Hawaii, Day 6

After spending five days on the Big Island, my daughter's family,  my older son and his wife, and I flew to Honolulu with the main goal of seeing Pearl Harbor together. Katie and her family would fly home that night, Matt & Kaleena were staying a few more days north of there, and I was flying home the next day. Unfortunately this is a blurry photo but I like the image. I sat in the row in front of Kirby on this short flight. We picked up a rental car (had to upgrade to carry all of Kirby's luggage) and drove to Pearl Harbor. The monument includes several memorials and museums and it would be easy to spend a full day immersed in this history ...but not with a toddler on board. We chose to tour the U.S.S. Missouri while waiting for our assigned time to see the U.S.S. Arizona Memorial. (Unfortunately all boat rides to the Arizona were cancelled due to windy conditions.)The USS Missouri was the last battleship built by the U.S. and was the site of the Japanese surrender, ending WWII. The ship also served in the Korean War and, after being modernized in 1984, in Desert Storm.The Missouri is now a permanent museum in Pearl Harbor.There were a couple of photo opps before entering the ship. A lot of the ship is accessible and there is a wealth of information  covering the three eras when the ship was in use. It would be easy to spend several hours taking time to absorb everything. I have included just a few photos here.There is a display about the Japanese pilots who died in kamikaze attacks near the end of WWII. It is a moving exhibit but I don't understand what can drive a young man to this end during that era any better than today's suicide attackers (although I thing there is probably a world of difference in their reasoning). So sad...as are all parts of war.

There is a warren of passages below the main deck where people worked, ate, and slept. 

The living spaces for 1600 enlisted men were spread throughout the ship.Part of the modernization in the 1980's.Back on the main deck we looked up and saw...Katie, Kurtis, and Kirby.A disappointment was not being able to go to the U.S.S. Arizona Memorial. This memorial is directly above the Arizona that still holds many of the 1177 men who were killed during the bombing that sunk the ship. During the day my thoughts kept going back to the National Museum of the Pacific War, the moving exhibit in Fredericksburg, Texas (birthplace of Admiral Nimitz) that we saw in July (blog post here). It's well worth your time if you're traveling in that area.Toddlers don't care about this stuff.  Chasing birds and picking up flowers from the lawn are more their style. (If I chose to make this blog more commentary and opinion this would be the point to discuss innocence and when/how does it change.)

After spending much of the day at Pearl Harbor, we found my hotel in Waikiki. Katie, Kurtis, and Kirby relaxed there while waiting to catch the red-eye back to California. I had one more day of exploring.

Hawaii - Day 5, Part 1

I have been back for less than 10 days and this Hawaii vacation seems like a world away...I guess because it is. Back home it's cold and drippy and I have battled a bad cold and eventually won. I just spent a good part of the day sorting through hundreds of photos so that I could print some for a photo book for Kirby, share a lot with my family on Shutterfly, and finish up my blog posts. I am discouraged to find that I have had to edit so many to remove lots of spots. Some were from an outwardly dirty lens (my fault for not paying attention) but others are spots that I can't clean. My camera and lenses need to go to the camera doctor and be cleaned inside. The dirt really shows up with blue sky and ocean landscapes.

Dan had left for home (life of a teacher) on Tuesday night. Chris and Meryl left for home on Wednesday. The rest of us visitors wanted to see what we could of the island before leaving the next morning and still get back to spend the evening with my father-in-law and his wife. We started by driving up the mountain towards the Mauna Kea Observatories, hosting telescopes operated by 11 different countries.

Do you see that white spot on the skyline in the photo? The telescopes are at 13,796 feet above sea level. The mountain itself rises 32,000 feet above the ocean floor. There are a lot more facts and a cool photo of the mountain top at this link. We didn't make it all the way to the top. The visitor center is the recommended stopping point for all 2-wheel drive vehicles, especially rented ones as well as for all children. We had a full day ahead of us without including a trek to the mountain top (beside the fact that we had a toddler with us) so we satisfied ourselves with a look around the visitor center. The other photo shows an array of telescopes that I assume are put into service for special viewing.

Our next stop, a couple of hours away, was Hawaii Volcanoes National Park.

We spent a little time in the visitor center and museum but mostly drove through the park, getting out to look at points of interest......and take photos......a lot of which, unlike most of my exploring/hiking trips were of family. I'm not sure that even amazing, steaming volcanoes can compete with beautiful family pictures...that is, pictures of beautiful family.However there were plenty of other arms to hold Kirby on this adventure so I did try to get some photos of our surroundings, especially of the area of rain-forest where we walked. While much of the Park is more desert like this part of the trail is through lush rainforest.

This had already been a long day for Kirby but she did well in her backpack.This is on the wall to the entrance to the lava tube.Lava tubes are formed as slow moving  lava cools to form walls, but the inner hot lava continues to flow.

Leaving the lava tube.Seen in the parking lot. Should I decide to move to Hawaii, do I have a job waiting for me?Catching a nap before Part 2 of the Blog.