All Shook Up

October's 6.7 magnitude earthquake has left its imprint on people's minds. That was illustrated yesterday when rumors spread that a large earthquake that would trigger a tsunami was about to hit the Big Island. The Civil Defense was flooded with calls and Hawaii news channels assured people the rumors were false. (can earthquakes be predicted at all?)

Some folks had a hard time calming down after our 5.0 that hit Thanksgiving Day. Maybe I'd be on edge, too, if I had been here for the larger quake in October. But I was in flight when that quake struck. Being from Indiana, I am not used to feeling the earth shake, so this is all kind of new and exciting for me. I was at church during Thursday's 5.0. Folks looked at each other and kept smiling and singing and no one seemed to care much about the quake. My only fears were for my dad's porcelain Christmas village (which was not damaged) and for our turkey in the oven (what if a power outage delayed our eating?)

One thing I do find spooky about earthquakes is that there's no warning. I grew up in tornado country where the weather was a good indication of whether a tornado was likely. Earthquakes strike with no warning signs.

Here's a photo of the seismograph at Hawaii Volcanoes National Park that recorded the 6.7 on October 15th. The first quake that hit at 7:07 is on the right, and the aftershock that happened 7 minutes later is to the left of it, in the center of the paper. Each column on the paper represents one minute.

Road Test

We took the Liberty to Makalawena today and it did great! I didn't scrape on one rock, I am really pleased. It's amazing what 3 or 4 inches will do.

Getting there is half the fun:



Was the lift worth it? This is Makalawena, one of the many places my newly lifted Jeep can go. You decide.

Houston, we have lift off

Stuart installed the lift today, to my surprise he was done when I came home for lunch. I gained 3 inches from the rock rails on the sides of the Jeep, and a bit more than 2.5 under the front skid plate- and that's where I needed it most! You can see that the skid plate gets its use! Now I have almost as much ground clearance as Chrysler's specs advertise. I hope to fill up my wheel wells up with tire now, after I get 30" or 31" tires I'll have more clearance everywhere, even the axels.

Here are the before and after photos Baron requested:

Precious cargo

I had some friends to pick up at the airport today. My heart was filled with joy when I saw the Hawaiian Airlines jet touch down on the Kona runway. I'll be honest and say I was more excited about the contents of friend's suitcase than anything. He arrived with one 2.5" Jeep Liberty lift kit. He's gonna install it tomorrow!

Moon light Magma

It's not everyday you get to watch the full moon rise over the ocean with a lava flow in the foreground. You can see a lot more lava than this photo suggests. A tripod would have served me well.

It's a pretty good flow going into the ocean right now and you only have to walk about 200 yards from the end of Chain of Craters Road to get a view. Bring binocluars or plan to hike a couple miles to get a better view. There is also a lot of lava coming down the pali, more than I have ever seen.

For daily eruption updates call (808) 985-6000

Underwater spelunking

Jim and I explored the Queen's bath by Kiholo Bay a couple weekends ago. It's a lava tube that's filled with fresh water by an underground spring. It goes back about 100 feet and it's really fun to snorkel through. It's pitch black in there- luckily we had Jim's dive lights. I have heard stories of people drowning in the cave when the tide comes up. However, I am not totally convinced that the tide has any effect on the water level, though I bet rainfall does. There were spots where the water was less than a foot from the roof of the cave, it'd make me nervous to be in there it was any higher.

Swimming into the cave:


A "skylight" offers some light in part of the cave, most of it is pitch black.

O Happy Day



OK, so I'm a little behind on my blog. This post would have been best if I had actually posted it on Thursday when we learned the Democrats got control of both the House and the Senate.