Vote for this Picture

A while back I submitted a few photos in a contest for the magazine Boat US.  I was happy to see that the photo below made honorable mention and that the one above taken of Precipice by Rolland actually made the first cut!   Now its up to voters.  Click here to see a bunch of good boating pictures and cast your vote for Precipice!

Honorable Mention

Hawai'i Vacation- Day 6- multiple stops

My last day in Hawai'i was really full.  I wasn't sure if I was going to get everything in that I wanted to do.  So I decided to go to the place that open first.  That was the Macadamia Nut Farm.  All very interesting.  The first pictures shows what a macadamia tree looks like.  The second is was the nut look likes on the tree and the third when it falls in the ground.  The nut is not ready to be harvested until it falls to the ground.  There is a soft outer shell that easily comes off.  Then they are collected from the ground and they go through a device to break the shell.  It takes 300lbs per square inch of pressure to break it.  Learned a bunch here and bought even more nuts.  

Next stop was the Pana'ewa Rainforest Zoo.  Saw a few animals I have never seen.

Some type of pheasant and its counter part (below)

Ant Eaters

 Next was the Akaka Falls.

 Next was a drive to my next location.  I stopped for lunch and took a few pictures.

Found a cool antique shop with tons of bottles in the windows. "Glass from the past."

"Glass from the past"

Glass from the Past

 Next was to the World Botanical Gardens and Waterfalls.
On the way to some of the falls were a lot of cows.  This one seemed...angry.

Tree with spikes growing out of it, aloe leaf in place for effect.

Rainbow Tree.  So cool, really these colors.

 The reason for going to these gardens was for the zip lines.  There were 9 of them.  I spent a couple hours zipping through the gardens over streams and valleys getting also a nice narrated tour of plants from the guides.  This last one was the longest of the lines and also two side by side.  So you could race.  The guide took a few pictures of me so I could show of my awesome zip lining skills.  It was fun.

 After zip lining I had some time to kill and stopped a few parks along the way.

Immaculate Heart of Mary Catholic Cemetery in Papaikou, Hawai'i.

Lots of these types of arrangements seen throughout Hawai'i.

Just had an awesome day and good time over all in Hawai'i.  I was happy to end on a good note.  It was great to go somewhere and enjoy every part of it.  There was just so much to do and see, so many natural wonders here.  There wasn't any hanging out baking on some hot sandy beach every day on a resort.  It was full of adventure, sweat, hiking, blistered feet, nature, exploration and learning; learning about Hawai'i and also a few things about myself.  And each day I came back to my bed exhausted and spent.  It was good.

Hawai'i Vacation- Day 5- Waipi'o Valley and an afternoon drive

So on this day I tried out riding a horse.  There were many horses with strange Hawaiian names...thank goodness mine was just "Sally."  Any way Waipi'o Valley was very beautiful.  Way back when people first started living here the only was in was by canoe.  Now there is a super steep drive that you need 4wheel drive to get in and out of it.  Only a handful of people live down there.  When there are Tsunami warnings the whole valley evacuates.  A few times the valley has been totally destroyed and flooded.

Overview of the Valley

My horse "Sally"

Me and Sally

The rest of the afternoon I took a drive through the middle of the Island and found a few geocaches.  It was probably one of the best times of the whole trip.  Going from beach to valley to rain forest to hills to mountains in the clouds all in one afternoon and then back again all ending with a magnificent sunset.  

Very satisfied

  

Hawai'i Vacation- Day 4 Volcanoes National Park

The forth day I rented a car and headed over to Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park.  There was so much to do there.  I thought this might be a morning ordeal, I was blown away.  Here is a map 1 (map 2) of the park to give you and idea about how big this park is and how large the craters are.  I spend the day driving from one end of the park to next taking in all there was to see.  

The first place I stopped was at the steam vents ( a description you will see a few picture down.)

steam vents

 This is Halema'uma'u Crater.  It is always giving off lots of steam.  There is even a webcam.  Can't see it good from this picture but this crater has another crater inside of it.  It used to be a big lava lake until 1942 it erupted and emptied out. It is crazy big.

 The picture below is a lava tube.  Pretty strange that at one time there was hot lava traveling through here.

 This is a smaller crater Kīlauea Iki (below).  You can't see it but there are people down there walking along a trail.

This used to be a tree that is now covered in lava.

Found this on a hike.

The darker areas are the most recent lava flows

Went into the road

My rental car

Holei Sea Arch

Self Portrait

 Took a little hike to some petroglyphs.

Halema'uma'u Crater at night, you can see it glowing.  

In the end, this day was just so cool.  I would have loved to go a few more hike had time allowed.