My Indulgences

I'm still home on Molokai but this is my last day here. We fly to Honolulu tomorrow for a day and a half, then begins the tedious trek back home to New Mexico.

These images are my personal indulgences (be glad that I narrowed it down to a small handful!). Not touristy or representative of the people and landscape here.

The above agave plant is in our yard in Kalae. I was drawn to the silver green color and the graceful lines of the leaves as they unfold.

There's a coconut tree outside of the landing to the condo we are staying in. These are what I call 'baby coconuts'.

This is the bark around the coconut tree.

The forest from whence the leaves came from the sunprint that I had made. These are red bark eucalyptus trees.

I used to ride my horse through this forest. Don't tell my dad, but I used to jump my horse, Missy over the fallen trees.

Hope this grafitti doesn't say bad things...I just loved this oversized container.

A hooded flycatcher. Not native to Hawaii, so it is known as an 'invasive species". He's along the trail to the Kalaupapa Peninsula. Man, can this bird sing and he loves an audience.

Here are the leaves that became the skeleton leaves from the sunprint I made.

And a closeup of the bottom of the trunk of one of those trees.

Pohaku Mauliuli Beach

Yesterday was a fantastic day at the beach. We all decided to go to our favorite beach which is located on the west end of the island. The waves were 'flat' which made it perfect for bobbing in the water without getting tossed around too badly. A concern for those with smaller children!

My older brother Pat who now lives in Ft. Worth, Texas. He is a musician as most of my family members are (don't think I can call myself one though). He used to be an avid surfer and fisherman too while growing up here.

We set up under the kiawe trees for some shade. Folks in Texas call these trees mesquite. They grow a lot bigger here.

The younger ones like to play in the tide pools. It's great to see cousins who never met before hooking up with each other so easily.

Another set of tidal pools that gets renewed with fresh seawater with each high tide.

Turning around from the tidal pools is this vista.

And a close up of some of the inhabitants of the tide pool (sea urchin here that we call vanna).

A lot of these stretches of sandy beaches are interrupted by rocky coastline.

The name of this beach translates to 'the place of the falling rock'. It is this piece of land that is mostly red cinder that the name comes from as large rocks fall randomly. We never call it by this name however. We always seem to call it Maki Horse beach. Maki means 'dead' in Hawaiian. The story goes that someone once found a dead horse on this beach...no one really knows if this happened, but the 'new name' stuck.

Goodbye to Hilo

Flying out of Hilo last Saturday...this is Hilo Bay you see with Kilauea Mountain in the very distance.

Maunakea Mountain in the foreground, Kilauea Mountain in the background.

A really neat bridge in a pictuesque park right there at Hilo Bay.

My home on Molokai

This series of images are more of a potpourri...I arrived here on Molokai on Sat. the 19th, but finding time to edit and post is a challenge! I still have a lot of images from the Big Island trip that need to be posted, but that may have to wait until I get back to New mexico.

This opening shot is the view from my balcony at the condo at Molokai Shores. Pre-sunrise where the sun hasn't popped over the horizon yet. The island you see is Lanai. The curved wall out on the water is a fishpond built by ancient Hawaiians.

Here is a wonderful painting that hangs at the baggage pick up area at Molokai airport.

My grand nephew, Daniel at Dixe Mauru beach on the west end of Molokai.

His father, Andy (my nephew)...Mr. Tattoo himself! He lives in Tacoma, so I thought it was interesting that he connects to the Hawaiian gaurdian shark god (Lono) but the artistic style of his tattoo is Pacific Northwest. It's the tattoo on his left shoulder. My Hawaiian gaurdian spirit that I connect to is the sea turtle, Honu. No, I do not have a tattoo of it on me!

This is the house I grew up in on Molokai. The neighborhood is called Kalae. This is the front of the house. We still own the house, but it is rented out.

The back of the house. It is a rancho style home that was built in the '50s.

A family photo. My siblings and I have not been all in one place at one time since 1978. Wow...30 years ago. I have four brothers and one sister. This photo is only HALF of my family with our respective spouses and children. The rest will come in tomorrow.

A dahlia from our yard in Kalae. My oldest brother, Robert is an avid gardener and flies home to do yard work as his therapy! He buys the bulbs, sends them to me, then I mail them to him since the mail order plant companies do not mail a lot of things to Hawaii. He has a beautiful collection of these.

This one is from my brother's camera; he took my nephew and nieces up to the mountains yesterday to Waikolu look out. The piece of land that juts out in the background is the Kalaupapa peninsula where the leper colony was.

Hilo Farmer's Market

If you go to the Big Island of Hawaii, make sure you plan a trip or two to the Hilo's Farmers Market. It meets bayside in downtown Hilo every Weds. and Saturday mornings. Come hungry and bring lots of cash. If you are staying at a condo or somewhere where you can prepare your own meals, plan on making all of your produce purchases here. You will not get anything much better than what is here. I thought buying succulent papayas there at two for a dollar was incredible. I guess it goes from four to seven for a dollar!

The month of July is peak mango season. These are called Hayden mangoes. It's like eating candy!

A glassblower's work that I found particularly clever. You can check out more of his work here (and purchase if you so desire). His name is Chris Upp. I liked the little glass octupuses he made too.

Don't adjust your monitor! These are called musubis which are made with different kinds of meats (Iuse the term 'meat' loosely here). These hot doags really are this bringht pink/red color! Ugh! But hey, it's a good beach food since it will last all day without refrigeration. Spam musubis are the local favorite. My son can wolf down a whole bunch of them. Even Anthony Bourdain of the Travel Channel's show, "No Reservations" tried spam and liked it and 'got it' as to why it's so popular in Hawaii(catch his episode on Hawaii). Either that or he is a bold faced liar!

This charming man's name is Alofaitama Meafou who is a master drum maker of Tahitian drums. His card has a website that you can link to here. I loved the drums that he makes and will save up to buy one the next time (or have my sister send it to me since she lives there). He also makes the stinged instruments that the Tahitians use which I always thought was a ukulele, but it really isn't. The fun thing about it is that he uses 30 lb. fishing line to string his insturment; it makes a great sound!

Zuchini blossoms. I don't think I've ever seen them in this abundance before!

For more images of this Farmer's Market, check out the web album I created for it at:

www.picasaweb.google.com/pmondoy and click on the album titled, "Hilo Farmer's Market".

Roadside Finds and then some

These are some other images from the trip up the mountain to Volcano Village a few days ago. This is in one of the buildings; I liked the colors, textures and patterns (but, of course!).

My fern fascination never ceases. I can see how some Polynesian cultures saw the fern as a symbol of birth. The frond as it is in the beginning stages of unfurling is much like a baby in the womb in a fetal position.

This is the roadside find on the road up to the Volcano National Park. I had to do the "stop the car! I want to go back and take pictures of this!". My poor son has to tolerate this behavior from me where ever we go. Usually without any criticism, but he does wonder why I "need" all these pictures of things that no one would care about.

Interiror of a pipe full of rubbish and this neat thing with holes in it that the light seems to be just right in.

Check out all the added plant passengers on this thing that will probably never move again. I like the spray art addition. Some see it as unwanted graffiti. To me, it's art. The one who did it certainly had a need to express themselves in the visual medium.

Kalapana Lava Flow

A VERY patient doggie waiting for his mistress to finish her work day. She was one of the park's hires to sit there and count all the visitors coming to see the lava flow which takes place only after 2 p.m. each day and no cars are allowed in after 8 p.m. Please see the previous Kilauea Crater post for the map of this location (Kalapana).

This is what you see long before you arrive to the parking area. It's like a living, breathing creature. VERY Orson-Wellsish if you know what I mean.

An older lava flow. All of the path down to the viewing area consisted of walking over terrain like this.

Look carefully in the left part of this image. You can see the formation of a water spout (twister). These kept occuring continuously. At first, I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me.

And here it is. A series of explosions that took place while we were there. It felt a lot like War of the Worlds. It was very quiet except the oohing and aahing of the crowd; no booming sounds of the explosions.

The challenge for me was to keep still while doing rapid fire shots. My tripod was broken. So was my sisters. I was left with having to hand hold my camera in a very dim and changing lighting situation. ISO settings bumped way up. Focus set on manual since the auto feature doesn't know how to track this moving plume of ash and steam.

Hypnotic and mesmerizing. It really was.

Evening is falling and there is almost no daylight left.

As we headed back up to the parking area, you could see the stream of lava glowing as it worked its way down the slope of the mountain. I took this telephoto shot knowing that I would not be able to hold the camera still enough for the length of the time the shutter stays open.

Click here for more information on volcanoes and the ins and outs of lava viewing.