Epilogue

At the end of day 11, we went to the Honolulu airport at about 9:30 PM, HI time. Since the flight wasn't until 11:30 or so, and we went from front-door to through-security in 30 minutes thanks to Sabrina's platinum status, we had some time to kill in the Crown Room lounge.

That flight was about 5 hours, arriving around 7 AM due to time zone differences. We passed an hour or so in the Crown Room at LAX, and then left on the same, exact plane to ATL at 8:45 or so.

That flight was only about 3.5 hours, thanks to a 100mph tailwind over the middle of the country, putting us in ATL before 4 PM eastern.

The final leg to Allentown was from about 8 to 10 PM, where it was cold, wet, and grey.

It had snowed/sleeted/rained a few times since we were gone, and there is still white evidence everywhere. It was quite a system shock to go from Honolulu to Allentown in about 20 hours, and I probably looked strange wearing shorts and a "Hawaii" T-shirt getting off the plane in PA.

Kriebel was nice enough to pick us up from the airport, and we went home to unpack a little bit. I hadn't slept much on any of the planes, but Sabrina did, since, up until recently, she has had a lot of practice at that, and fits better in airplane seats. So I slept about 14 hours on Saturday night.

This, of course, meant that I was unable to sleep at a normal time last night, and ended up watching "The Way Of The Gun" at about 4 AM this morning, before finally going to bed. My car still had some snow on it, and I'm sure it wouldn't start, since it's on the verge of needing a new battery, and sat in the cold for 2 weeks without being started, so Sabrina drove me to work.

It's not bad to get back to work; I think that 2 weeks is long enough to forget what work is like, for me, so it was pleasant to have a fresh start today.

Day 11: Around Oahu

For the last day in Hawaii, we toured around Oahu.

I walked down the street from the hotel to the Alamo lot, and picked out a black Pontiac G6, with sunroof. Our first stop, just north of Honolulu, was the Dole plantation.

Dole has a train tour, cleverly dubbed the "Pineapple Express", that chugs around the facilities, complete with automated narration.

The narration went into the history of Dole and the pineapple industry in Hawaii, including some of the technology involved in the process. It turns out that they grow all kinds of weird stuff in addition to their primary crop.

On a related note, I learned that pineapples grow on little, pointy plants, sort of like a bush. I think each plant only produces one fruit at a time.


The workers who pick the fruit have to wear heavy clothing, hats, goggles, and gloves to avoid being sliced by the hazardous foliage. It was above 80°, and they must have been miserable, but they waved when the train went by.


We finished our visit to the Dole compound with a visit to the gift shop, where we enjoyed tasty pineapple treats.


Moving right along, we came to the North Shore, where the waves are big and the surfers are reckless.


The entire northern and eastern shores of Oahu are dotted with beautiful beaches. There are so many beaches, so much sand real estate to go around, that none of them are crowded. Also, it's "winter", so that might have something to do with it.


"Winter", in fact, is what brings the rough surf to the North Shore. I got some more great video of surfing and crashing.


The North Shore is also peppered with sketchy-looking eateries, including many shrimp/seafood establishments like this one:


We also encountered a campus of Brigham Young University, which possibly explains the dozens of twenty-somethings on the beaches.


The rest of the afternoon was spent meandering along the coastline, stopping at beaches and look-out point here and there.


A few times, military bases got in the way of wandering. A large chunk of Oahu is owned by... I think every arm of the services is represented. In the span of a few hours, I accidentally ended up at security gates for an Air Force base and a Marine base. The Marine base is actually an entire island, including a golf course.

The eastern shore is littered with small islands, not far offshore. I think some of them are privately owned, and some are probably wildlife conservation areas.

Around 7 PM, we had completed the circle and ended up back in Honolulu. We drove around for a long time, trying to find somewhere decent to eat dinner, but utterly failed, and ended up at Sizzler.

After gassing and returning the rental car, we returned to the airport and found the Delta Crown Room. This is the first I've seen (out of maybe 6 or 8 different ones) that had a self-serve bar. I chuckled when they pointed that out, and the receptionist woman sort of muttered "uh oh".


All day Saturday will be spent traveling, with stops in Los Angeles and Atlanta for a few hours.

Pictures start on page 122, after the couches.

Day 10: Hawai'i and back to Oahu

Another great night's sleep in the rainforest! The cottage we stayed in was called the "Rainforest Cottage", which became an obvious label once I looked around and took some photos.


Here's the view out the kitchen window:


Behind the house is a large (about the diameter of a small above-ground pool, but taller) water tank with a black tarp-like cover over it. Upon further inspection, the gutters seem to run into this tank. It turns out that there is almost no municipal water here, and that every house (at least here, on the wet side) has a rainwater collection system.

We checked out and went down the road to the Lava Rock Cafe for a fairly decent breakfast. Then we basically drove back to Hilo to find a road that headed towards Mauna Loa. The GPS took us a dumb way, because the map data is from 2006 (at best), and they have since built a new highway.


This eventually led us to the road that crosses the island, traveling between Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa. This road is hilly, curvy, and fun. But, it turns out that some people don't care for that sort of driving, so we encountered the Saddle Road Relocation Project in action, which resulted in miles and miles of sometimes-paved, sometimes-gravel construction areas.

Up until we arrived at the four-way intersection of Saddle road, the road to Mauna Kea, and the road to Mauna Loa... I had been aiming for Mauna Loa. What none of the maps indicate, however, is that the road to the top of Mauna Loa barely qualifies as a road, starting at the bottom and (presumably) staying that way until the top.


So, I turned right instead of left, and we headed up the steep incline towards Mauna Kea. About 9200 feet up is the visitor center, and a bunch of warning signs that read "USE YOUR 4 WHEEL DRIVE" and "CAUTION: HAZARDOUS ROAD AHEAD" and other such nonsense. Of course, I just kept on going without stopping. Keep in mind that we're in a 2-liter 4 banger with front wheel drive.


Shortly after the visitor center, the pavement ended and the road turned to well-graded gravel. About 2.5 to 3 miles up from there, it turned into gravel with lots of golfball-sized rocks, and also got steeper. Every car coming down the mountain was either a jeep or an 18 wheeler, and eventually the car just didn't want to climb anymore. So, we turned around and descended to the visitor center.
The visitor center, of course, was full of useful information.


By this time, it was just after noon, so we headed for Hilo (as we had a 3:15 helicopter tour appointment). The "city" part of Hilo isn't much, but we parked and walked around for awhile. At about 2:30, we headed in the general direction of the airport, parked, and checked in with the helicopter tour company.


After watching a brief, FAA-required, safety video, we were issued fanny-pack-style PFDs, and shepherded to a helicopter.


The helicopter tour was amazing. I'd never ridden in a helicopter, so there was the novelty of that. I'd also never flown over a volcano, so that was a new experience as well. I learned that about 50% of the big island is conservation area, 47% is agricultural (macadamia nuts, coffee, exotic flowers), and only 3% is residential. I don't know that the lava fields count as, especially the parts that used to be residential...
We got to see the area that we had driven around yesterday, as well as some hot, flowing lava (and accompanying burning trees).


The tour included a view of the town that was swallowed by lava in 1990. Some of the buildings are still there, on little islands of non-lava, surrounded by acres and acres of black. See the O-12 and P-12 area. Note the footnote under "Kalapana" that reads "former site".
After flying several circles around the volcanos, we headed north and found some impressive waterfalls.


Then we buzzed the harbor and landed.


They video the entire tour from the helicopter, including soothing background music and pilot commentary, and sell it to you on DVD afterwards. The price of the DVD doesn't seem like much, compared to the cost of the tour itself, so we purchased the DVD.

Since we were already at the airport, we checked our bags (and that damned case of wine) and then headed out for dinner. After gassing up and returning the rental car, we flew back to Honolulu. The Hilo airport is hilariously tiny, and is stocked with couches and comfy chairs. For anyone that's been to the LVI / ABE airport... it's smaller than that. It only has 9 gates, and they're all in a row.


Tomorrow we hop in a rental and do a quick loop of Oahu, hopefully including the Dole pineapple facility and the North Shore, which is a world-renowned surfing location, complete with "huge waves".

Pictures start on the last row of page 110.

Day 9: Maui to Hawai'i

This morning started before dawn with a drive to the airport. We had to leave at about 6:30 to leave time to get gas, return the rental car, take the shuttle to the airport, and still be able to check luggage.

I started to regret that 30 lb case of wine that I had to carry around today...

After another brief flight on Hawaiian Air, we arrived in Hilo, on the east coast of the Big Island.


By the time we got the new rental car (Dodge Caliber... 2.0L but CVT, feels peppy), it was only about 10 AM, so we headed south towards Volcano National Park.

On the way, we stopped and had lunch at the Volcano Resort and Country Club Restaurant™. Oddly enough, there's a town called Volcano, which the golf course is named after.

After lunch, we found the park. It was slightly alarming to see a warning sign about sulfur dioxide, but we figured it was for liability reasons and didn't think much of it. Just inside the park entrance, there is a perimeter road that goes around the top of Kilhauea.


One of the first stops, after skipping the visitor's center, was a bunch of steam vents. Apparently, rainwater runs down into fissures and comes in contact with hot rock, then comes back up as thick steam.


The steam just billows out of holes in the ground, it's a little odd to see.


Farther down the road was a lookout point where it was possible to see into the crater ("caldera"?). The crater has gradually been filled in as small eruptions have occurred over the last century or so, I think. My history of Kilauea is a bit rough. Sabrina took pictures of many of the informational signs, but I was too busy rockin' the video camera to read.


Not far past that lookout, we learned that the warning sign at the park entrance was not just for show. The sulfur dioxide fumes had gotten so bad that they closed a section of the perimeter road.


So, we turned around and went the other way, only to discover another closed section of road. My rough estimates with the GPS indicate that about 1/3 of the perimeter road was closed.


Having just acquired some free time in our hastily-drafted plan, we turned to the road that goes down the southern side of the volcano, called Chain of Craters Road.


The trip down this road documents the history of lava flows from the volcano, which just keep going and going and going. The road from the crater perimeter to the shore is almost 20 miles long. Granted, that includes a few switchbacks, but there's still a very large area ofhttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif lava shield here.


It's difficult to grasp just how large the black lava area is from these photos. To get a better idea, you need to see a map.


Anyway, we made it down the road to the coast, where there is a ranger station with some information and lots of walking.
Eventually, you get to a point where the road just ends. Well, it doesn't actually end... but it gets difficult to follow, because it's buried under lava.


In 2003, a small eruption swallowed the road, and also (I believe) a town, further east.


This has easily been one of the best days, using outrageous signs as a metric, that I've ever had.
By this time, it was about 4 PM, so we headed back up the volcano. On the way, we stopped at a lava tube that had been very crowded the first time we passed it.
Just down the road, back towards Volcano Village, as they call it (to avoid confusion), we found our lodging for the evening. We're basically staying in a small cottage, on the side of an active volcano.


Tomorrow morning, we're tentatively planning to go (almost) to the top of Mauna Loa. I don't think you can actually drive to the summit, what with the snow and cliffs and such, but you can get to the observatory at 11,000 feet or so. That's only about 2500 feet shy of the summit.

After that, it's back to the airport in the afternoon for a helicopter ride around the island. Hope to get some video of flowing lava. Then, we fly back to Honolulu for one last day touring Oahu.

Pictures start on page 100.