When you want to see the stars, find someplace dark
Exploring the islands
Rigging scuba gear at the old airport park, a nice place for a Saturday morning dive with the guys. Just in front of my vehicle a couple is spreading large tarps on the pavement. Setting up a party pavilion? Then the bags of beans get unloaded… They are drying coffee! The old runway with hot asphalt in the sunlight is a good place, those beans will dry fast!
Only in Hawai’i…
As I have mentioned previously, Waimea has rainbows. Not just a few rainbows either, but multiple rainbows through the day. Add a few cloud bows, and moon-bows into the schedule and you get the idea of how common rainbows are in this town. The last couple weeks have been above average, with rainbows even us jaded rainbow viewers have stopped and taken notice of.
I stopped for this rainbow as is looked like a good photo op, I was just on my way home from work and had plenty of time to play with a camera. To my surprise I noted that some cloud shadows were cutting the south end of the bow, creating a wheel, something I had never seen before.
Welcome to 2014!
We may be among the last to join in the new year, Hawai’i is always a bit behind, but we do it in style. I have noted that the amount of fireworks going off in the neighborhood is a good economic indicator. The size of some of the local arsenals is fairly impressive this year, in notable contrast to some previous years, there is a lot of crackle, whistle and bang this year.
Waimea could honestly use the tagline “Place of Rainbows”. I see more rainbows here than anywhere else I know of. The trades blow the wet tropical air into the saddle between Mauna Kea and the Kohala. This creates a bank of clouds that dissipates right over the town. Clouds and rain on one side of town, clear skies on the other side, add low morning or afternoon sunlight and the rainbows appear. Sometimes they appear in convenient locations…
I may miss some of the events here in town, but I have yet to miss a Waimea Christmas Parade. This year was no exception, I always help out at the CFHT star party afterwards.
The difference this year is that I walked with the Keck float. Actually our parade committee came to me and asked me to take photos, oh… and here is a release form to sign.
Of course this is a lighted parade, not wanting to look out of place I spent the morning soldering and put together a flashing LED hatband for my good cowboy hat. It came out well considering it was put together with what I had lying about. It helped that Deb whipped together a nice band from from nylon webbing to build it on.
As usual the crowd was stunning, half the island shows up for these things. The main street of Waimea is lined ten people deep from end to end, sometimes more than that! Everyone is waving at folks they know in the parade, a true community event.
