Everglades National Park Pictures

Patty and I arrived in Everglades National Park on December 1, 2010 to begin our volunteer duties with the park. We have a brand new residence adjacent to Florida Bay and the birds and reptiles are pretty amazing. We have done some canoeing and expect to do a lot more in the weeks to follow. I have posted a few pictures of the residence and the view from inside and out along with a few pic's of some of the local wildlife. we have an Osprey nest on every pole. Patty even shot some pictures of copulating osprey, but this is a family post so those will have to be viewed in private. See if you can pick out the endangered Wood Stork in the photo's and see if you think we were too close to the little aligator. Talk to you soon.

Flamingo Florida & Everglades National Park

Climbing the Largest Volcano in the world and LAVA

Hello from Hawaii

Patty and I made good use of our days off on Monday and Tuesday. On Monday we spent some time in Hilo and then drove up Mauna Kea, the tallest mountain in the world. Let me explain. Mauna Kea is roughly 13,800 feet above sea level and another 18,000 feet from the sea floor to sea level for a total of just under 32,000 feet. So as I tell the tourists just because over half of the mountain is underwater it is still taller than Everest. We were able to drive our car to 9000 feet and then caught a ride up with someone who had a 4 Wheel Drive. The top of the mountain is covered with 12 Observatories, check out www.ifa.hawaii.edu and we were able to shoot some pictures on a beautiful day.

We came down from the summit and had an early supper at the visitor center and then went down Mauna Kea to the Saddle Road and then climbed back up to 11,000 feet to the Mauna Loa Weather observatory chekc out; www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/obop/mlo/index.html

We were able to stay at the observatory and got an early start up to the summit of Mauna Loa after shooting some sunrise photo's. We started at 6 am and had 6 miles + up to the summit at 13,700 feet. We were up there by 9:30 and spent about an hour enjoying the Caldera and the beautiful day. We then flew down the mountain across an awful lot of old lava. The trail was marked and followed some of the smooth pahoehoe flows. It sure is easier going downhill, especially at altitude, but we were successful and can now lay claim to having climbed the largest volcano on the plannet. Mauna Loa is approx. 13,700 feet above sea level and another 14,000 from the sea floor to sea level. It is also so heavy that it compresses the sea floor another 28,000 feet so now Patty and I have bragging rights to climbing a mountain that is really 56,000 feet. From the top the island looks a lot smaller as you can see 4 of the five volcano's of the island. It was a good day with great weather.

We came down from Mauna Kea had an early supper in Hilo and drove to the end of Highway 130. This is where the lava is currently flowing. We joined a group from the park that had special permission to walk out to the flow. The lava is flowing on Private Property, not in the Park, and the viewing is managed by the county. They normally do not let people past an observation point they have set up, but we had special permission and a permit to go out to the flow. We had one of the eruption specialists with us from the park and it was his job to keep us safe. This is a safe flow, but, it was a little different when we walked on the top of a lava tube and could see and feel the heat of the lava below our feet. It really was amazing watching the flow up close and need I say that both Patty and I shot quite a few pictures. When we came back to the "public" viewing area, people were pretty envious. If this flow had been in the park everyone would be allowed to walk right up to it, but, the county does now allow that to happen at this flow.

It really was a great day. I will be paddling in another canoe race this weekend on the Kona side of the island and we will have to see how team "white lightning" does this time. Take care.

Patty racing the cruise ship

I grabbed the wrong photo for the last post. Check out Patty in the front of the white boat with all the yellow paddlers edging out the cruise ship.

Finally Pictures

Hilo Parade and White Lightning

We spent all of this past weekend in Hilo. We started off on Saturday morning representing the park in the annual Merri Monarch festival. The parade had all of the typical parade stuff; 6 or 7 bands, floats, horses and riders dressed up by island colors, commercial displays, and candy for the kids. About 130 units in all.We passed out candy, stickers, and removable tatoo's. There were hundreds who turned out to watch. It was fun even though our parade got rained on a few times.

Saturday afternoon allowed us to get in one more canoe practice before the big races on Sunday. After the practice we set up tents on the beach, cleaned Ahi for Poke, (Tuna for a raw fish dish), cut up ferrel sheep and deer for smoking and grilling, and had a few beers and even tried our first poi.

The races are very competitive, but also a very festive and social occassion.

We made it home by about 8:30 Sat evening and then drove back down to Hilo on Sunday morning for the first race at 8:30 am.

There were a total of 110 teams competing in the races and the Park had 10 of those teams.

The majority of teams compete in the novice Business Class, although I don't know how some of these teams can call themselves novices as they have been racing for years. Classes include Men, Women, and Mixed. There is also an intermediate division with the same class breakdown, but many of those teams were not as good as some of the novice teams. They also had an open division with about a dozen boats. These folks were pretty good and could really move the boats.

All the teams except the open division consist of five people and use the same six boats complete with a person who steers and all the boats are the same. The open division also has their own person steering. There are six lanes which are drawn for before each race and the lane you get does make a differnce due to wind and currents. The race is only a quarter mile and is a flat out sprint.

They have a system set up where teams keep advancing if they keep winning and if they loose they can also advance through a loosers bracket. A total of 60 races were scheduled starting at 8:30 and going until 5 pm.

Patty and her team raced twice. Check out Patty in the front of the white canoe racing the really big boat. My team raced 4 times and ended up in the last race of the day for the Business Mens final.

There were two teams from the park in the final and the skinny white guys pulled out a second place,check photo hence the name "white lightning". We beat a lot of good Hawaiian teams most of who were a lot bigger then we were. It was a lot of fun and a great day and even though there was food out all day, the feast began after the races were done. We have met some great people and have made some good friends here, although everyone is very friendly in this state of "aloha".

We came here for three months because we wanted to be more than tourists and learn a little about the culture and the people and we have learned a great deal. The native Hawaiians have been fantastic and very good to us. Patty now knows how to make lei's from Ti leaves, and I can make Poke. Now if I could just catch some Tuna out of the Swan River.

Take care!

Kona and Merrie Monarch Festival

Patty and I had a couple of days off and decided to go over to the dry side of the island on Mon and Tues. We had a lot more sun then what we have been seeing in the park and enjoyed an evening on the town in Kailua. Many people refer to the dry side of the island as Kona, however Kona is the district and Kailua is the largest town on the dry side. We spent some time at the beach and swam at one of the best beaches in the world, or so it has been said, at Hapuna Beach. We visited Waipi o valley and shot some great pictures from the overlook going into the valley. We also took a little tour around the NW point of the island and have now driven around the entire island. There is much to see and many roads to drive and I think next time I visit I will have to find a 4 wheel drive vehicle. It would just make getting around a lot easier, and getting to some of those hard to get to places earlier. Check out the picture of me in front of the Green Sand Beach. We hopped in with a couple who had a Jeep to drive back to this spot. The green is Olivine and the beach is about 3 miles off the beaten path and either a long dry hike or a 4 wheel drive ride.

On Wed it was back to work, but we have a great boss and he gave us time off to go down to the largest Hula competition in the world in Hilo, the Merrie Monarch Festival. We had a good afternoon and evening and enjoyed watching the different forms of Hula. The hit of the evening was a group from Figi who were definitly crowd favoritets even though what they did was not really Hula. If you are interested check out www.merriemonarch.com

This weekend we will be marching in the Merrie Monarch parade with the group from the park that are going to be in the canoe races on sunday. We are supposed to be working on Sat and Sunday, but, as I said we have a good boss who feels the parade and canoe race are a part of our work duties and counts this as work time. This will be a very social event and we have a number of friends from the island who will be roasting wild hog and steaming fish after the parade and during the canoe races on Sunday.

I will post some canoe pics from the weekend and some results after the races. Take care, we will see you all soon.

Apapane bird picture

I have been taking pictures of the Apapane bird nest that is right out our window.
There are 2 baby birds in the nest. One of the previous pictures shows some of the park staff taking pictures of the nest. Patty

More Pictures

Here are some additional pictures.

Live From Hawaii Volcano National Park

Hi Everyone

Sorry it has been a while since the last post, but, we have really been busy and have been working hard to educate visitors to HVNP.

After surviving the Tsunamis on the island of Kauai, Patty and I arrived on the Big Island of Hawaii on March 1 and were greeted by HVNP staff wit flowered lei's.

For two weeks we were immersed in Hawaiian culture, biology, botany, geology and history. It was really like a language immersion course. We were then turned loose in the Visitor Center to inform guests about the park, give short talks and lead hikes.

Over the past few weeks we have talked to hundreds and hundreds of people and have met some very interesting folks. We have also learned an awful lot about the island.

We are living in a house in the park with a woman from Spain and a guy who is retired from Hewlett Packard from Wash. State.

We have learned that things move a little slower here as we called the cable company when we first arrived for Internet access and just had it installed March 31. So there is my excuse for not posting. We have had access to the Internet with the parks computers, but have not been able to post any photo's on their computers.

We have been keeping busy by working 40 hours per week and we have every Mon and Tues. off.

We also have Saturdays off for canoe paddling practice in the 6 person outrigger canoes. We are preparing for the big races in Hilo on April 11. It really is a lot of fun to paddle these boats and I may have to try and find one for the Mississippi. I will post a picture of one.

We have taken a quick tour of the entire island and have started to explore individual areas that looked interesting. We have gone swimming with Green Turtles at the Black Sand Beach and have visited both the Green Sand Beach and also South Point, the most southern point in the U.S. We have also seen countless waterfalls, been to a great hot pond and eaten a lot of Sushi.

We have also seen flowing lava from a distance and have had some good views of lava glowing in the evening in the Halemauumau Crater, but as we tell the visitors, the lava flow is not very strong right now and we are hoping for a big eruption before we leave. We have felt a few earthquakes the biggest being a 4.4 which shook everything for a short period. Usually quakes precede eruptions, so we are hoping for more quakes and a big eruption.

We each have a mountain bike provided by the park and I have been riding a couple times a week. My favorite ride is to ride up Mauna Loa Road from 4000 feet to about 6500 feet. It is the only ride that I can take that goes uphill first. It takes me about 1 hour and 25 minutes up and 25 minutes down. We are living at 4000 feet and most of the other rides I take go down hill first and then I have to climb back up.

We also bought a throw away car. It is a 1993 Subaru Legacy Wagon with less miles then the one Chris has been driving in Duluth for the past few years. We will probably be able to sell it for what we paid and if not it is still less than what we would have rented one for 3 months so we figured we had a good deal. It gets us to where we want to go and blends right into the island cars, so we don't worry about having it broken into.

Patty has been taking thousands of pictures and will post some of them later tonight. Her main subject has been on of the "threatened" native birds of Hawaii, the Apapane. We have a nest just outside our window and have watched one adult feed another and then an adult feeding the young birds in the next. Watch for posting.

We have met a lot of people from MN and have been visited by friends from MN and also Utah. We will try to post more frequently now that we have a high speed connection. If you are interested you can check out the park we are working in at http://www.nps.gov/havo/index.htm

You can also check out a view of the crater in our back yard at: http://hvo.wr.usgs.gov/
Just check out the Web cam view for the Halamaumau crater. We will also post a picture of the glow we have seen a number of times. It really is pretty neat to think we are living on the most active volcano in the world. I will try to remember to add these links to the links on the blog, so you can keep a close eye on the volcano if you are interested. The web cams are live with updates every 5 minutes.

We hope everyone has a nice Easter Holiday and we will post again soon, even if it is only pictures.

More Pic's

Pictures of Na Pali Coast

Pictures just don't do it justice.