Christmas Party and Turtles

We had Lindsey's Christmas part this weekend and it also snowed up on Mauna Kea! We were able to see the snow yesterday, but it was cloudy today, so no pictures were possible. Looks like it might be a white Christmas afterall.

Sally listed off a bunch of questions in her in response to our last post. Thanks for all the questions Sally, we'll try our best with them from what we know.
1) What kind of bugs? Well, the scariest bug of them all (which both of us have yet to see) if this huge centipede that can sting you. It gets about 8 inches long. If you just Google: Hawaii Centipede and look at the images, it should pop up. Scary! We also have scorpions in the drier areas, these really big black bees, huge snails, and a lot of normal things, the most disappointing of which are mosquitoes (but they're not bad at all near the coast).
2) Weeds in the backyard? The only plant that I really know in the photo beside the palms are the reddish and green, really thin plants that are in the center of the photo, near the stairs. Those are native to Hawaii and are Ti plants. Traditionally, they always put these around homes to protect them.

Lindsey running around with some of the staff's kids.


The Christmas party was at the Hilo Yacht Club, great location, but confoundingly...not a yacht in site.


Just today we went snorkeling at a new beach near our house and all these turtles were just hanging out.


Some of the people were feeding them grass, which we learned later upsets their stomachs. They typically love to eat the limu (seaweed) off of the rocks. But with all that grass, they must just get excited and eat it anyway.


It was so nice and sandy all along the bottom. The water was pretty cold, but it felt really nice.


Turtle eating some grass.

New Apartment and Hawaiian Christmas Tree

While no one has exhibited much sympathy for the fact that there is no snow here, avocados are always in season, and its always 80 during the day with no humidity, it will be hard to adjust to the rhythm of the almost imperceptible seasons. So, while there are lights up, Christmas displays in stores, and the second advent candle is lit, it feels like the same summer month keeps repeating. It's basically the Hawaiian sequel to Groundhog's Day. The weather is great, but it is strange when time is passing, but there is not way to tell that it is. I know, boo-hoo.

Well, the one fun thing is that we just moved out of our basement apartment this last weekend! We were both so happy to get out of the cave we have been living in for the last three months. The new place is a small one bedroom, but it's just perfect. It's really cozy and we didn't need to buy a lot of furniture because there was a built in kitchen table with benches, and the previous tenants sold us some of their furnishings.


Here's the view from the front door, looking through the kitchen into the dining/living room.


We have a small loft in the bedroom, which is super good surfboard storage.


This is the view of our backyard.


Here is our little bedroom, the only real piece of furniture that we had to buy was this bed.


Here's our cute Hawaiian Christmas tree! Our old landlord cut this tree down at her house, so I kept it in a bucket for a few days and then I trimmed it down to apartment size. The locals like to have "mainland" trees, but this one is really cool.


We didn't have any ornaments, so we made little ones from sea glass that we collected awhile back.

Weekend Adventures and Thanksgiving

This week we had Thanksgiving at Lindsey's work and it was great. We have spent a lot of our Thanksgivings away from family over the past couple of years, but we've managed to make most of them have been very special and different. This year, we went out to the farm where Lindsey works two days of the week. All of the kids in the program made a big meal at each of the three camps. It was so nice to be able to see the beautiful setting that Lindsey gets to call her second office. Typically, it's closed off to non-staff, but I was able to check it all out on T-day. So, we ended up having a meal with about 12 of the kids, some staff, and the owner of the program. About 20 of us ate the huge meal sitting at one enormous, round picnic table in the middle of a forested farm, it was really nice.

We headed up the Hamakua Coast this weekend just to see some sights that we haven't explored yet. Another fab trip.


Here's one of our new favorite meals: turkey burgers with goat cheese, beets, and purple sweet potatoes...mmmm.


Surf beach, we just went this last weekend.


Here's a shot of Mauna Kea behind downtown Hilo.

Thanksgiving

Lindsey drives an hour and a half each way to work two times a week, but what a drive. We have a couple of shots of the route down here and then us at the camp.

When you get to about 2000' feet of elevation (after starting at sea level) it's almost always raining, but your pretty sure that it will stop when you get to about 4000'.

Then, you drive through the National Park, which is mostly desert on the drive, but is just gorgeous.

There are a ton of macadamia nut orchards on the way.

Here are some eucalyptus trees.




(Lindsey's turn) This is where I work....and this is the view the kids have from the first farm/camp. This place is called Nalu, which means Wave in Hawaiian and the focus of this camp is on reflection and self-care (finishing your 3 organic meals a day and drinking 3 Nalgene's of water). The little houses are a students hale, where they are protected from the elements.

This is the last farm: called the Ohana, which means family in Hawaiian. It is our oldest and biggest farm. The second farm is called Kuleana, which means personal-responsibility.


This is where I lead group therapy sessions with the kids!


This is the nursery.

Plants kiddos are planting in the nursery.


The kids decorated for Thanksgiving!



This is a Hawaiian Imu. The kids dug a huge hole, started a fire, layered wood/rocks, and put in the ham/turkey for 5 hours. They covered it with banana leaves and stalks, and a burlap sack, and wet the burlap. It was delicious!!!
This is Bri and I's drive north of Hilo. A huge tsunami hit this area in the 40's.


Bamboo forest at Akaka Falls.


Bri and I spotted 4 wild pigs in the woods as we were walking on the path at the falls! I said we better watch out for mama! Huntint wild pigs is a sport here.


Hamakua Coast.


Akaka Falls.

This is about 7 miles from our house!

A pretty flower Brian spied.

Hawaii Volcano National Park

If you look close, you can see one of the roosters and a chicken in our front yard. There are a ton of these guys running around the neighborhood.


Just this past week, Hilo hosted Black and White night, which is an event to support the downtown business community. Hilo usually shuts down pretty early most nights, so it was fun to walk through the local businesses and see some music.

It's a Nene! These are an endangered species here in Hawaii and some of them live in the yard of the couple I've been working for. Lindsey just read that they are all descended from one pair of Canadian Geese, pretty cool. I wanted to dress up as one for Halloween...maybe next year.

Volcano National Park

So, this weekend, my patience finally paid off and we went camping in Volcano National Park. We stayed near the park entrance Friday night and went out for dinner in Volcano (the town). It was so nice because the weather is really cool at the higher elevations, it actually feels like fall. Then on Saturday morning, we packed up and started on a 7-mile hike to Napau Crater Campsite, one of the trails in the parks back-country. The weather was sunny with cool breezes with a little misting rain on the way out Saturday. We were the only ones camping at the spot and saw only two other groups in two days. The campsite sits right near one of the most active craters, which is fueling all of the lava entries near the ocean. We hiked past old craters, across lava, and through a little rainforest. I can't wait to go back.

Brrr!!! It got down to about 45-50 this first night and we were freezing! It's a shock to the system after living in 80 degree weather all the time. I can see all the tears your shedding for us.


The trail crossed miles of vast lava fields, the scale of them is just impossible to portray.


The trail we went on was closed past the campground we stayed at because of huge earth cracks and what-not.


The lava flows from the 60's and 70's have some plant life starting to take root out in the open. A lot of the first species are native plants.

I just love all of the textures of the lava flows. They constantly change color and shape, because of the gas and mineral content of the lava, as well as newer flows covering older. It's just this constantly changing, dynamic landscape.


This here is a lava tree, albeit, not a very good example. When the lava started flowing into this one time forest, it hardened around a tree that stood here and made this cast.


The trail is denoted by these piles of rocks, or cairns, along the open lava fields.


Here is a native fern frond starting to spool out.


After the miles of lava, we entered a rain forest for the last 2 miles of the hike.

This crater was huge, and it was still steaming from the sides.


Some of the steam vents along the trail. In a lot of places, there is still active lava flowing underneath the ground.

Binzer taping up some blisters along the way.


The money shot. This is Pu'u'O'o, the most active crater in the park right now. I could just sit and watch this thing for hours. No worries, most Hawaiian volcano's are not of the violently erupting variety (ex. Vesuvius). Some of these craters have put up 1000ft lava fountains and created lava lakes and rivers, but they aren't building up explosive pressure.


We went and scoped out some campsites as we were leaving the park, and this Nene started coming after me. I'm guessing he was looking for food (which we did not give him). He walked right up to me and started making this pathetic honking sound. I thought he was going to try and jump in the car to go for a spin with us, which, I kind of wish had happened.