Celebrate With Us!!!

This week we celebrated Father's Day, Summer Solstice and Phil's (big 80th) birthday! It also happens to be the one-year anniversary of Lunel's bilateral knee replacements.

So, what could be more perfect than a day at our favorite beach. It may not be the beach most people think of -- white sands, palm trees and gentle rolling waves.  No...  We live on the more rugged east side of the Big Island of Hawaii where our path to the water is formed from beautiful swirls of ancient lava called pahoehoe and the beach is black sand and smooth black pebbles. 

Driving there we go from 3500 elevation a couple miles from Kilauea Volcanoes National Park down to about 35 feet! There's no sign for it on the highway and it is a half mile walk...but what a lovely walk.

The area is steeped in cultural history and well tended. Going on a weekday means there's likely to be only a few people -- only the strongest swimmers and surfers -- brave the ocean. But the tide pools are a delight.

This year marks our 10th year of island-love -- it has been quite the adventure!

Spectacular and Subtle

Sitting on Kilauea's caldera edge.

We are enjoying a visit from our friend Esther from Kalamazoo, Michigan -- a long time friend of Phil's who has been a Taiko drum performer and instructor for many years.

Grasses inside the park area just before sunset, with the soft, low back-light glow.

Last night, just a dusk, we drove up to Kilauea Volcano and had a great visit at the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, galleries and visitors center.   After our home-bound late night drive-by on Thanksgiving, we knew we wanted to come back soon when we weren't so tired.  Esther's visit presented us with a great opportunity.  The temperature was cool (at 4000 feet) but we waited through the magnificent colorful sunset, temporary showers, rainbows, and very low clouds that blocked the entire view of the crater.


Before sunset, we found several meadows of grasses that were back-lit with a lovely low subtle winter light, so we had fun seeing another aspect of the area -- this area was a few yards away from the caldera edge.



Then, our patience was rewarded and as the clouds lifted, we got a fabulous show!   The background clouds caught the setting sun and as it got darker and darker the volcanic lake inside the small Halema'umu'u Crater gave us a brilliant glow (and just who brought the marshmallows??)

The small crater is only about 1/2 mile wide, but is inside the larger crater of Kilauea (3x5km).  If you want to know more, just search it all out -- there's way too much information to include here.

   From USGS/Wikipedia