POST NINE

     I bought the most expensive cheese in price per gram at Safeway. It's the Deer Creek Cheese Blue Jay, a Wisconsin quintuple cream blue cheese infused with juniper berries. It cost $11.50. Totally worth it. Kalela was kind enough to let me store it in his fridge.

     Anyway, in other news, I'm going to be back in Kansas next semester. I do wonder if maybe I should be staying in Hilo the full year, but that's not what I'm doing. I definitely couldn't have stayed more than a year.

     Two big adventures have happened recently since I last wrote. I went and measured an active fault in the Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park, and I was invited for a little trip to Kona. My friend Makana had a bowling tournament there. 

    We'll start with the fault measuring, that's the least recent. It was the last geology class field trip. We went out to one of the lava flows from 1974. We had a few big measuring tapes and measured the distance in between pieces of steel that had been cemented into the rock, so that they move with the rock. Unfortunately I neglected to get a picture of those point things. The measuring tapes went to the tenth of a millimeter. The fault had moved around 2mm, maybe a little more since it was last measured, which was either last year or two years ago. I can't remember.

There's the fault, that cliff has formed by millimeters of creep over the last ~500 years

    We also measured the distance it had moved vertically, with this cool thing that was like a tripod mounted magnifying glass. Large rulers were held up on the points, which also went to the tenth of a millimeter. Then we used the magnifying thing to record the measurements, and took the difference between the new and old ones. It was cool. 

    The environment was pretty neat too. It was all forest before the lava came in in 1974. The dried lava (basalt to be specific, most of the island is made of basalt) has such an interesting sound when you're walking on it. It's loud and crackly and harsh, like walking on shards of glass. The rocks are super porous from the gas bubbles that were in the liquid lava, some with little stalactite things made from drops that hardened.

Photobomb from Otis

    I went to Kona (the largest city on the western side of Big Island) because my friend Makana is really good at bowling and had a tournament over there. It was me, him, and his friend Jordan, who I guess is my friend too.  The tournament wasn't so bad, but it was really chilly inside the building, so it actually was so bad. After that was pretty fun. 

    We went and cruised down the famous Ali'i drive in Kona. Lots of touristy shops and things there. The Hulihe'e palace is on Ali'i drive, though it doesn't look especially palatial. Still really neat, I think it's the first palace I've ever seen in person. There's also the oldest church in Hawai'i. 

Church

Palace

    We then went to Kealakekua Bay. Across the water you could see the obelisk where Captain Crook, I mean Captain Cook, died, and there was this random spot on the cliff where Makana said he thought King Kamehameha was buried. Nobody truly knows where Kamehameha is buried though. The people who buried him had to kill themselves after.

Top of the cliff

Bottom of the cliff

    I'm not really sure how I feel about the ocean. I really haven't spent much time by it, and haven't been all that eager to. On the east side it is nice to look out and just think about how there's no land for the next 2,500 miles. The ocean looms large. It instills quite the sense of solitude, and wonder too. What's down there? Maybe there's a ten foot tall man who eats sting rays. 

     But I don't know, whenever I'm at the ocean I just stare at it for a few minutes and that's it. It does not stare back, I leave. I'm more of a landlubber.

Mauna Kea is in the background

     Then began the third leg of the trip, up to Waikoloa resorts. This was probably the most interesting part. It's just like a town, but nobody lives there permanently. There's shops, lots of restaurants, a grocery store and a gas station, but no permanent residents. It's all hotels, timeshares, and B&Bs. It was a bit eerie honestly, to see an entire town where all the buildings are in great shape, and they all look similar and follow the theme. Curated, polished paradise.

    Going there made me more glad I came for my semester in Hilo, and got to see what life here is really like. At least what life is really like for a college student.

    The whole reason we went there was for shave ice, Makana said they have the best shave ice on the whole island, and I have to agree. The ice was so fine and so, so smooth. The shave ice place is called Original Big Island Shave Ice Company.

     So then comes Thanksgiving I guess. In the morning my family called, I talked with them for about an hour. That evening, I went to Thanksgiving dinner with Makana & his grandparents. They were super nice, and it was really special. His grandparents had never met me before, and to be a stranger accepted into someone's home like that was a really humbling experience. 

    It was a pretty traditional thanksgiving food-wise. We ate our dinner at a little table right next to the kitchen, with the Patriots vs Vikings game on in the background, then Wheel of Fortune. Their house wasn't very big, a little ranch house, & the somewhat closed floor plan really brought that out. It was decorated very grandparently. There were lots of pictures of grandchildren and relatives all over the house. The walls and surfaces had cute little signs, and decorations in that cookie tin art style. There was also some Japanese art. And well used furniture. 

    It reminded me of my grandparent's house in Green Township a bit, but smaller. It had that comfortable lived in quality, being a monument to decades of experience. 

    Mrs. Kohara sent me off with a bento of leftovers, a big bag of Hi-Chews, Chex mix, a mochi, and some sour pumpkins candy, which was orange flavored. I'm really lucky to have experienced such kindness and aloha. People are good.