not-getting-any-younger

[not-getting-any-younger]

March 29, 2014

12:53 MST - Denver, Colorado

After too many hours of traveling, I’m home in Denver. 

Yesterday, I packed up, left the apartment, and drove to Mauna Kea with the intent to hike it, but the visitor’s center reported that I should designate ten hours I didn’t really have to trek to the summit. So instead of that, I drove back down a ways to a nameless plant sanctuary and hiked that hill, much to the chagrin of my legs, who hadn’t yet forgiven me for the brutal walk the day before.

3:47 MST - Denver Colorado

I just fell asleep mid-sentence; I’ve been awake for around 29 hours now. I’ll probably sleep more and resume the summary in a few hours.

[not-getting-any-younger]

March 27, 2014

8:39 AM HST - Kawaihae, Hawaii

Some have expressed displeasure with my photo uploads -- apparently the filters and frames are "tacky." (Which may be a little true, but the fact that you asked on anon gives me the feeling you were maybe trying to be a cunt?) Anyway, basically, I'm uploading small sets of pictures with the filters because I like how it looks with the minimalistic blog theme. When I've returned to Denver from Hawaii, I will certainly post a link to all the photos I've taken -- unedited and un-cropped. 

I'll post more throughout the day, this is just in response to the anon earlier this morning. 

9:38 PM HST - Kawaihae, Hawaii

I mentioned that I'm not a huge fan of this house I'm renting, and that continues to be true. Thankfully, today's the last full day I'll be out here. Hawaii's been really cool, but the whole tropical paradise bit isn't really where my head's at.

Today started with an early breakfast, and then driving out to Pololu Valley Lookout. There's a trail there that traverses down (especially steeply) to a black sand beach. They discourage swimming because strong currents below the surface are apparently brutal, but I was fine just walking barefoot along the tide. The forest in that area was different than most I've visited or driven through on the island -- most of the woods I encountered in the northern Kohala area have trees resembling the pines back in Colorado. I didn't get close enough to inspect them, that's just how they looked as I walked through them, along the path. 

The trip back up the hill was actually mega-painful. I've never sweat so much that it was actually dripping off of me before, which I assume also had something to do with the immense, sweltering island heat. I do a lot of bicycling in Denver, and so I'd like to think that the muscles required for that are pretty toned -- but I do so little walking...it's a completely different set, and I was definitely feeling the burn on my way up the ultra-steep path.

Headed back to the house after that, had a lunch of...assorted leftovers from the refrigerator, and then sat on Tumblr and Facebook for a few hours, which facilitated the passage of time until dinner. I didn't feel like going to the beach again, because I'm so over finding sand in my hair and...everywhere else when I wake up the next morning. Dinner at a place called Lava Lava Beach Club, which I can't recommend, neither as a vegetarian or a standard patron. The waitstaff was uninterested and the menu was severely limited. Oh well, though, it did it's job. I'm headed to bed shortly -- catching a red eye out of here in like 23 hours, so I'm trying to make sure I definitely get enough sleep.

[not-getting-any-younger]

Some pictures from Holoholokai Beach 26 March 2014

[not-getting-any-younger]

March 26, 2014

6:18 PM HST - Kawaihae, Hawaii

Three beaches in a day is pretty prolific, right? If I'm honest, the beach isn't my favorite place. I don't like being sandy, I don't like being shirtless, and salt water hurts my skin. But that's just me being a big bitch. It is, truly, tropical paradise, and I'm happy to be experiencing it. Today's gonna be a short entry because really all we did was beach hop. Lunch was pretty awesome -- a tomato/basil pizza and a red velvet "Blizzard" from Dairy Queen. Honestly one of the best parts of this trip has been the food. Sammiches and pizza and ice cream until death.

Also, just a few photos today. I was worried about getting sand in my camera. 

[not-getting-any-younger]

March 25, 2014

9:29 HST - Kawaihae, Hawaii

Most of today was, again, mostly traveling. I left the first house around 10 AM, and got back on the Hawaii beltway. Right outside of Volcano is a town called Keaau, home of the Mauna Loa Macademia Nut factory. I stopped by as a novelty, and picked up a few variety packs of different styles of macademia. I actually wasn’t aware before today that I liked macademia nuts. I thought I didn’t — because I never have in cookies or anything — but on their own, or with “hawaii onion and garlic”, they’re very snackable. Back on the road.

About an hour and a half in, a detour took me out to Akaka Falls, in Honomu. There was a path that led down through the jungle, and by the Kolekole stream. Got some pretty awesome pictures out there, and a little bit of video, too. Some of that stuff is up on my Instagram, with cute filters, and I’ve posted other things up on here. It was interesting being so submerged in the jungle before. The scale of some of the plants and trees is a little otherworldly. There’s so much life happening in the same place at the same time — certainly an experience.

After that, a little more driving occurred, until I found a little nowhere restaurant in a little nowhere town called Cafe Il Mondo, which was just a little pizza and pasta affair. However, they had an amazing, like, teriyaki tofu hero creation which might be hard to replicate. I’ll try, at some point, to find the name of the town — just for posterity’s sake. 

More driving, until around 4:00 PM, when I finally hit Kawaihae, and the second rental house I’d be staying in. It’s kinda shitty, if I’m honest. Kitschy 70s styling, and constant impossibly high temperatures indoors — the air is filled with gnats and mosquitos, the walls adorned with rogue geckos (or small lizards of some time), and the ground (or, the parts of the ground that aren’t covered in shag carpet, namely the bathroom) is home to spiders and ants. I don’t know if I’m looking forward to three more days in this…um. Shack. I guess. Day three complete.

[not-getting-any-younger]

Various locations along the path at Akaka Falls, near Honomu, Hawaii. 25 March 2014

[not-getting-any-younger]

Sea-arch at the end of Chain of Craters Road

Petroglyphs on the plain

Recent Kilauea lava flow

Devastation Trail, and Kilauea Iki overlook

Halema’uma’u Crater at night

24 March 2014

[not-getting-any-younger]

March 24, 2014

5:41 HST - Volcano, Hawaii

Day two is wrapping up -- I'm back at the house, getting ready to do some macaroni and cheese, kidney beans, an potatoes for dinner. 

I was woken up early (like 4:30 AM) this morning by a text from a girl back in Colorado. I forgot about the time difference, and so didn't think to turn my phone to vibrate, so the obnoxious text message tone I have set screaming "I'M FRESH" in my ear snapped me awake. I couldn't really fall back asleep after that, so I drifted into the kitchen and had a few cups of coffee and scrolled through tumblr. Hawaiian coffee, by the way, is awesome. I didn't really expect that when I left on this adventure; "can't wait to get to Kona, I hear the coffee's pretty good." But certainly a pleasant surprise. 

After a breakfast of scrambled eggs, grits, Morningstar vegetarian sausage, and apple slices with sharp white cheddar, I left for Volcanoes National Park. The visitors' center kind of planned out my day from there. Drove through the thick tropical forest on Chain of Craters road, which eventually traversed down from the mountain elevation into a plain at sea level. The plain, and a lot of the forest on the way, actually, was flattened by huge expanses of black igneous rock that shined golden in the sunlight. I walked from the car at a designated point along the asphalt path to a point called "End of the Road," which is where Chain of Craters had been overrun in the 1970s (I think) by lava flowing from one of the nearby volcanoes.

Five volcanoes make up "the big island" -- Kohala, Mauna Kea, Hualalai, Mauna Loa, and Kilauea. Only the latter three are active, and Kilauea has been erupting continuously since 1983. 

Hiking around the solidified flows from the different eruptions was an effort, because the terrain is so unexpectedly shaped. A lot of the lava hardened in the shape it flowed in, which means bulbous and bubbly and twisted shapes all over the place. On the return trip, I took stops along the way, the first of which was in the same plain, but between two of the larger flows. There was a .7 mile hike from the road to the Pu'u Loa petroglyphs -- carvings of different shapes in the rocks by ancient Hawaiians.

Petroglyphs are similar to hieroglyphs in that they both use images as a linguistic tool; the difference is that hieroglyphs use images as an alphabet, while petroglyphs use images to be the language itself.

A brief venture onto the Napau path to Pu'u Huluhulu was cut short by a rapidly increasing rainfall. This was midday, so I sought lunch at a pseudo-cafe by the house. By the time I returned to the park, the rain had been consistently inconsistent, falling or ceasing at a moment's notice. Took Crater Rim Drive to the Devastation trailhead, and hiked that (something like .6 miles of paved path through the jungle) to an overlook of the Kilauea Iki crater, which was, at one point, filled with a lake of lava, and still leaks steam from rainwater seeping down into cracks in the surface. The scale of it was actually one of the coolest parts. In the past century, that puppy has erupted with jets of lava up to 540 meters high. That's like, taller than the Taipei 101 tower (formerly the tallest building in the world, until the completion of the Burj Khalifa in Dubai). 

I went from there to the Thurston Lava Tube, and walked through that. The tunnel is now actually unimpressive because the floor has been paved flat and there are even drainage grills throughout, which I think thoroughly detracts from how cool I imagine it must've been when originally formed. Lava tubes like that form when the top layer of a lava flow hardens -- in the same way that ice forms over a river -- and then insulates the lava below, so it stays hot. When the eruption is complete, lava will drain from beneath the hardened layer, leaving huge tunnels in its wake. 

A quick hike past some more overlooks of the huge Kilauea summit caldera led back to the Jeep, and then after a few stops at the Jaggar Museum (to look at the Halema'uma'u Crater inside Kilauea caldera), at some steam vents nearby, and then at the general store closest to the house, I returned home, and now dinner. 

8:23 MST - Volcano, Hawaii

I just got back from returning to the Halema'uma'u overlook. A park ranger recommended viewing it at night -- for the sake of "the glow." During the day, Halema'uma'u (not sure what the correct way to abbreviate that is, otherwise I would) just looks like a huge column of steam rising from a crater, because you can't actually see the lava from the overlook. However, when it's dark out, the red-hot glow from the lava is visible, and it really feels like you're looking at a real volcano. Unfortunately, it's at night, and you're far away, so cameras leave a lot to be desired. Day two down!

[not-getting-any-younger]

Some of the pictures from today at South Point, Hawaii

23 March 2014

[not-getting-any-younger]

March 23, 2014

8:25 AM PST - San Francisco International Airport

I left the hotel by DIA this morning around 4:30 AM MST. It was decently cold outside, but everyone was too excited to complain. My mom always gets really tense when she travels, specifically when she's in the airport. Something about airports makes her move with this frenetic sense of urgency, like we're late to every destination on our list. I think she's still operating in little-kids-mode, like my brother, sister, and I are still too young to get through security and the terminals uneventfully. Which is more or less not the case, obviously. My sister got a little caught up at the TSA checkpoint, trying to get yogurt through the bag scanner, who offered to let her run back and scarf the food before continuing. 

I got to the United Airlines gate at around 5:15 -- almost exactly the time I was scheduled to board. My parents and my siblings and I moved onto the plane in the first boarding group, actually, which is nice. That's standard -- my dad commutes bi-weekly to California, so his cred with United gets us a lot of cool/free things. 

The flight was unremarkable and went according to plan. Had a bagel or two. My brother spent the majority of the flight playing Mario Kart on my 3DSXL, and my sister and I were working on various things on our respective laptops, so the time went quickly. 

Landed in San Francisco International around 7:30 PST, and I've been in the United Club since then. My next flight, from SFO to Hawaii (KOA? I think?) starts boarding at 9:10, and is expected to land at 12:15 HST -- which means about a five and a half hour flight. Woot. 

5:04 PM HST - Volcano, Hawaii

I've just settled into the house I'll be staying in tonight and tomorrow, so I've had time to think. I'm really kind of excited to get into business, and commute via airplane. This came to me in the United Club in San Francisco -- I want to wear brown shoes and a sport coat and shirt but no tie, and walk expeditiously between flights and hail taxis. I don't know why that life appeals to me so much, but it does. 

7:00 PM HST - Volcano, Hawaii

Just walked about a mile to a Thai restaurant, which left a little bit to be desired, but it's okay, I just needed to eat. I landed in Kona around 11:45 local time, and rented a Jeep Compass to make the trip to Volcano.

I can't really recommend the Compass to anyone. It was cramped with five people and barely had room for five bags -- I feel like a bigger-looking car like that should boast a larger amount of storage. Also, the thing has like, zero power. Trying to get up the mountainous roads on the southwestern coast felt like a massive strain, while the car was passed by little 150cc scooters zipping around the two-lane paths. I'm generally unimpressed with the vehicle.

The trip took...a longer time than I expected it to, but that's largely due to the fact that there were multiple pit stops and detours purely for the sake of sight-seeing. I ended up 12 miles off the main road to see South Point, which is the southernmost anyone can actually get in the United States. Took some cool pictures down there with the crappy camera on my iPad, too. Cliffsides and waves crashing, which is cliche as all get out, but I'm not really concerned with that. 

I've ended up at a short-term rental house in the middle of the jungle in Volcano, Hawaii. It's unexpectedly musty, but I should've seen that coming, honestly, considering the humidity I've been experiencing all day.

Day one down, consumed mostly by travel -- the weather was overcast always and often rainy, but not unpleasantly cold or dismal, and I have high hopes for tomorrow's forecast.