Dawn over Hilo and Kuhio Bays delivered colorful dawns because of the clouds. Waking on our third morning, however, the clouds were thicker and more ominous. Weather generally arrives from the east, after all. Outdoor activities seemed like a bad idea. By this time I’d learned the clouds keep moving; one hour’s clouds do not the day’s weather make. We did collect a few drops later in the day, but the gnarly-looking cloud in the photo here passed by dryly.
More to come for Day 3.
After visiting ‘Akaka Falls, we drove northward (which actually is northwestward) along the coast until we came to Waimea where we admired true free-range chickens and had lunch. I marveled at how dry it had become. The fields as we approached were pastures with cattle at times. Upon our return to Hilo, a day’s-end beer and sunset awaited us.
On our second full day in Hawai’i, we arrived to ‘Akaka Falls State Park near midday. We paid to park in front of the entrance rather than along the road as some did, paid for entrance, and received a warning from a woman there that the trail required one to go up and down more than 600 steps. Her warning wasn’t an empty one: for nearly a month after our visit I experienced a sharp pain in my left knee when I went up or down stairs. I later learned construction on the path forced us to take the long way around a loop trail, in essence covering three times the normal distance. This trail descends to a stream, crosses it, climbs again on the other side, basically cresting a ridge obliquely to be above Kolekole Stream which plunges 442 feet at ‘Akaka Falls. One hears but does not see a variety of birds. Foliage is lush, a result of the near-constant rain (measured best in feet). It sprinkled on and off while we visited.
If you find yourself on the Big Island, and most especially if you stay on the east side in or near Hilo, a must stop (for the physically fit) is Akaka Falls State Park. As you head north to that park–only 15 miles distant, a very easy drive–just past Paukaa you’ll see a typically yellow/orange/ochre, diamond-shaped highway sign telling you that to your right is a “Scenic Highway” with a little sign beneath that says it’s four miles in length. Hopefully someone in your car (perhaps you?) will say as my wife did, “Let’s take that!” When you jerk the steering wheel to the right in the Papaikou census area (pop 1314), you’ll be on the Old Mamalahoa Highway.
These aren’t my best photos. Skies were overcast. Dense tropical foliage made it dark everywhere. Green predominates. The road twists, turns, offers few places to just pull over to grab a photo.
Halfway in we stopped at the Hawai’i Tropical Botanical Garden. It looked interesting, and it had restrooms. Our interest waned when faced with admission prices of $30/each and the prominent display of mosquito repellant for sale right beside the register. Translated from “customer-eze”, the signs basically said, “You’re a fool if you don’t apply repellant.” I’m sure it’s a wonderful point of interest: it features a valley down to the ocean with 2,500 species of plants. Nevertheless, we drove on. We stopped soon after when we found a bridge and a wide spot to pull off the road.
I had become fascinated by a orange-red flower growing high in the canopy. At this stop we found ourselves above some of these trees, permitting me to photograph them:
Driving north as we did, one suddenly pops out of the dense foliage and into a grassy pasture area on the edge of Pepeekeo. Joining the main highway, we drove on to Akaka Falls.
Our room at our Hilo hotel afforded me a delightful perk because it faced Hilo bay and its breakwater. I hadn’t realized only the larger rooms faced this direction–just a lucky pick, I guess. I’ve always had a curiosity about boats and ships, but especially commercial ships. I’ve never had a desire to work on a ship–heck, I barely want to be on one at all. Maybe that’s what makes it intriguing to see ships plying their trade in coastal waters.
After checking in to the Grand Naniloa hotel on a Tuesday, we witnessed a Norwegian Cruise Lines ship leaving the bay at dusk (above). By Wednesday morning I realized the passage in the breakwater lay to the west of us, but moorage lay to the east. Therefore, all of the ships passed our balcony in a leisurely fashion, guided by two tugs. (Astute readers will note the commercial docks in all my sunrise photos posted to date.) Within 24 hours I learned this would be a frequent feature of our visit.
I never did figure out the exact roles of the two tugs. One always headed out after the first one, and one always peeled off and headed back to the dock as they guided the ship in–leaving the other tug to finish the job.
They worked at night too….
Getting ready to leave, again on a Tuesday, we managed to complete the cycle: the Pride of America returned to stay docked all day before heading out again on a Tuesday evening. We left a few hours later, but I still see it as I write these words, magical perhaps to no one but me.
I felt drawn to making a pithy statement about the symbolism of the leaves with their green and red, but sometimes you just need to let leaves be leaves.
Since our hotel suite had a small range, pots/pans, and dishes, after our morning walk on the first day, we visited the downtown Hilo KTA Super Store, a funky grocery that reminded me of rural groceries which need to be a little bit more of everything for their customers. A guy at breakfast had described getting to a grocery, but I think I didn’t understand him because a flashy new Safeway and a much spiffier version of a KTA existed a similar distance to the southwest…but we went northwest, and I was glad we did. We dodged the raindrops which had threatened all morning, and as we shopped, I saw many products I’d never seen before, including….
[In our continuing series, Cranky Old Man Yells At Clouds, today we again tackle the tough Time issue. For other time-rants, see here and here.]
This morning, November 3rd, 2024, I rose at 6:16 a.m. according to our two bedside clocks. Dressing and walking to the kitchen, I noted the analog kitchen clock concurred, as did the digital clock on the stove (except when the now-failed crossbar made an “8” look like a “0”). For some reason the microwave got confused and reported the time actually was two hours and 50 minutes prior. All of these timepieces and presumably the clock on the deck, the clock in the guest bedroom, and the clock on the fireplace mantel backed the majority opinion: 6:16 a.m.
My cellphone, however, said I had risen earlier–it was still prior to 5:30 a.m. It reflected the common and legal opinion that an extra hour had appeared overnight during which no time passed. For the rest of 2024, time would be measured on Standard Time.
This clock conflict didn’t bother me. It’s been dark for weeks when I rise. The sun rose today approximately 90 minutes after I did, and it did the same yesterday. My wife and I ate breakfast about an hour later than we usually do on a Sunday, but our breakfast times are flexible these days, and we’re not going to church because we’re still quarantining due to Covid. My day so far has run its course normally, and the only effect of this time change will be making sure we tune into our church services at a specific time which the kitchen clocks would say is 11:30 a.m., but my connected clocks (phone, desktop computer, etc.) will say is 10:30 a.m.
You could argue my cavalier approach to this time change results from my retired state, and you would be partially correct. Few things happen at set times in my day anymore. But even when my day revolved around “getting to work” and “catching a plane,” I’ve looked at time as a voluntary measurement. I don’t need to order my life by it. For nearly 30 years I have rarely used an alarm clock to make myself get up at a certain time. They exist primarily as safety nets to make sure I don’t oversleep, and usually the mere act of setting a morning alarm will suffice to wake me just prior to the nasty thing interrupting my sleep. I mention all of this not to brag about how wonderfully I deal with time, but to explain a relationship to it which causes me to blow a few gaskets twice a year.
Each year about this time we’re subjected to some of the lamest reportage, critical thinking, and general common sense that we see all year–except for the commensurate period in late winter/early spring when it rears its foolish head and reverses its so-called logic (sometimes). I’m talking about all the nonsense you’ll read about Leaping Forward in time when we go to Daylight Saving Time, and when we Fall Back to Standard Time on the first weekend in November.
I’m not talking about the ill effects many people report from the shift in timekeeping. These effects align with everything we know about a body’s rhythms and the general circadian rhythms of most creatures on this planet. One shouldn’t wonder that attempting to stick to a personal schedule which has been artificially shifted an hour would have an impact on the person attempting it. No, what I’m talking about are all the inane things said about Time when earnest people lose their literary way. Here’s an example written by a presumably respected reporter for the New York Times on November 2, 2024, in a morning newsletter I received:
I know, it’s just one hour. How one spends it or doesn’t is hardly determinative of whether they’re making the most of their time on earth. But the scarcity of daylight this time of year does make every hour feel that much more valuable.
from the New York Times Morning Brief — author’s name omitted for decency’s sake
Making the most of your time means you’re looking at Time as a Real Thing, something which can be rationed like oats or good whisky or the chocolates in a one-pound sampler. You’re looking into the future and saying, in essence, “this hour coming up is a gift and I have to be sure to spend it wisely.” Okay, let’s just set aside the easily demonstrable fact that none of us lives in the future. “Now” is now, it’s always now, and focusing on the future remains an efficient method for not living mindfully in the present. Regardless, most of do make plans. We’ll give Ms. Kirsch a pass on this one. We’ll also let her unpack with her therapist this need to do something with that extra hour. Perhaps her parents raised her to “make something of herself”? I’ve succumbed to this state of mind many a time, but I’ve found great satisfaction in being what I am.
Instead, let’s consider the statement at the end, the one about daylight’s scarcity making each hour feel more valuable. Huh. Daylight hours are valuable, nighttime’s aren’t? I was unaware I cannot do anything when the sun sets. I guess overachievers everywhere violate some social norm when we rise 90 minutes prior to the sun and write things like this. More seriously, you can perhaps feel a certain pressure to use this extra hour for some purpose, but predicating that pressure on the sun’s daily appearance ties two things together which have nothing to do with each other. In New York City, where I believe she lives from other things she has written, the sun will be in the sky ten hours and 19 minutes today. Yesterday it lingered for three more minutes. This process has been happening so gradually, one wonders exactly when this “scarcity of daylight” made its presence known. After the vernal equinox? When the author realized in late August that sun shone for only twelve minutes more than half the day, but in June it had done so for more than three hours? (All measurements here are based on Manhattan in 2024 as recorded on timeanddate.com.) This so-called scarcity of daylight doesn’t seem to have bothered her too much a week ago when it was all of about 20-25 minutes more than it will be today.
No, I have little empathy for a person who feels this extra hour represents something mildly momentous and not to be taken lightly. She opens with the idea of just sleeping an extra hour–“sleep as much as you need to!” I want to shout–adding that as she sets her clocks back on Saturday evening, she will anticipate “that brief moment of confused excitement tomorrow when I wake and check the time: It’s 7, no wait, it’s actually 6!” Putting aside the fact that this undercuts the beginning of the very same sentence–you just said you’re setting the clocks back, so you can’t look at 7 and think it’s 6!–I will grant her the idea of an extra hour on this weekend motivates me too, but not as if it represents some life-changing moment. Rather it’s analogous to the feeling I get when a surprise rain shower eliminates a plan to work in the yard and thereby grants me an hour or two to do something unplanned. But immediately after the quote above, she writes a sentence which buried within it contains what I think might be a common belief which is just plain wrong:
As we enter the final two months of the year, thoughts naturally turn to how we’re filling our days. [same source]
I hope I’m reading that incorrectly. Why do one’s thoughts turn “naturally” to this? (Mine don’t.) Has it something to do with the End of the Year, another silly time construct? Is it because we’re approaching Christmas and other holidays, many of which have an element of self-examination? It seems to imply our author thinks November and December are the darkest months, coming as it does on the heels of lamenting the scarcity of daylight. No, no, you poor, benighted columnist. Today, Nov. 3, 2024, is 48 days prior to the winter solstice. Another 48 days after the solstice will be February 7, 2025. Ignoring that the solstice really isn’t the shortest amount of daylight in the year all the time–that’s intermediate temporal mechanics; we’ll get to that in our next course–you won’t see a speck more daylight for 96 days! That’s a lot more scarcity than just two months. It’s three with a handful of days left over.
Buried in another paragraph, our writer brings out one of the bigger fallacies about changing the clocks: that somehow having an hour “moved” to the evening or morning will have a meaningful impact on one’s life. See if you can spot it:
“Every first Sunday in November, I contemplate becoming a different, better person, one who gets up one hour earlier to meditate or exercise or meal-prep. I could be the person who spends an hour journaling, or fixing a large, healthy breakfast or taking the dog for a brisk walk in the cold dark. ” [same source]
If you get up one hour earlier, it’s just one hour earlier in the same day. It’s coming from somewhere. Are you going to bed earlier in the evening? Or are you cheating yourself out of an hour’s sleep? Are you going to tell your employer you’ll be in the office one hour less so that you can have a full evening, a decent night’s sleep, and still start a meditation practice before breakfast each day? I suspect, however, our author thinks that somehow an extra hour has ‘appeared’ in the morning. “Look, y’all, I used to get up right now according to the clock, but right now is only 5:30 a.m., not 6:30 a.m. I’ve got an extra hour! Yippee!” (Insert reference to Spinal Tap and “turning it up to 11.”)
Let’s bring this diatribe to a close. Let’s all try to realize daylight lessens from summer solstice to winter solstice, and that each day’s length mirrors another on either side of the solstice (either solstice, it doesn’t matter). Every day, every moment, moves the same: the length of the sun’s presence above the horizon added to the length of its absence always runs about 24 hours (if you absolutely must measure it). When we live artificially in the Timescape instead of the reality of the Dayscape, we suddenly think “Oh, I’ve lost an hour,” in March and “Oh, I’ve gained an hour,” in November, but really, truly nothing has changed. Let go of that desperate grip on Time. It’s okay. You won’t fall. You’ll still be here…just like always.
Our first full day in Hawai’i on the Big Island, we woke to mostly cloudy skies–not surprising considering we were on the rainy side of the island and we’d arrived to Hilo Airport under a solid overcast. As is our wont, we spent our first morning lazily, eventually venturing forth to explore our near surroundings. Here, it meant taking a walk around the western half of Waiakea Peninsula. Our hotel sat on the northernmost tip of the peninsula, situated on pretty grounds, so we started there.
After touring the property, fencing forced us to the road in front of the hotel, Banyan Drive, so-called because 75-90 years ago a bunch of folks planted banyan trees to line it. Every time we drove in and out of the property we traveled Banyan Dr, making it one of the cool pieces of Hawai’i for me. Banyan trees are huge:
Our perambulations took us to a small park which culminated in Coconut Island, a spit of an island which took it in the teeth when a tsunami hit in 1960. (The somewhat famous Tsunami Clock is located nearby.) By now I had started cursing my brother who talked about the gloriously comfortable weather where humidity gets balanced by near-constant breezes. Our shirts were getting soaked. Temps were running close to 90 as the clock approached noon. As North Carolinians we’re very experienced with gray, overcast skies accompanying warm, humid conditions. We learned later this weather pattern wasn’t normal.
Our last stop consisted of wandering Lili’uokalani Gardens, a Japanese-style layout with plenty of Hawai’ian flora–at least I took it to be native. Who knows? Asking around later, I learned the park lies so low, so near Hilo Bay, that Waihonu Pond and other low-lying areas fill with extra water from the high tides. It prevented us from walking some of the paths.
While meeting with a representative from the company which recently installed a natural front yard for us, we watched a red-shouldered hawk sitting in our white oak tree. It sat there five minutes, flew a small circle through the neighbor’s trees, and returned for another ten minutes. Unlike my usual luck–it flew that circle just as I returned with my phone–after it returned, it remained there so long I grabbed a half dozen photos, finished with the landscape rep, ran downstairs for my 50x zoom, and captured another couple shots on that camera. I’ve yet to download it.
I get confused between Cooper’s and Red-shouldered hawks, but noted that Cooper’s don’t have the mottled white pattern on the wings that this one does. Also, all those skreeeee’s I hear aren’t Cooper’s, according to Audubon. If that’s the case, most hawks I see around our little copse of trees are Red-shouldered.
all the voices in my head 