halema’uma’u. Maybe you will feel the earth rumble as Pele shakes her hips and pushes back her hair. Hawaii is only beginning.

There is Flirt. Getting a chance to actually spend time with her is almost irresistible. And Dawn! Had hoped to get to meet the Hawkman but then he couldn’t make it. It’s about the 43T get together, and all the people I would get to meet and I do want to be there. At the same time, I have major trips both before and after.

And there is Albuquerque and the places around it.

Flirt, I want to go. At work today I’ll piece together my calendar. That other thing I told you about is still hanging too.

When I was in high school, and my friends and I had access to cars, a day at Stinson Beach was pretty much the first choice.

We’d call everyone until the car was full, and head out over White’s Hill, through Olema, past the Bolinas turn and the Audubon Bird sanctuary to the grassy dunes of our favorite beach.

We’d body surf until our lips were blue and we were close to hypothermia. Someone would turn up with some beer, and we would drink in the hot sun until we were sleepy.

Sometimes there would be Europeans there. Men in speedos with Mercedes Benz sport cars and sweet dispositions. I went for many a fast ride around the inlets, and if you are willing to ignore a beer too many, stayed out of trouble, but still had a perfect sixteenth summer at Stinson Beach, flirting with strangers and loving life.

Boston is a city to walk in, shop in, and eat in. There are dozens or hundreds of little shops where you can find things to wear and display and use that you would not find at Sears.

There are sidewalk cafes with excellent food. My friend and I had an elegant lunch with champagne and then shopped for shoes. I wickedly talked her into spending $300 for shoes for her daughter’s wedding. She is a very slender wisp of a woman, very blonde, who would blow away in a breeze as she does not have roots, the way a being that slight would need to stay put. In fact she wafts between the coasts. But I am off on a tangent.

There are ferries you can take, and ferries are so wonderful. Lots of water to walk along. Historic trails through town. There is a sense of the early history of this country that is fun to participate in.

And of course there is lobster. mmmmmm.

Someday, someday soon, this is going to be my city. My place. It is everything I want in my city. It has first of all the friendliest people in the world living there and being there. It is all about aloha.

Hilo is th e gateway to the rest of the Big Island, and the gateway to the rest of the world.

It has Cafe Pesto, one of my favorite restaurants anywhere. You sit in there and look out on Hilo Bay, through palm trees, and eat yummy food and drink tropical drinks. Across the way is a fabulous gallery, and down the street, the Hamakua Coastline. Waterfalls, botanical gardens, dreams come true. The other way, big city beaches where you can swim with sea turtles. OK, you don’t think Hilo is big city? It has Ken’s House of Pancakes and a Harley Davidson rental place. Is that not big city for you?

And did I mention is it gorgeous?

And has the Tsunami Museum?

I love Hilo.

I had a romantic idea of cherry blossom time from reading Japanese novels set in long ago times. What surprised me were the families lining the sidewalks of the gardens where the cherry trees were in bloom. They brought blankets and sat out on them like it was a concert, pink petals floating around them.

When you visit the Big Island, you may want to see the volcano.

Volcanoes National Park is to Hawaii what Yosemite is to California. It is a huge, spectacular park. Not the sort of place you drive up to, click the camera, and drive on.

When you enter the park, you can park and go to the visitors center, and get an idea of what sorts of adventures you can have there. Like hiking to flowing lava, and seeing the newest land on Earth. Walking through a lava tube, through a fern grotto. Walking a trail over lava that has flowed in your life time, scorching the earth, and yet where trees are already growing back. Walking through an ancient rainforest, perhaps seeing the rare nene.

There is the gallery, with installations of the finest art on the island. Much of it is done in the style of the ancient Hawaiians, and to stroll through this museum/gallery is to connect with the culture of the island.

Volcano House holds a restaurant, cafe, gift shops, and hotel. In homage to the goddess Pele, a fire is kept constantly going in the grand entry room. Here, you can actually watch the sun set over the rim of the caldera.

It is nice to stay at Volcano, whether at Volcano House, the Inn in town, or one of the many guest houses available to travelers. Lodging is less expensive than in Kona, and the island is so large that you can easily divide a week into segments, spending part of your time in the rainforest of Volcano.

KDFC is having a contest. They are giving away a trip to an “island of sanity”. I chose Moorea off their list.

and why not?

If we go, my honey will get a biceps tattoo – my gift to him.