Day 1 - Kona and Beyond

July 23, 2010

This morning we woke up in Hawaii! We hung around the hotel for a bit in the morning. They had some Hawaiian entertainment which included dancing, learning how to use some instruments, making leis and eating some fruit and banana bread.

In the afternoon we headed South to the Black Sand Beach. It was really pretty. We walked around for a bit and saw some sea turtles swimming close to shore. They were trying to swim out but the waves kept pushing them back close to shore. It was hard to get a photo of one of them, I didn't have much luck.
After the Black Sand Beach we went to Hawaii Volcano Nationla park. Yep, I've been to the National Park before but wanted to spend more time there. It was a bit cold there, we went up in elevation. We walked around some steam vents and went to the visitor center and also looked at the crater that is still "smoking".
It is about a 2 hour drive from the Southern end of the island to where we were staying. We didn't have time to do all of the things we wanted to do in the park so we decided we'd go back another day. We had to make the drive to the new hotel and check in.

In Flight

Leaving San Francisco
Kona Delay

July 22, 2010

Today was a long travel day. I took a flight from Seattle to San Francisco, where I met up with my parents and niece then we all flew to Kona, Hawaii (The Big Island). The flight to Hawaii was a 5 hour flight from the West coast. Things were looking good but about an hour before departure we learned the flight was delayed 2 hours due to maintenance. We all were bummed about the delay but I'd rather wait around to make sure the airplane was OK since we would be flying 5 hours over the ocean and there is no place for an emergency landing! They ended up giving us a different airplane with a different seating set up. My parents were supposed to be in row 17 but were moved to row 32! It all worked out though, the flight wasn't full and it gave everyone room to move around and lay down. During the flight I watched the movie"The Bounty Hunter" with Jennifer Aniston. It was a pretty good movie and it helped the time pass. We finally made it to Kona around 9:00pm (Hawaii time). We got our luggage, went to pick up the rental car, drove to our hotel in Kona for the night.

Working in the Hotel

July 21, 2010

Today I spent the day working in the hotel room. Things went well for most of the day except I decided to restart my work computer because I kept getting a message that a program was being used even though I closed all of the applications. When I restarted my computer I couldn't log in. I kept getting a "domain not available" error. I spent the next hour and 1/2 on the phone with work It support but no luck. The only way to fix the problem (they think) is to hook up to the office network. This basically means my laptop is dead weight for the next week and 1/2! Gotta love computer security. I was able to get most of my work done but not all of it...guess it will have to wait.

Seattle, WA

July 20, 2010

Today we drove 5 hours North to Seattle. It was cloudy 90% of the way. I didn't really get any cool pictures today, just one of the Sea-Tac airport tower.

The hotel I'm staying at is not that great, big bummer! It is right by the airport so it is convenient but this building is old and it smells old! I've been in worse but tomorrow I'm working in the hotel room and a nice room always makes things better.

Oregon Caves National Monument

July 19, 2010

Today we left the cold of Crescent City and headed North. We collected a park I've never been to before, Oregon Caves National Monument. I was sort of dreading this park because to get to it you have to drive on a long windy road. It turned out that it was a long windy road where you typically only go between 20 and 45 mph but the end was worth it. This is a really great park that has an old lodge, I wasn't expecting that. This would be a great one or two night vacation. It is pretty secluded but if you want to experience a park with little civilization this is the park to come to! Collection of this park only took us a couple of hours and then we headed further North to spend the night in Cottage Grove, OR. On the way North we saw this water fountain that was flowing with purple water, yes purple! We had to turn the truck around and take a quick photo. Pretty cool!

Crescent City, CA

July 18, 2010

Today was a day off.
There was early morning fog around the city. This is a photo of the lighthouse.
Some guy was enjoying the morning flying around the beach.


These birds are all over....

I could hear the sea lions again today but still couldn't see them. I did find a painted picture so I think this will have to do.

Crescent City, CA

July 17, 2010

Today I spent the day working in the hotel room. After working I took a short walk around the Crescent City Harbor and took a couple of photos. I can hear sea lions but can't see them. I've tried three times to find them while I've been here but no luck yet. I saw a small hawk flying over the harbor with a fish in hand but I wasn't able to snap a photo of that. The walk was nice, but short. The smells around the harbor can be a bit unpleasant, very dead fish like. The boats also creek and make noises that you wouldn't expect. I think that might be a spooky place to be at night.

Redwood National Park

July 16, 2010

Today we finished our recollection of the park. We finally got some images that look good in the dark tree cover. What a relief! Productive days are always nice. We also had great weather so today was almost perfect!

I didn't take many photos today. I did get a couple photos of some HUGE yellow slugs hanging out on a gate post.

Made it to Redwood National Park!

July 15, 2010

This morning I was up at 5:30am, hit the road at 6:30am and we made it to Redwood National Park around 10:30am. We did a distance calibration on the truck and then drove South a bit to some dark routes in the park. It was a frustrating afternoon to say the least but things did turn around by evening. While we were transferring data I got out of the truck to take a quick photo and here is my question of the day....How many locks does a gate really need? You can decide but I think this is a little much.

We ate dinner around 7:00pm. We decided to sit outside despite the chill in the air. Being right on the ocean makes a great dinner view. After dinner we headed to the beach for a short walk. We didn't find any shells but I was amazed at all of the critters we saw! I tried to get some photos to share with my blog readers. One thing I decided while on the beach was that when I got back to my hotel room I'd be turning up the HEAT! That lead to a funny thought for the day "I turn up my heat in July, do you?" Most of the country is in a heat wave and we are here in pants and a long sleeve shirt needing a jacket. It was 59 degrees according to the car thermometer when we left the beach this evening. I'll enjoy it while I can, before I head back East with the humidity.

Still Making Our Way West...

July 14, 2010

This morning I woke up in Utah and ended up in Oregon. I drove 9 1/2 hours but it felt like at least 12 hours. I-80 (Eisenhower Highway) wasn't bad. I saw a Hendrickson truck and finally snapped a photo. Some day I'm going to figure out how I'm related to the owner...who is based out of Sacramento, CA. After a couple hundred miles on I-80 we headed North at Winnemucca, NV. We then drove 208 miles though open wilderness. There wasn't much to look at and it seemed never ending. I've been on roads like this before, they all look the same, open wilderness with nothing in sight. We were lucky that there was one rest area! It was a welcome sight and it was nice to get out of the truck and stretch a little. Can you imagine 208 miles of looking at the picture below? Yeah, it does get old after about 30 minutes.

We finally made it to the Oregon / Nevada border and we got out to get a quick photo of the signs. The geologist in me quickly surfaced. I looked down at the sided of the road and saw black rock...could I really be seeing this! I looked around and it was every where...obsidian! It was really cool. It was a nice surprise and I wanted to spend the rest of the day looking for cool rocks.
The drive was far from over so back in the truck we went only to realize that since we were now in Oregon the speed limit was only 55mph! Uhhhh! A long drive just got longer. The last hour and 1/2 were pretty slow going. The scenery did get better with trees, farms and some small lakes here and there. We finally made it to Klamath Falls, OR and it was a very welcome sight. I was trying to remember how many times I've stayed in this town...I think this is at least my 4th time. If all goes well at Redwood National Park (yep we are going back) I'll be back in this town again in a couple of days when we collect Lava Beds...

Driving West, Again!

July 13, 2010

Today we drove from Cheyenne, WY to Wendover, UT. Wyoming proved to be as windy as ever. At a rest area I found a sign saying the winds can get up to 70mph.

I've done this drive many times now and there isn't much to look at but this time there were a few surprises. We saw this HUGE crane. It is amazingly big and my guess it is used for mining but I'm not sure. I can't even imagine how they got such a big piece of equipment to the middle of nowhere Wyoming. During this drive I decided to try and count the FedEx trucks that we saw. In February when we made the drive I noticed several FedEx trucks and this time I wanted to try and get a number. We came up with 68! I'm sure we missed a few. I think FedEx rules I-80.

A couple of other "interesting" things that happened today. ..
We got another rock chip in the windshield. This one is pretty big. It is Y shaped and I'm sure when the weather gets cold this chip will spread. Luckily it is in the middle of the windshield so it isn't in the line of sight, yet.

I pulled a muscle in my neck, doing basically nothing. I went into the back of the truck from the front seat because I was installing software and needed to put the CD in another computer and sure enough something shifted...ouch! If feels like I slept on my neck wrong, which I didn't but that is what it feel like.

Anyway, we made our way across the border into Utah. We drove across the Salt Flats and I took a couple of pictures this time. I think this is at least the 6th time I've driven across the Salt Flats going from one place to another for work. I don't remember seeing this "tree" before. It must have been there because wikipedia says it has been there since the 80s, maybe I was sleeping (or blinked) when the truck passed it before.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tree_of_Utah

In the air and on the road

July 12, 2010

Today I flew from VA to Denver. While at the Dulles airport I was taking the bus to the terminal and a little boy about 3 years old was really excited. He stood up and said "mommy, look at that rocket!" What he was looking at was a smaller United Express airplane. I guess it looked like a rocket to him and his eyes were really big.

I wasn't able to get a direct flight for a decent price so I had to have a short layover in Chicago. I've never been to Chicago without a delay of some kind. I had a short 20 minute delay leaving Virginia due to heavy air traffic in Chicago. Once in Chicago I had about a 45 minute delay because the airplane was late arriving. I arrived in Denver about 15 minutes before my traveling partner so even with the delays it worked out.

While at the Denver airport I noticed that they added a new statue to the airport grounds. It is a big statue of King Tut. I found an article about it online.

http://cbs4denver.com/local/Tutankhamen.exhibit.museum.2.1729692.html

I was surprised to see another statue after the blue horse statue caused such a "stir" around Denver. I guess this new statue is related to an exhibit at the Denver Art Museum.

After we gathered our bags we drove 2 hours North of Denver and spent the night in Cheyenne, Wyoming. It is good to be back in the midwest but windy as always!

Around Sterling

July 4, 2010

Today my mom and I decided to hang around Sterling. There are several parks around the area so we decided to check out two of them. We went to Algonkian Park where there are several picnic areas and a few trails. One trail is a 2-mile loop, we decided to walk part of it. It was a nice hike in the trees. It was hot so the shade was a welcome relief. While on the hike we saw several daddy long-leg spiders and other little creatures. Virginia definitely has more bugs than Colorado! It will take some time to get used to it again. All of the bugs remind me of Minnesota. The second park we went to was Claude Moore Park. It has several more trails but most of them are closed due to snow storm damage...which happened LAST winter! I guess they are very short staffed or don't have enough chain saws! There is a trail that leads to a Civil War lookout post...but the trail was closed. That was a bummer. It was about 4:30pm and pretty hot out when we went to this park so we only spent about 1/2 an hour there an were on our way back to the comfort of air conditioning.