Back to Hale Pohaku

I'm in one of my favourite places on the earth right now. I just arrived, 1.5 hours ago, after a magnificent drive up the winding Saddle road. Big island of Hawai'i has 12 different climate zones, and you cross a few of those on the way up. Hilo was humid and warm, and up here it is clear, chilly in the shadow, very warm in the sunlight and fairly low pressure (as an airplane). I'm sitting in a comfy chair with my ibook, after a great dinner at the HP, slightly short of breath, a little bit dizzy. Most of which is due to a pretty nasty cold I acquired the evening before I left (I literally could feel it hit me during the time of about 5 minutes. Nasty. So, I hope it will disappear tomorrow before I start my osberving run. It is so wonderful to be here again!!! I look out the windows, see the flat shape of Mauna Loa, the volcano that pretty much covers half the island, and I feel so happy! Even down in Hilo, at the JAC, I can feel that awesome feeling; it's the same feeling as at the Onsala observatory. Life is good.

It's impressive how far out from the mainland Hawai'i lies. I left Winnipeg early in the morning (7 am, in an CRJ200), went to Chicago and pretty much immediately boarded a B777, that brought me to Honolulu. Just for the record, I was only 3 minutes off the winning guess of when we'd reach the midpoint, a little competition United has on the way to HI. The entire flight was 8.5 hours, which is longer than it takes to go to Europe. But, since the flight is domestic, you better bring food or cash, or you'll be hungry... haha! United also have started charging a baggage fee, for every bag that you check, even the first one. From HNL, I flew a 717 with Hawaiian airlines to Hilo. Cool plane, although I was on the wrong side for seeing the Mauna Kea summit (the plane flies on exactly that height, so you see the observatories very distinctly. My ear never really recovered from this flight, and so I've been partially deaf since then, except for a little while on Saddle road, before they popped the other direction.