a perfect day in hawai'i:

yesterday was excellent. got up tired, came up to the CSO office in HP (we
have our own little computer room here, which is very convenient), coded a
little bit, and then drove up to the summit. for those who don't
know, the weather lately up there has been soemthing like:

http://u069.astro.cf.ac.uk/pdm/weather.txt

that's right baby, they had to unchain the road for us. it actually wasn't
as bad as i expected - the lower part of the road was just mud from all
the rain, and the upper part was icy, but had been driven on enough that
it was very rough and not too slick. plus, we had chains on, which
basically makes you invincible. we had to go to the summit to fill the
dewar with LN2 and L4He - if we let the instrument warm up too much then
we have to wait the same amount of time to cool down again, so basically
we have to do everything possible to keep it cold.

we get up there, and everything is coated in ice, as expected. pretty
impressive. we were told not to stand to close to the observatory dome cuz
sheets of ice can fall off and KILL YOU. fun. we filled the dewar. i went
outside to take some pictures and found it very hard to stand up straight
- i was then told that the 15 min-average wind speed at the very summit (a
few hundred feet higher) was 75 mph. so it was probably gusting to 70 mph
where i was. more on wind later...

came back down, got back to HP in time to eat lunch. (btw, i've mentioned
before that HP = hale pohaku. hale means "house." phil always says that
pohaku means "really bad food." fyi.) ate lunch, took the chains off the
SUVs (CSO has two isuzus, which we get to use freely) and headed down the
mountain for adventures unknown.

this is where i realized how insane hawaii is. i'll try to explain -
there's a road that goes through the middle of the island, between the two
big peaks, mauna loa and mauna kea. the former is in volcanoes natl park,
and the latter is where we observe. since the region between the mtns
forms a saddle, the road is called the "saddle road." there are virtually
no roads that come off the saddle road except for the one up to mauna kea.
the reason for this is that there's literally nothing there except endless
black lava fields and rain. and army bases (shhh, don't tell). so we're on
the saddle road, heading down toward waimea on the way to kona, and the
beach. visibility is poor because we're in the middle of a cloud (it's
always like that - it's very rare that you can ever see more than a couple
hundred feet, let along the peaks from the road), and lava fields extend
on all sides. sometimes the lava is really craggy and scary and
unnavigable, and sometimes smooth, almost like an asphalt parking lot.
eventually we come out of the clouds, and you can start to see mauna kea,
which is huge and looming, and has snowiness and clouds on top. there was
other cool stuff in all directions, including a lot of small volcanic
cones - remember that the entire island is a product of volcanism, so
every hill was basically a volcano at one time - you can often see the
calderas and everything. there was also a dust storm being whipped up by
the high winds across the lava fields, and, when we were low enough, green
fields, low-level clouds, and a very bizarre rainbow that was at the level
of the horizon (see webpage). you could also see the moutains of maui WAY
of in the distance, rising above the clouds.

and WIND. insane, crazy, ridiculous wind that threatened to blow us off
the road on several occasions. eventually we made it down to the coast
with the wet, thick ocean air (you have no idea how nice this is after
being so long in the cold, thin, dry, static-electricity-filled air of the
summit). we park at an overlook above hapuna beach, get out of the cars
and realize immediately that there's no way we're going down to THAT
beach. the wind was unbelievable. we got several pictures of us leaning
into the wind at 30-degree angles. this was 70 mph gusts, i swear. which
is a lot different than 70 mph gusts at the summit, since the air down at
sea level is so much thicker. this was a lot of fun - i've never
experienced wind like that as far as i can remember.

we decided to drive north for awhile to find a less windy beach. more lava
fields on either side of the road, with people's names and pictures and
"rick [heart] lisa"-type messages spelled out on the black lava with white
rocks that people bring up from the beach. it goes on for miles like that
- kinda cool and unique. one said "osama yo mama" which was amusing.

eventually we took an extremely unfriendly road through a lava field down
to a state park beach - i forget the name though. the other car gave a
lift to a hitchhiker girl - this is very common in hawaii, which has zero
in terms of public transportation.

ahhh, the beach. finally i realize what it's all about. palm trees and
perfect warm blue water, black and white sand (the black is lava, the
white is coral, and it's amazing how similar they are in texture to each
other), great breezes, curling surf (and surfer dudes, of course),
mountains in the background, and the occasional rainbow (i saw 3 or 4
rainbows yesterday, i can't remember exactly). just incredible. we swam.
we sat around. it was great. the wonderful thing about hawaii is that it
completely lives up to every stereotype. you expect and hope for the
"aloha experience" and there it is... just like you always pictured it.
(diana, i'm definitely bringing you here at some point, just so you know.)

after taking some pictures (see webpage) and getting as waterlogged as we
could handle, we drove down into kona, tourist trap extraordinaire. we ate
an extremely overpriced meal ($35 for sub-olive garden quality) and then
went in search of the ubiquitous perfect hawaiian shirt. i settled on a
blue and white one which was a little more tasteful than most. (in hawaii
taste is relative, but i wanted to be able to wear it back on the mainland
as well.) i also got a crappy "kona hawaii" hat for $16, and several
postcards which i will try to send to some of you as soon as i can locate
stamps. postcards are evidently the cheapest thing on hawaii, btw - i have
yet to see them for more than 5/dollar.

at this point i was ready to go back into HP and work, or walmart to get
some luggage (since the evil airline security put a big fat tear in my bag
on the way over), but more exciting heads prevailed, and we headed off in
search of nightlife. we ended up at the perfect hawaiian bar, as far as i
can tell. tiki torches, a two-man band playing hawaiian-esque versions of
cheesy songs, and fruit-and-umbrella-filled drinks aplenty. i had a mai
tai and split a flaming bowl of something called a "kilauea" with doug and
sunil. (note to those who know my culinary tastes: i even ate the
pineapple garnish...  and liked it!) i came close to requesting
"margarittaville" from the band, but i think i needed another mai tai for
that. i'm sure they knew it though.

and thus ended a near-perfect day in hawaii. the drive back was a bit
hellish, since all i wanted to do was sleep, a project made completely
impossible by the unmaintaned saddle road. but once my head hit the pillow
in my room at HP it didn't really matter anymore. today i'm wearing my
hawaiian shirt and procrastinating by writing this letter. and i can't
wait for my 2 days off!

-ben