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Safely in Hawaii
Mar. 18th, 2010 02:40 pmFor the next two weeks, the blog will mostly be about our vacation in Hawaii. We finally made it last night... after 22 hours of travel. The stars were amazing last night as we parked and stared up... no city lights, and the air was clear.
We started the day in zombie mode, but after a couple cups of organic kona coffee (grown about 50 feet from our bedroom) and fresh-made macadamia pancakes (baked into a thick cake separated by layers of guava jam), we're at least back in the "living" dead category.
Plan for today: get out and walk around, do a little low-pressure touristing, and basically get our daily rhythms in synch with the Hawaiian day, which starts 6 hours later than back home. Get home in time to watch the sunset from our lanai (back porch).
Mango Sunset (our B&B) is lovely... about 2000 feet above sea level and about 3 miles uphill and inshore from the west coast, just north of Kona/Kailua. Lovely panoramic view, though there's a lot of "vog" (volcanic smog) today, so there's not much of a view out to sea, and the land down below is a bit hazy.
The flats just below us (between us and the coast) are black lava from an eruption in 1801. Shoshanna reports that eruptions happen every 200 years or so, so we'll pay attention to tremors. Our hosts, Hans and Marsha (and Karen, 4 years old and buzzing around like a bumblebee) are pleasant and chatty.
We have a small telescope, so possibly we'll do some stargazing tonight. Many interesting birds, since we're surrounded by coffee fields and forest. No closeup views yet, but we're told there are wild turkeys and pheasants in the woods beside our B&B. Also, apparently, herds of wild pigs... we're in a gated community, but only to keep out the pigs, who apparently are more interested in devouring the water lines than in eating the plants.
We started the day in zombie mode, but after a couple cups of organic kona coffee (grown about 50 feet from our bedroom) and fresh-made macadamia pancakes (baked into a thick cake separated by layers of guava jam), we're at least back in the "living" dead category.
Plan for today: get out and walk around, do a little low-pressure touristing, and basically get our daily rhythms in synch with the Hawaiian day, which starts 6 hours later than back home. Get home in time to watch the sunset from our lanai (back porch).
Mango Sunset (our B&B) is lovely... about 2000 feet above sea level and about 3 miles uphill and inshore from the west coast, just north of Kona/Kailua. Lovely panoramic view, though there's a lot of "vog" (volcanic smog) today, so there's not much of a view out to sea, and the land down below is a bit hazy.
The flats just below us (between us and the coast) are black lava from an eruption in 1801. Shoshanna reports that eruptions happen every 200 years or so, so we'll pay attention to tremors. Our hosts, Hans and Marsha (and Karen, 4 years old and buzzing around like a bumblebee) are pleasant and chatty.
We have a small telescope, so possibly we'll do some stargazing tonight. Many interesting birds, since we're surrounded by coffee fields and forest. No closeup views yet, but we're told there are wild turkeys and pheasants in the woods beside our B&B. Also, apparently, herds of wild pigs... we're in a gated community, but only to keep out the pigs, who apparently are more interested in devouring the water lines than in eating the plants.