BOX 251: Hawai'i 7: Big Island and O'ahu.

Joe Milicia
May 10, 2023
5 min read

This photo of a stretch of the Ko'olau Mountains rising beyond the town of Kane'ohe was taken from the lanai of Bob and Tripit, Anne's brother and sister-in-law, in the early summer of 2004. Anne and I were on our seventh visit to Hawai'i and leading our second tour of the Big Island and O'ahu for students of UW-Sheboygan.

Our first guided tour, in 2002, had had nine students plus Anne and myself. This time we had six students plus our Spanish Professor, Alice Homstad, and her husband, Wayne. As before, we drove a rented van on both islands to visit cultural sites and natural settings, following pretty much the same itinerary as in 2002. Scanning the slides that I took during our trip, I see that I didn't take photos of most the spots we'd visited in 2002, so for a report on those places you'll need to consult BOX 236 and BOXES 237-238. But in 2004 I did take quite a few shots of the new volcanic activity on the Big Island. To start, here's a view almost identical to ones I have shown in several earlier Big Island posts: the Kilauea caldera, with the smaller Halema'uma'u crater in the background. I must have taken the photo from Volcano Lodge, where our group stayed (in the main building, if I recall correctly, not the enchanting little annex cottage where we'd stayed in 2002).

As before, we drove down the Chain of Craters Road to the ocean and along the coast until the road was blocked by recent lava flows:

But unlike our past trips, in 2004 some fresh lava could be seen up close only a short distance beyond this spot. National Park rangers guided visitors to where we could see the slow-moving lava glowing red beneath its silvery crust:

In the next photo you see some visitors (not our group) looking at the spectacle. The heat from the lava was intense, and just after this pic was taken, a gust of wind blew off the hat of one of those visitors: it landed at the edge of the lava and instantly incinerated. In the photo that follows, the flames are the remains of the hat:

I took three other photos of the lava:

Returning back toward Volcano House we stopped at various points higher up along the Chain of Craters Road. Here's a pic of three of our students with the ocean in the background. I'm very sorry to say that I remember the names of only two of the students from 2004--one of them is Kim, who had also taken our 2002 trip, and here is standing on the right:

A side road took us to a hardened lava flow from some years previous. Here we saw a couple of nene, the goose native to Hawai'i and the state bird:

We tried to get some close-up shots.

Back up at the rim of Kilauea, in a shot probably taken the next morning, you can see the slope of Mauna Loa:

And here are Alice and Wayne standing near the Halema'um'au crater. (In more recent years there have been eruptions in the crater, making this spot quite impossible to visit.)

From Volcanos National Park we drove down to Hilo, where, among other places, we visited Rainbow Falls on the edge of town. Here from a distance is our group at the overlook. The tall trees are a sight in themselves.

And here is the whole group posing for the camera, including Anne, second from left, then Kim; that's Craig in the Cubs hat, with Wayne and Alice on the right:

As for the falls we're standing near, here they are:

In Hilo we also stopped at the beautiful Liliuokalani Gardens near downtown. I've taken similar photos each of the times Anne and I visited Hilo--clearly I couldn't resist:

In one more shot of the Gardens three of our students are sitting in a pavilion:

We flew from Hilo to Honolulu, and stayed at a Waikiki hotel. During our first evening there were hula dancers near the Duke Kahanamoku statue at the beach--my pic is unfortunately a bit blurry, but I'll include it. One thing we did on this trip that was new for Anne and me as well as for those who joined us was to sign up for a swimming-with-dolphins experience on the Leeward Side of the island. This wasn't just a Sea World-type dip in a large pool but a plunge into Pokai Bay with snorkeling equipment. I don't have any photos of our sliding off the dive boat into the water, or of the dolphins or coral we saw from the water, but at least I have a couple of pics of the bay and surrounding hills:

. . . and two of spinner dolphin sightings before we went ourselves into the water:

At some later point on our trip I took a photo of four of the students at an overlook, probably along the coast beyond Hanauma Bay on the other side of O'ahu:

From there it appears that we drove along the Windward Side to the beach near Kualoa Ranch, with its views of the small island of Mokoli'i (aka Chinaman's Hat). In the next photo the island is at the very bottom-right of the frame:

Here it is again with three of our students:

Turning to the right, you would see this view:

Since our previous visit to O'ahu Bob and Tripit had moved from Wilhelmina Rise--where their view had looked out upon Diamond Head, Waikiki and the ocean--to Kane'ohe, where their lanai had the view you see at the top of this post. Here's a shot of part of the lanai itself:

Our group was invited over to their house one afternoon. Here are a couple of shots of some of us sitting on the lanai as sunset approached:

Not a real seagull in the second pic. Also, here's Bob, standing on the right, with a friend of his visiting that afternoon as well. The campus group left for home soon after, while Anne and I stayed a while longer; but I took one more group photo, at Honolulu Airport before they boarded:

One afternoon on our own Anne and I visited Shangri-La==the 1930s home of the tobacco billionaire and arts patron Doris Duke, now the Shangri-La Museum of Islamic Arts, Culture & Design, with guided tours managed by the Honolulu Academy of Arts. Here's a portion of the mansion, located oceanside near Diamond Head:

And here, visitors are standing on the seaside lanai:

This is what they were seeing beyond the railing:

And here are a few more shots of Shangri-La, mainly of the various water features:

I don't have any pics of the Islamic Art which fills the interiors--maybe photography was not permitted.

One day we hiked with Bob and Tripit up to a waterfall they knew about. The hike took us uphill beneath a jungly canopy:

The lower parts of the waterfall were filled with blossoming flowers:

I took what would have been a good photo of Bob and Tripit sitting at the foot of the main falls, but it's too unfocused to share here. What did turn out were some pics of perfect strangers who were also at the falls==a couple of them were posing in graduation outfits: