
More things found on rocks!

Rocks where things were found - Outrigger keahou resort.
Detours taken on the way to what I'm looking for. NYC and the world, as seen out of the corner of my eye.

More things found on rocks!

Rocks where things were found - Outrigger keahou resort.
First glimpse of the place where the lava meets the ocean. Unlike the previous trip two weeks ago, with all the stops to take photos of the lava rock forms, (see previous volcano trip blog entry), this time we hoofed it out as fast as we could go to the rope boundary line set out by the volcano National Park Forest Service crew. With a late start, we were not assured of getting there before dark, and it is clever hiking over the bumpy lava flow.
Closer.
Sweet! The glow of flames is visible 2/3 of the way out to the farthest viewing point.
It's a race to get as close as possible, before it gets too dark to take photos, so Local Tourist keeps taking them along the trek out to the Forest Service Boundary.
Glow really starting to show. Finally in as close as we are legally allowed to go tonight.
More flames showing up here.
They are all so beautiful, each, once more than the last. You can see the flames in different places in each photo, so here's another one.
And another.
OK, last one. So cool, so hot. So uniquely Hawaii.
This amazing and beautiful hike is 4 miles round trip, but goes by so fast, because every view is unbelievable. The trail starts out on the crater rim, and proceeds through old Hawaiian Rain Forest. Dense, tall, and green, a canopy of trees over our heads as we walk the soft path angling down the hill.
Our first view of the crater we will hike through - Kilauea Iki.
Still in the trees, we see others following the trail in front of us, headed out across the crater floor. Is this amazing or what?
An area where part of the crater wall has fallen away to expose the colored minerals in the lava. Look for a tiny, tiny white spot in the lower left of the red slide area. That is a regular size human. And they call this "small" (Iki) Kilauea.
The bubbly baked brownie crust up close.
One strong flower. The contrasts here are amazing.
Gee I hope this doesn't crack while we are walking over it.
Very eerie, and very beautiful walking across the floor of this SMALL crater. The steam vents are everywhere, and fill the air with a smell of sulfur, which as Mark Twin says, is "not unpleasant to a sinner".
And now, we return to our regular programming . . . investment banker takes call from client, even without his blackberry. The cheap phones work down here too.
The path through the inner caldera rim. More steam vents in the crater floor. Very smooth lava bed, with a few major bumps here and there. Reminds me of the asphalt of the city streets in Manhattan.


Really big winds mean really big waves on the hudson river on friday.
First, it snows.
Then a slow plow comes along, sprays you with snow, buries your neighbor's car, and piles the snow along the side of the road. It is scooped into even bigger piles at certain points.
Next, a loader moves the pile into a dump truck, which takes it to a designated "pile area", in this case, a closed side street (Park Place) where one of the 20 snow melting machines (see next post) is set up.
Here is a resulting pile from the Broadway side of Park Place, next to The Woolworth Building. All the way down at the end of the pile, you can see the back end of a dump truck lifted up, dumping yet more snow on the pile. And yes, these piles are as big as they look. See the telephone booth on the right?
In the next post, you'll see what happens to this pile.
This is at the corner of Church Street and Park Place, alongside the Woolworth Building, the other end of the street in previous picture. (as always, click to enlarge)
A close-up view of the loader and the "snow-begone" boiler. The front end of it is positioned right above a manhole, through which the melted snow runs off to the river.
Here's a view of Trinity Church in lower Manhattan that most geeks will have seen, from the window of J&R's 3rd floor. That's the World Financial Center (WFC) in the background.
Close-up of the beautiful and very old cemetery.
A view of Trinity Church that many athletes have seen.
LocalTourist waits all year to see the graves blanketed in snow. It symbolizes the death of growing things before their rebirth in spring.