Archive for August 2007
You are browsing the archives of 2007 August.
Hawaii - Aloha!
(Click photo for all 12 photos)
Last February, Maria found a great deal on a trip to Hawaii and we booked it. In the cold and wet of winter, Hawaii sounds so good and it sounds even better now. Bright and early, we board Hawaiian Airlines for the 5-½ hour flight to Honolulu, Oahu Airport, have a small layover and board again for another hour flight to Hilo Airport on the Big Island of Hawaii. We arrived mid-afternoon Hawaiian time and rented a car and started the drive from Hilo on the east side of the island to the west side, where we were staying near Kona. The two sides of the island are totally opposite; the east side is a rain forest, all lush and green and he west side is dry volcanic desert. As we made our way west, the scenery gradually changed around every bend. We took at break at the Laupahoehoe Point Overlook, enjoyed our first beautiful pink sunset and found the Kona Bayview Inn Bed and Breakfast in the dark of the night, where we settled in for the night.
Sequoia-Kings Canyon National Park
(Click photo for all 24 photos)
Before the sun came up it was time for us to rise and shine; it was a lot of driving today. Paige and her friend John from England arrived in Lone Pine late last night and I’m helping shuttle them around the Sierra Nevada mountains so that they can hike across them over the next week or so. In the dark we drove up the Portal Road to leave their car at the Mt. Whitney trail, where they would finish their hike at. Then we high-tailed it about 350 miles south and around the mountains over to Sequoia-Kings Canyon National Park, where they were going to start their hike. John did most of the driving and helped speed test my new transmission… LOL… I really didn’t know that SUV (also known as the white refrigerator) could go that fast! We made good time and they headed off down the trail shortly after lunch. Now we wait for Paige to bring back gorgeous pictures of the backcountry… her photos get published in magazines, mostly recently in Backpacker Magazine. I thought about spending the night in the park, but it really is a “hiking” park and there’s not much to see when you can’t hobble very far off the road, so I headed home, stopping for a few pictures here and there. I’ll definitely come back, once my ankle is healed up.
Mammoth Lakes and Independence
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I’ll be meeting up with Paige way later tonight, so I have a whole day to spend exploring the area and decide to look for a few geocaches because they can take you to interesting spots you might not otherwise see. Traveling down the Old Mammoth Road, I searched for a found a geocache that took me to the Historic Knight Wheel. Continuing down the road, the next geocache would have taken me to old stamp mill, just a short hike off the road. I found the parking spot next to two old grave sites and started the short hike and was doing good until I had to cross a creek… oh no no no… can’t get the cast wet, so I turned around and went back. The road led me to the several beautiful lakes and I now understand why the town is called Mammoth Lakes. The first lake I stopped at was Horseshoe Lake, where a geological anomaly has caused carbon dioxide to seep into the ground and kill all the trees and plant life within a certain area next to the lake–it was very eerie looking. Lake Mamie, Lake George and Twin Lakes were the next lakes I checked out. They are all very beautiful lakes with lots of trout fishermen going for it on every lake edge. At Twin Lakes, there is an outdoor chapel, with log pews and a podium, and there was a wedding being set up, so I enjoyed music while I searched for the nearby geocache. Time to head up the road towards Lone Pine to meet up later with Paige. Along the way I check out a few historical markers in Bishop and unfortunately the Laws Museum was closed, but it looked interesting and I’ll have to go back another time. In the waning hour of sunlight, I tour Manzanar National Historic Site. The Manzanar War Relocation Center was one of ten internment camps where anyone of Japanese descent, citizen or not, were detained in 1942 after Pearl Harbor was bombed. While I love the eastern Sierra landscape, I can’t imagine being forced to leave my home and having to live in military style barracks out in this desolate area as they were forced to do. I’m glad to see they have built an interpretive center here and that efforts are being made to remember and preserve this sad portion of our history. We must never forget, least we don’t repeat the same tragedies.
