Adventures in Airports Monday and Tuesday Jan 18-19

Monday, January 18

At 6:30 I join two of my fellows for a large and tasty going-away breakfast which includes yet more tree-ripened papaya.  I’ll miss that.    They will rent a car at the airport since they are staying on the Big Island for a bit longer.  Sunrise is gorgeous out the restaurant window.

 My taxi isn’t coming until 8:45 but I want a relaxing time to finish packing since my brain is tired.  I wander aimlessly from the bedroom to bathroom, trying to remember what I’m looking for.  I had plenty of coffee, what’s the matter with my brain?  Probably tired from a very rich (and enriching) program.  

I’m in the lobby by 8:00 AM, checking email at a desk.  All my important flight printouts and passport are close at hand in a blue folder.  When the taxi arrives, I wheel my suitcase and carry my backpack but leave the blue folder on the desk.  When the driver asks when my plane leaves, I realize what I’m missing and run back quickly to grab the blue folder.  Yikes!  Close call.

I’m sharing the taxi with someone from my group.  To my fellow passenger in the front seat, the driver says he is Portuguese.  A great many workers for the old plantations came from Portugal and stayed.  He says there is only one island that has “pure” Hawaiians.  Unfortunately I do not hear which one that is.

It is only ten minutes to the small Hilo airport; no traffic.  As I walk toward the entrance the taxi driver yells, “Ma’m, your suitcase!”  OMG!  Unnerving, all this forgetting.  I must be more alert!

 Small airports are so great.  Easy check-in.  My suitcase needs to be inspected by some sort of machine run by the U.S.D.A. (Agriculture).  Produce can bring in damaging insects to the mainland.  
I see a poster about removing standing water to lessen mosquito-carried dengue fever.

 All the gates are on the second floor, which is completely open-air.  Birds fly around us as we wait for the plane.  

I don’t want to be a pilot but I love flying.  I see the most wonderful views of the world from the sky.
 

 In short order, I arrive in Honolulu.  Absolutely no rush to find my next gate.  The flight to Seattle leaves at 10:40 PM so I have almost 12 hours to wait.  I see many bathrooms.  

During one of many saunters in various hallways I hear a voice calling my name.  How lovely that two of my R.S. friends are here — also waiting, but for an earlier flight.

 During part of our waiting time together, we lounge in the outdoor Chinese garden replete with ducks and a pond.  How intelligent of the airport:  to set up an enclosed, but outdoor, park for travelers.  

A display honoring three segregated Japanese-American Army Units in WWII catches my attention.  They received many awards for their valiant successes.

 In late-afternoon, I sit on a chair looking out at palm trees and birds in an open air passageway of the airport.  I am trying to capture a photo of a bird with a red rump when a pretty dove flies in and sits in a nearby chair.

  I take a picture and mention to the man sitting nearby that this is the advantage of an open air setup.  He laughs.  His flight to Aukland NZ is two hours late so he won’t be leaving until after midnight.  It is now 6 PM.  I tell him I’m waiting for a 10:40 plane.  But I arrived at 10:30 this morning whereas he didn’t get here until 3:30.

I tell him I picked the wrong plane; could have had a non-stop from Atlanta to Honolulu if I’d flown Delta.  He could have flown non-stop from Vancouver to New Zealand.  He throws up his hands with frustration as he says he was trying to save $150.  “I picked Alaska Airlines because of the leg and head room,” I tell him.  Both seem equally goofy at the moment.

We have lots of time to chat.  He lives near Winnipeg Canada where it’s -30 today.  He left his parka and thermal underwear in an airport locker up there.  They love global warming cause it’s usually -40.  They bury the water pipes 6-8 feet deep but sometimes they freeze up anyway.  His daughters have work-vacation visas in New Zealand so he’s traveling to visit them.  We agree that traveling is a mixed bag:  wonderful once you get there but a pain in the butt on the way.

 We both check the departure board to see whether a gate has been posted yet for our flights.  What?  MY flight has been delayed two hours?  Now this fellow is leaving at 12:30 AM and I’m leaving at 12:40?  Yikes!  I arrived in this airport about 10:30 in the morning so I will be practically living in it 14 hours, assuming the plane is not further delayed.  We laugh a tiny bit.  A very teeny, tiny bit.

 By 11:30 PM those of us waiting for the Seattle plane look like the trailer for a zombie movie.  A couple have fallen asleep sitting up, jerking their heads periodically.  A few others are sort of tilted over the  chair handrails, drooling.  That’s my group.

Happily everything else goes smoothly.  I am blessed to have nobody else on my row (a novel experience on a 4 1/2 hour red-eye flight).  So I stretch out across three seats to sleep lying down for two hours.  It is not easy stretching out with a seat belt around your middle but I need the sleep so badly.  

January 19

Now it is Tuesday morning and I am in the Seattle airport watching lots of retired, bearded lumberjacks and other cold-sturdy souls.  I’ve had a medium dark mocha and a blueberry scone.  I’ll go back to eating sensibly Wednesday.  It’s about 9:00 AM.

 We board on time for the four hour flight to Atlanta.  Seattle is cloudy and shows signs of rain.  The plane’s service carts are solar-powered but I wonder:  Is there enough sun to power them?  I know Seattle is beautifully located and forward-thinking ecologically, but I would miss Georgia’s sun.
 Near to Seattle, mountains have snowy tops.  

As we head East, we fly over many snowy mountains but the co-pilot is silent about what they are.

 Halfway home I have a beautiful view of the moon. 

And then, Atlanta.  My suitcase is not on the belt at baggage claim.  I wait 20 minutes; no suitcase, meaning Alaska Airlines will give me bonus miles.  I am too tired to be worried or anxious in any way.  A helpful woman at the Alaska desk is cimpleting the lost-suitcase form.  Next to me is a Canadian couple who have not received their third suitcase.  The wife wanders off and calls, “It’s here!  Our suitcase is here now!”  Mine arrives also but the sweet desk lady lets me keep my 4,000 bonus miles since my suitcase arrived after their 20 minute deadline.  Hmm, maybe I’ll go to Alaska.

I get in bed at 9:30 PM, ten minutes after I get home, setting the alarm for 7:00 in the morning.  It’s really good to see Toni and Feather.

Wednesday, January 20

I get out of bed about two hours after the alarm rings.  After a leisurely breakfast I head for the Georgia State Botanical Garden where a  couple of Nature Ramble buddies and I get our Native Plant Certificates.  After lunch I pretty much fade out and head home.  All these adventures tire me out.

 

SUNDAY, JANUARY 17. Volcano!

Park Center and Kilauea Iki

At 8:00 AM we bus with Ron to Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park.  He jokes about Earl (his friend, who is the bus driver) being a safe driver:  “He always keeps two tires on the road.”  We’re going back to the summit, starting at the park center, to see helpful displays about the volcanoes. 

Ron explains why Hawaii has shield volcanoes (not pointy ones).  As a hot spot arises, it melts the basalt.  Here, it is low in silica so the magma is fluid, yielding long, thin flows.  On the continent (like Mount St. Helen’s), the magma has lots of silica, yielding stiff lava. 

Here, lots of gas erupts, especially the dangerous (to animals and plants) sulfur dioxide.  I can hardly believe it but 5,000 tons of sulfur  dioxide are shot into the air each day!  Talk about air pollution…

A volcanologist/videographer and delightful person, Cheryl, joins us.  Ron and Andrew are very excited that she is able to teach us.  Our group splits into two for a 3+ mile hike on Kilauea Iki through a native rain forest down to the floor of the Kilauea caldera and back.  (Volcanologists call it a caldera if it’s a mile in diameter or wider.  Volcano holes smaller than that are called pit craters.)

 Ron explains that years ago the absorptive golden wool of native tree ferns (Hapu’u pulu) was used for dressing wounds by earlier Hawaiians and sold to Australia for mattress stuffing.  Unfortunately, in short order they mash down to nothing; flat mattress. The plant uses it to protect new growth from drying.

Ohia tree with red flower

The marvelous fast-growing Ohia trees were sold for railroad ties because their trunks look tall and strong.  Again, unfortunately, the buyers did not know that when Ohia lumber dries, it curves.  Oops!

 As we walk down, we see a huge round cinder cone called Pu’u Pua’i.  There is so much to see above and around me; but I need to look down because of rocks and roots. 

 Then I see the erupting volcano we saw last night.  

  It is important to stay on the trail because of deep ground cracks, hidden by effusive foliage.  A scientist, marking off sections for a research study, fell into a deep crack and was found two days later.  I remember a deep blue-ice crevasse I saw while walking on an Icelandic glacier; scary to contemplate falling in.
 

 Thanks to fences, ferrel pigs are kept from destroying native plants.  Volunteers are removing non-native and horribly aggressive kahili ginger, which Ron shows us.

 
  Pa’iniu, a native lily, can now grow in opened spaces.

Ron was smart in having us go down the steeper part of the loop first, when we are still fresh.  Several of us with shorter legs are very grateful to have handrails at these tricky parts. 

 Far below us, I see some folks already down on the crater floor.

 Once we get down there it seems other-worldly.

 White gas comes up from steam vents.  I gingerly put my fingers to one; hot! 

 

 Black lava with minerals inside show their colors.  Small lava ferns come up amongst all that.  As does the hardy pioneer Ohia tree with the brilliant red flowers, the only color.  

It’s actually kind of spooky except for that red. 
I feel like I’m walking on the set of a science fiction movie. 
 
If this were Georgia, it would be hellish in the Summer.  Interesting that Hawaii’s climate is moderate and mostly steady.  Average summer high (May-Oct) is 85 F.  Average winter high (Nov-Apr) is 78 F.  I wonder what our summer temperatures in the 100's would do to this lava.

After I walk back up the trail I notice the strong red roots of the Ohia tree exposed right near where our van waits for us.  

Volcano House

$50+ Hawaiian shirt

 Before lunch in the Volcano House we see  another spectacular view from the windows of the restaurant.  After lunch, I cruise the gift shop and am so grateful I shopped at the Salvation Army.  The Spam-flavored macadamia nuts are hard to resist though.  Just kidding.

 Jaggar Museum

After lunch, we are led by Cheryl.   We see and learn so much, my brain is somewhat overwhelmed.  I take notes and museum brochures, record voice memos, take pictures and video clips — all to help remind me later what I was taught.  If I learned everything I’m taught, I would be so knowledgeable and a terrific conversationalist.  However…  When I make a few videos of this incredible adventure, I’ll use those memory helpers.

 One thing that piques my interest is a term I had never heard before:  “Pele’s hair.”  And now I see it at the Jaggar Museum.  It is thin strands of volcanic glass, “formed when molten lava is ejected into the air.” 

It looks like my mother’s hair, a soft blondish-brown.

 Cheryl was asked to take video of the erupting Kilauea Volcano because too many reporters were doing risky things trying to record Summer 2015 activities.  Ron said it’s a marvelous set of two DVD’s.

Someone asks whether there is a geothermal power plant.  Yes, below the park.   It produces 38 megawatts, equalling one-fourth of what is used on the island.  This helps because Hawaii has the most severe energy cost in the nation.  There are some small wind farms.  Many people have photovoltaic water heaters.  Cheryl says after they set up solar at her house, her $500/m electric bill (to keep her home video studio air conditioned), is now down to zero.  

Thurston Lava Tube

We walk through a rain forest area which includes many native tree ferns.  

 
Descending carefully and slowly we arrive at the opening of the Thurston Lava Tube.  This is like a small subway tunnel but we (Road Scholar group) and about 30 Japanese travelers are the cars.  It is cool and damp and dark.  Cheryl’s flashlight indicates cooled lava above, under, and beside us.  (See an earlier blog entry for how these are formed.)

I can’t believe a fern is already growing in there.  I’ve always treated them gently but they obviously
are a hardy bunch if given water and warmth.

Lua Manu

Cheryl in lava field with untouched forest behind

At a short stop at Lua Manu we see, strikingly, where lava flowing in 1974 stopped abruptly, allowing what was left of the forest to continue existing.  This makes it a great research site to compare/contrast vegetation over time.

Not a lot of vegetation in the lava but this is a cutie of some sort.

It’s neat to see small mineral deposits in the basalt.  I find some olivine (which is green).

 Last Night of our Program

 Sunset out my hotel room window is beautiful.  My first plane leaves Hilo tomorrow after breakfast.  It will be a two-day trip home.   I am ready to stop learning so intensively,  paying attention to plane schedules instead.  This exciting adventure has been absolutely wonderful and informative in oh so many ways but my mildly damaged and elderly brain is ready for a rest.  I hope to meet some of my curious and friendly fellow Road Scholars on future trips.