Poinciana Blooms
Hurricane Season
It is a wee bit active out there…
Three major hurricanes are wandering the eastern Pacific right now, two uncomfortably close to the islands.
Last month’s hit from Hurricane Lala did significant damage to the southern parts of the island, dropping up to 40 inches of rain, flooding Waiʻōhinu and Nāʻālehu, destroying homes and businesses. At our house, we spent a day without power and lost one of our mature plumeria.
It was only a couple of weeks, and we are facing another round…
Hurricane Lowell has passed us here on the Big Island, but is forecast to take an abrupt turn to the north, threatening Kauaʻi and Niʻihau. Hurricane Karina is forecast to swing north of us, but close enough that we may experience some impact.
With a record-breaking El Niño warming the water of the central Pacific, it is more than likely we will see even more storms beyond these. To live in interesting times…
Elephant
The Futility of Going Home
I had not been back for over four decades.
My parents sold my childhood home shortly after I joined the Air Force in the mid 1980’s. They abandoned the suburbs and bought a very nice home in the city, which they still own today. It is this home I stay in when visiting Portland. For four decades, this is now “home” in many ways, but not the house I grew up in.
My childhood house is still there, along Sunrise Lane in the far southwest of the Portland metro area. This is the home featured in childhood memories spent roaming deep forests and neglected orchards. A green childhood of trees, sheep and chickens, endless mowing, picking blackberries and plums, or wandering a wonderland created by another ice storm.
Continue reading “The Futility of Going Home”Awaiting Dark
Hurricane Lala
Lala was not our first hurricane.
After two decades of island life, we have been through a few hurricanes. In general, our location on the island, in the lee of a 13,802ft mauna, has protected us from the worst. Stiff winds and heavy rain from some, while a couple of hurricanes have passed with blue skies and almost no wind for those of us in the lee.
Lala was not our first hurricane, but it was the most serious yet.
Continue reading “Hurricane Lala”Telescope Walkabout
Sunset Telescopes
A Forest Hike
It has become my habit to take a forest hike whenever I find myself back in the Pacific Northwest. Hawaii Island offers relatively few good hiking trails, and I do miss the deep green forests of the PNW.
I spend some time researching and selecting the hike before I go. Since I dedicate one day of the trip, I do want to make the best of it.
After considering a few possible plans I selected University Falls this year. As the falls hike is pretty short, under 2 miles, the plan included the nearby Nels Rogers Trail to add some distance and additional photographic opportunities.
There was some thought to my choice… Selecting the Coast Range rather than the more heavily used Cascades or Columbia River Gorge offered less risk of a fire season restriction. And while there were other hikers about, I was generally left to my chosen solitude on the trail.
The result? Not a bad plan.
Continue reading “A Forest Hike”Crunchy
If I were to use one word to decribe a recent visit to the park it would be…
Crunchy.
The year and a half long series of eruptive episodes has been beautiful and exciting. Tall lava fountains every couple weeks that put the lava in Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park, drawing huge crowds and providing a spectacle for both tourists and us island dwellers alike.
A combination of several high lava fountains and our usual winter Kona storms has resulted in episodes of tephra falling across the main sections of the park, closing both the park and the Mamalahoa highway.
The southerly winds brought about by Kona low pressure systems has sent the tephra northeast instead of the usual southwest. Instead of settling in the desolate and uninhabited Kaʻu Desert, tephra has instead fallen heavily across the park entrance area and highway, the visitor center, and the main caldera viewpoints. Tephra has reached beyond the part to impact Volcano Village, and even reached as far as Hilo.
Continue reading “Crunchy”