My Last Day

Well, this is it. It's time to say goodbye to Hawaii. I'll be back soon(ish) though; I certainly can't stay away from here forever. Thanks so much for following my adventures out here! I'll be back soon with my adventures in DC. Starting with, hopefully, a new apartment asap. To conclude, a picture of me starting to get emotional at my farewell lunch. My boss always gets me making a face =)



Isn't that a cool lei?

Aloha!

Random Moments from Midway

Man alive is work slow today. I'm exhausted (haven't been sleeping well) and don't really have anything to do now that my replacement is here. Plus, everyone keeps asking why I don't just play hooky. Um, because I've always been too much of a good girl? Either that, or I'm too stupid to take advantage of the situation. Anyway, I'm just trying to get ready to go, but some things are making it harder. Like the moped repair guy who I thought was awesome but is telling me now that my moped might not be ready before I leave. I'm selling it to my replacement at work and I'm going to feel so terrible if I can't be there the first time she has to ride it. Oh well, nothing I can do except nagging him.

Today I'm just going to post some pictures of random things that struck my fancy on Midway.



Can anyone explain the significance of this warning? Was grape smuggling a big thing at one time?



Jet fuel. Never leave home without it.



Love this sign from the old machine shed.

My Last Two Weekends

The weekend before this past one I headed downtown on Sunday to get pictures of the things I see everyday at work but never stopped to immortalize. Above is a picture of Iolani Palace. It's beautiful and its grounds have been made into a big park. On Fridays the Royal Hawaiian Band plays concerts during lunchtime in the park which is fun. I've eaten my lunch under those big trees many times.



I also grabbed a shot of the state capitol building, but it's hard to get the whole thing in frame, at least without standing in the middle of traffic.



Hmm, I thought I had a better picture than that one.

There's also the beautiful Hawaii State Art Museum, a great place to check out on your lunch break (eat at the ASAP! counter at the restaurant).



I grabbed a quick picture of St. Andrew's cathedral, but it had started to rain so I was focusing on getting back to my moped.



This past weekend I went up to the North Shore on Saturday, to say goodbye. It was mostly overcast and sprinkly but the sun came out sporadically. Unfortunately the 10-12 foot waves from Friday had died down significantly. But, it's still a beautiful place and I loved just sitting on the beach watching the water and the surfers.





Unfortunately, on weekends all the tour buses dump people off at the beaches, so it got more crowded than I like. The most interesting part was when I was befriended by a dog. This little Truly looking dog came trotting over to me and plopped himself by my feet, wanting petted. He had tags, with the name Kona, and I asked him, "Kona, where's your mom? Go find your mom!" Now, if you tell our family dog, Truly, to go find her mom, she'll run off to find my mom. This dog just looked at me.



After a few minutes he trotted off across the beach and I thought he was going back to whoever brought him. A little later though he was with another woman and she was trying to call his owners but only getting voicemail. Kona, I hope you found your family!

One minor adventure from two weekends ago was my first attempt at making focaccia. I made a couple of mistakes (like forgetting the oil and then trying to knead it in to a finished dough...) but it came out ok. It was a bit bland though. I think I'll add more salt to the dough if I make it again. It's not the prettiest bread, but it'll do.



It snowed in parts of DC today. It didn't stick, but still, it snowed. I'm going to freeze to death.

Midway, Part VII

Happy Monday everyone! Midway sure is ending up with a lot of parts, isn't it? Hopefully I'll wrap it up pretty soon.

This is the start of my last work week in Honolulu. I fly back to DC on Friday. I'll likely continue writing when I'm back there...guess I have to figure out what to do with the title of the blog =)

As you can see from the picture above, I got to ride in the Midway fire truck! One of the firefighters took me out for a spin on the runway. When I got done with that, it seemed like some of the men in my group were a little jealous. "He even had the lights going while you were in it!"



One of the highlights of our last day at Midway was getting to see a Laysan albatross. Only two had come back to the island when we were there, and one was hanging out by a house, so we trekked off to see him.




Pretty cool looking bird, isn't he? Since I got here I've been wanting to see an albatross in person, mostly because I'm a total nerd and love the Coleridge poem "Rime of the Ancient Mariner." Just one of the many things that makes me special.

We also biked around the island to look at more of the historical stuff. There are still old cable buildings from 1903 that were built for the first around the world telegraph. Hopefully there will be some money for restoration, but it's likely only one will be saved and the others will go to ruin.




I have so many pictures of things from Midway that I never could post them all. I'm thinking I'll give you some more of the beautiful scenery and then use the rest of the pics as kind of "pictures of the day" when nothing particularly exciting is happening in my life. That way we'll get this series all wrapped up.



Beach at one end of the runway. It's closed to humans.



Looking back on Sand Island from one of the piers.



Crab in a hole.



And an appropriate photo to go out on. This is a view of the sunset from the plane while we were flying back to Honolulu from Midway. Beautiful. A wonderful way to end an amazing trip.

So what's my next adventure? You up for a post on packing suitcases? I'll try to come up with something more interesting than that.

Midway, Part VI

WWII gun on Eastern Island

One of the amazing things about Midway is the history of the atoll. The Navy had presence there for quite some time and there is still a lot of WWII era stuff on the islands.

My favorite story is about the resourcefulness of the men stationed there during WWII when they knew the Japanese would be attacking Midway. Japan wanted the atoll for strategic purposes. The men didn't have a lot to defend themselves with, being in the middle of nowhere, so they made do with what they had. One thing they had were old WWI tanks. They took the tops off the tanks, partially buried them, and used them as protective turrets to shoot at invading forces.



Underneath this hunk of metal was a hole they dug so the men could fit under there. This is what it looked like when I stuck my camera in there.



There are also ruins of old buildings and piers and the like left on Eastern:







There's also a memorial to Marines on Eastern:



All very cool.

Well, I know that was a brief post, but work is pretty busy today. Apparently they're trying to squeeze me dry before I leave. I can't believe I only have a week left. It's pouring rain today so I'm really hoping it doesn't rain tomorrow. I want to spend the day at the North Shore before I have to go pick up my PMF replacement at the airport. The rest of my week is going to be filled with packing and errands. This is really bittersweet for me.

Midway, Part V

Eastern Island. The yellow flowers are verbesina, an invasive plant they're trying to control.

Before the group split up and I got to go check out the beach, we went to look at one of the duck seeps with Laysan ducks.



Part of our visiting group consisted of avian disease specialists, there to check out the Laysan ducks and talk about a botulism outbreak that happened a few months ago. There used to be about 400 Laysan ducks in the world. A researcher took about 40 of them, brought them to Midway, and they're now flourishing there (with the exception of the ones who died from botulism). The happy news is that no one found any sick ducks on this trip!



Now for some random bird pictures. I'll label each underneath.



Above is a bristle thighed curlew in flight. Mom, Dad, and I saw a couple of these standing still at James Campbell here on Oahu. Take a look at its long, curved beak.



This is a red footed booby in the naupaca. It's not the best picture of him, but I think his face is hilarious. Naupaca is a native plant. Nene, the Hawaiian goose, eat the naupaca berries. The berries also make excellent defoggers for snorkel masks.



These are sooty terns in flight. Apparently Alfred Hitchcock recorded the sounds of sooty terns to use as the bird noises in his film, The Birds.



Two white terns and one sooty tern.



White tern in flight, closer up.



Black footed albatross. We were pretty close to this one. Then he decided it was time to readjust and waddle away.



These guys have a pretty hilarious walk. Everyone on Midway says it looks like Richard Nixon walking. Their wings are hunched up by their heads and they waddle away, swaying a little from side to side.



Apparently this bird is the holy grail. A short tailed albatross. There are about two hundred living on an island off of Japan, but there's only one that hangs out on Midway. Click on the picture. From the left, there are two birds standing one in back of the other, then one more, then the short tailed albatross. You're seeing his back. This is the only actual bird in the picture; the rest are decoys. In the hopes that he would stick around and maybe others would come, they've put up decoys and have a solar powered iPod out there that plays the call. Pretty cool.

Well, that almost concludes Wednesday on Midway...there's still some WWII stuff to look at, but I'm going to put that in a separate post. Thursday involved more history, and the first Laysan albatross to return to the island.

Midway, Part IV

Beach on Eastern Island

Good morning! I hope everyone had a lovely Veteran's Day - all federal holidays off is one of the few perks I get from working for the government.

Per my little sister's request (in the comments for my last post) I will try my best not to have a depressing sign off this time. So, I'll start with the depressing stuff!

After we walked around Eastern, looking at birds and ducks and WWII stuff, we headed out to the beach to take a look and see if we could find any Hawaiian monk seals.



Pretty. These beaches are some of the most beautiful places I've ever seen or could even imagine. And knowing that if we weren't out there, not one human would set foot on them that day is remarkable.



However, even though people may not actually be on the beach that often, our impact is seen in a big way. Because of its location in the Pacific, Midway sees a lot of trash wash onto its shores. And I don't mean just some plastic bits - I'm talking computer monitors, shoes, intact lightbulbs, tires, helmets, you name it! Seeing this beach covered in garbage really does put our consumer culture into bleak perspective.



Reduce, reuse, recycle.

Ok, because I don't want to get too depressing or preachy, we're moving on. Moving on to awesomeness like this:



I found a glass float! It's the pretty blue thing in my right hand. Japanese fishermen used to use glass balls of varying sizes to help their nets float. They switched to plastic floats in the '70s, but the glass ones still turn up on Midway with relative frequency. It's definitely an exciting thing in the office when someone finds one and I was lucky enough to do so on my first (and likely only) trip to Midway. None of the other folks on my trip found one, so I'm extra lucky. I just realized I don't have a good picture of the float itself, so I'll take one and post it at a later date.

As we walked along the beach we kept our eyes peeled for endangered Hawaiian monk seals. It's recommended that you stay 150 feet away from them because they tend to get skittish and are safer basking on the beach than if they returned to the water. We saw a couple of really big ones napping on the beach and had to adjust our route, but then we happened upon a littler one close to the pier where the boat was docked.





Isn't he so cute?? Seriously, if there was an animal that could turn me into a total nature and wildlife lover, it would be this one. Unfortunately he saw us and started to shimmy toward the ocean, but luckily he decided to stop and show off for us.





He flipped over, showed us his belly, rubbed his head, rubbed his belly. It was ridiculously cute and one of those moments where I really knew how special this opportunity was.

To sign off this time, I'm going to leave you with a couple of pictures of me and birds. The first is me with (I believe) a tropic bird hovering over my head. I'm going to have to check on what kind of bird this is...



The second is me with an albatross. Well, an albatross statue. The things I do for your amusement...



I can hear you laughing.