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Published: September 7th 2023
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A dry day for us, and evidently a rare dry day expected in rainy Hilo, which is on the eastern “windward” side of the island. Hopefully it will also give the waves on the western side of the island a bit of time to calm down.
I forgot to mention that we gave a nod to Hawaiian culture by buying SPAM. Evidently one can find spam sushi but we haven’t seen it yet. There are 4-5 types, judging from the small market we went in, and we’ve had it fried up with eggs for breakfast twice now. This one had bacon in it – or the flavor thereof?
First stop as we were inland? Our favorite golf course yet again, in hopes of seeing the one bird we are missing that should be there. It was not, just the goats and the turkeys and the lovely views and flowering trees. Can’t imagine the price for membership. It is immaculately groomed and has such beautiful scenery.
Then over the saddle road as usual, but stopping at a famous trail into the “forest.” Technically these are plots of trees that escaped the lava flow. The advice was to walk in
3 miles to see birds, but we hoped about 10 mins would suffice. VERY rough underfoot. the history was more interesting – it was an ancient trail all the way up Mauna Loa where the bird hunters could find the colorful bird feathers for their chieftains. No wonder we can’t find these birds!
Then a visit to our favorite walking trail – and rewarded by a lovely photo of the ‘Iwi’I – he seems to favor one bright yet flower on the Ohia tree. TIME FOR LEGEND. Some goddess perhaps Pele, wanted a handsome mortal named Ohia to be with her. He declined, as he already loved a lady, I think named Lehua. She was miffed and turned him into a tree. His love cried so much that other more sympathetic gods turned her into the blossoms, so they could always be together. And one is not to pick the flower, lest it start raining, which it will, eventually.
Off to Hilo and the famous market. Lots of Papayas so we bought 6 for $5. Can you believe? Chinese/Japanese eggplants; other Asian plants I don’t know how to cook. Onions, carrots, cucumbers, but the only veg I knew
how to cook and would be useful was baby bok choy. Thought about ordering lunch, but the wait was too long, so off we continued to the Volcanoes National Park.
Did you know that like 7 of the largest of the USA’s national parks are in Alaska? And Denali is #3 or so. In the mainland the largest is Death Valley. Eventually Yellowstone. This one takes up quite a bit of the Island, anyway.
We walked to see the steam vents. There is no eruption going on – we had seen some red bits in the caldera in January 2022. But we saw the results of the. many many eruptions and flows over the years. That caldera goes up and down thousands of feet. It’s all a lot of details I can’t remember, but you could look it up yourself. The thing I did remember was that the hot lava went 2000’ into the air for one of them. We drove down the Chain of Craters Road, all the way to the water’s edge, and not only saw the Sea Arches, but picked up a NEW BIRD in the black noddy. Ah ha. It was really interesting to
get up so close to a variety of the types of lava, which I photographed for you.
On the way back stopped at a black sand beach. No turtles this time, but a chance to send a Happy Birthday greeting to Mike with a nice backdrop. They say the water is chilly there due to fresh water springs, and we did see some bubbling up in a tidepool near the water’s edge. And an entire field of water lilies.
Arrived back home in the dark, having stopped for some Thai food. We couldn’t find a place to stop on the very windy road, but the colors of the sunset were once again quite unbelievable and widespread and long-lasting.
You’d think that this would have been an easy day, but we were so shattered I couldn’t face writing the blog!
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