Birds of Paradise

We planted seven bird of paradise plants last year and now they are blooming. It's been neat to check on them every day and see how the flowers opened up. One of the plants have two blossoms on one stem - I've never seen that before.

Kitchen Demolition

We had a small 3.7 earthquake Friday but that's not what happened to our kitchen. Chris and I smashed up the tile on purpose because we are getting new cabinets this week and we'll re-tile the kitchen to match the living room. I've always liked smashing things up, but it didn't take long to realize removing tile is hard work. We borrowed power tools but in the end, the most effective way to break the tile's grip on the plywood floor was by banging on it with hammers. Our whole house is now a dusty mess but things can only get better from here.
The cabinet removal was a breeze. Chris found someone who wanted the cabinets so they took them down and hauled them away.

Our old cabinets were loaded into a giant moving truck and hauled to their new home in Hilo.

I don't think we'll be having anyone over for dinner this week, our kitchen is a little smashed up.

Summer Camping Trip

I had a few days of vacation time from work that had to be used so I took last week off. Besides lots of chores and working around the house, Chris and I camped on the beach one night, and another night my dad and I camped at Volcano. We cooked brats on his grill and right around sunset 12 endangered nene geese flew overhead. After that, we stayed to watch the steam plume from Halemaumau crater glow red from the lava lake below.
The next day we decided we had explored the park many times, but one place my dad had never been was to Lake Waiau on Mauna Kea so we drove through Hilo and headed up the mountain.

I thought there was a bear at our campsite but it turned out to be my dad hiding behind a chair.

Halemaumau at night. It's a spectacular sight, but living downwind from an active volcano has its drawbacks, the pollution has taken away Kona's bright blue skies and it's probably not healthy to breathe.

A view of Mauna Loa from the 13,000 foot elevation of Mauna Kea.



Sunlight streams through the forest and shines on this Ohia branch.

My dad and I at Lake Waiau on Mauna Kea.

The "Slot Canyon" of Mauna Loa

In 2010 I wrote about a gigantic Mauna Loa lava tube here and here, too. We explored the cave going down and it went about 1.5 miles with no cave ins, but Chris and I never explored the cave heading up until recently. On Memorial we rode our dirt bikes to the entrance of the cave and explored the upper portion. We went about 1/2 mile when we arrived at a cave-in that we could not get down into without ropes so we had to quit. The cave is absolutely enormous and the upper section had many cave-ins, which allowed sunlight into the cave so we could get a good look at its features. We appropriately named the cave slot canyon because it is taller than it is wide and it's so enormous it feels like canyon from inside. Awesome!

To get an idea of this cave's size, look for the silhouette of Chris near the center of the frame.

This section had several cave-ins.

Mauna Kea sets the backdrop with the entrance to the cave in the foreground.

Looking out from the lava tube.