First Day in Hawaii: The Big Island

Hilo, HI, Wednesday, March 15, 2017. This was our first port of call in Hawaii. We were up early and sighted land just as the day broke. In fact, we first saw Hawaii from the lights of the towns along the shore. It was an amazing sunrise to the East, as the sun came up and immediately passed behind a cloud.

Telescopes on Mauna Kea

We could see the first rays on the tallest volcano, Mauna Kea. Atop this dormant volcano is located the Keck Telescopes, which take advantage of the (mostly) cloudless 14,000-foot altitude to gain almost as good view of the stars as can be achieved by the Hubble. Some snow can still be seen at the top

Our only tour of the big island (both the island and the state are called Hawaii, so people call the largest island “the big island” to distinguish) was a hike across Kilauea Iki crater. This was about a half-hour drive from the ship in the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. Kilauea is one of the two active volcanoes on the big island – the other being the much taller Mauna Loa. Kilauea has only craters or “caldera”, and not mountainsides. It’s just a depression in the landscape. The largest caldera has an even deeper depression which has the open lava pool. Because the lava continues to erupt in the crater, Kilauea is classified as the most active volcano in the world.

The smaller or “Iki” caldera is all solidified (it last erupted in 1959), and visitors can hike across it. It’s a 500 foot climb down to the floor, about 1.5 miles across, and another 500 feet of switchbacks to climb out. You can see our path behind the picture with my eyes shaded by the ballcap. The path led along the rim and past the promontory. The picture of Ken & Robbie was taken from that promontory. That’s the 1959 lava flow behind us in the picture. We then moved down the slope at the back of the picture and crossed the caldera floor through the “gap” that you can see. The smoke on the left side comes from the lava pond in the main caldera. The broad peak in the background is Mauna Loa.

Robbie was a trooper on the climb out. The group was mostly younger than us, and decided to do the climb without stopping. I remember when I did this climb back in 2013 I had to stop several times to catch my breath. But, despite my suggestion that we could stop, she just motored on to the top. That’s probably why we don’t have any pictures of us on the way up.

While we crossed the caldera, there were lots of evidence that this is an active volcano. For one thing, the ground was somewhat warmer than one might expect. And there were places where stream would vent from the cracks in the asphalt-like surface.

We also saw some interesting plants that are only native to Hawaii. This flowering bush is, unfortunately, being killed off by a fungus. It is similar to the “sudden oak death” fungus that killed the oak tree in our front yard. There is no known cure, and in future years these attractive flowers may be gone entirely.

After the visit to the Kilauea Iki we crossed the road and walked down to a large “lava tube”.

Lava Tube

These are long caves through which lava would flow on its way to the sea. This one had a floor built in and lighting so that you could walk through it. It was just like walking through a man-made tunnel. We only went through part of it, but there are lava tubes today that extend for over a mile into the ocean. In fact there are pictures (on the internet) of a lava fountain that is flowing into the ocean right now.

Kilauea Crater

After our visit to Hawaiian Volcanoes National Park we went to the Mauna Loa Macadamia Nut Farm. This is an obligatory tourist stop. It was a long drive through the macadamia trees – perhaps a mile long. Macadamia nuts are harvested off the ground when they fall. They are shelled and roasted at the factory here, and prepared with flavors or coating. We also enjoyed some macadamia nut ice cream, just to keep up our energy.

Macadamia Nut Factory

Our last stop on the island of Hawaii was Rainbow Falls. When the sun shines there is (sometimes) a rainbow. Alas, for us, it was cloudy during our visit so we just have a beautiful waterfall.

Rainbow Falls

It was a warm evening as we sailed out of Hilo into the sunset. We sailed for several hours along the north coast of the island, and watched as the towns turned on their lights, and the towns and settlements got smaller and smaller. At the northern tip, there are no roads and, thus, the shore is dark. We sailed through calm seas to Oahu.

Departing Hilo

Our Pearl Harbor Visit

We visited Pearl Harbor on March 16, 2017. We took a launch to visit the USS Arizona, we went by shuttle bus to Ford Island to visit the USS Missouri, and we had a few minutes to visit the submarine memorial and see the USS Bowfin (a WW II submarine).

Arizona Memorial and USS Missouri in the background

The Wahoo, lost in the Sea of Japan, was one of the most famous submarines of WW II.

We had a beautiful, calm day to visit the Arizona.

Oil still seeps from the Arizona. It is said that the ship weeps for its crew, and will stop when the last survivor dies.

Robbie and Ken from the Arizona Memorial with Mighty Mo in the background.

The "Surrender Deck" of the Missouri. It was next to #1 Turret and not the fantail.

Plaque marking the location of the Japanese surrender. Here, MacArthur said the famous words, "These proceedings are closed."

Robbie at the entrance to the Missouri.

We noticed that, while Japanese visitors were a significant portion of the group visiting to the Arizona, the Missouri tour was filled with mostly Americans. Go figure.

We also did a sunset cruise past Waikiki to Diamond Head.

Honolulu on the left, the Grand Princess on the right

At left: Diamond Head

Waikiki Beach Hotels and Diamond Head

Sailboat in the setting sun

Hilton Sailboat Crosses the Setting Sun

40th Wedding Anniversary in Paris

We’re returning from Paris and our 40^th Anniversary Weekend. It was a whirlwind weekend in which we enjoyed some really wonderful tours. We used Context Tours, which allowed us to schedule our own tours and offer them as group tours. As it was, nobody joined us on any of our five tours, so we had private tour guides all weekend. These were:

• Saturday afternoon at The Louvre. We got the “crash course” from a medieval history professor. We saw it all: antiquities (carvings and other objects from Babylon and Mesopotamia), Greek and Roman sculpture, renaissance painting, and Dutch, Italian, and French paintings. We saw Venus de Milo, Winged Victory, and the Mona Lisa. We also saw the Hammurabi code, Madonna on the Rocks, the Reubens gallery of Marie de Medici paintings, and the fortress walls in the basement. We were delighted with the tour.

• Saturday evening on the Left Bank. We went through many Left Bank neighborhoods and had an extended discussion with a PhD student on the history of Paris. It was a Roman settlement, and there are still extant Roman baths. We also saw the Pantheon, the Sorbonne, and the Saint Suplice fountain plaza. Our guide, Frank, told us how the Sorbonne went out of existence officially in 1968, when universities were made (a) free and (b) unified under the “University of Paris” name. Free tuition creates its own set of problems: anybody can go to any university. They must pass an exam at the end of the semester in order to move past the first year, and that weeds some people out. Still, there are many graduating with worthless (or near-worthless) degrees. Jobs are scarce. 
  

• A Right Bank tour that showed us the courtyards of the Louvre, the Pompidou center, the Royal Palace and Royal Gardens, and the Opera. This included the Au Pied de Cochon (Pig’s Foot) restaurant, markets (Les Halles), and the world’s first shopping mall (1770).
  
• A Hemingway walk that allowed me to finally see where Hemingway moved to Paris for the first time in 1922. (I missed this last year by a few steps – it’s behind the Café Descartes and I turned the wrong way).  We saw where he wrote and walked, where he drank and gathered with friends, and where he got ideas for his four novels. Hemingway was not very nice to the people who helped him, and was particularly nasty to those who helped him most. His main novel written in Paris was The Sun Also Rises. He also wrote, at the end of his life, A Movable Feast. 
• Our final tour was a chocolate tasting tour. It was led by Cassandra, a young woman from California, who was working in Paris as a pastry chef. I enjoyed this thoroughly.
  
  The chocolates were delectable. We went from the most traditional (and longest-lived) chocolate store in Paris (and maybe the world!) to the most modern and innovative chocolate boutique. They had the appearance of diamond stores or goldsmiths, and the chocolate was delectable. Along the way we enjoyed a traditional maker of macaroons (a French pastry made of tasty filling between two meringue halves), a modern macaroon shop, the shop of the Breton inventor of salted caramel, a Belgian chocolate shop, and a store that sold only cream puffs – made to order. We’ve had cream puffs before, and I always found them a bit bland. The flavor in the cream filling of these was amazing! I had chocolate and Robbie had caramel and the flavor burst in your mouth. And, as the pastry was left unfilled until the time of purchase, it never got soggy.
  

The coup de grace of our trip, however, was on the evening of our anniversary. We booked a river cruise on the Seine. We chose a smaller boat, Le Carife, which began boarding around 8PM and raised the roof awning at about 8:40. We were able to watch the sun set on Notre Dame, the evening lights come up along the river, musicians of all types – buskers to planned parties, and passed under numerous bridges. Parisians celebrate nightfall with panache, and it became clear why Paris came to be called the City of Light. By 10PM we were cruising by the Eifel Tower, which switches from its intricate line of lights along the triangular trusses to a riot of sparkles on the hour. The boat reached its western turn around at the model statue of liberty, and circled the sculpture. The wine, the food (Robbie had lamb, I had duck) was superb. 

More pictures are available at my photo-bucket page.

Fall 2014

Callander Drive, Veterans' Day, 2014.

It's a beautiful day, and I'm enjoying sitting out on our new front porch. I published on Facebook this morning a picture of the porch with the American flag, but all day I've been flying the Navy flag.  On most of the rest of the days I fly the stars and stripes, so today I'll announce my status as an officer in the United States Navy.

I've been spending much of my fall preparing to teach a course next semester in system dynamics. Preparing for a course the first time is a labor of love: there is no way this works out to a minimum wage! But, the advantage is that when the course runs the second time, the amount of work involved is about 10%. It's especially true for courses where the textbook is rarely updated. This textbook was last revised in 2000.

Next week I begin to work as a consultant in support of US Marine Corps operational analysis. This will absorb the bulk of my free time (especially if I don't have all these lectures finished). It works out well because, as you can see in the picture, the leaves have nearly left the trees and the winter weather will close in soon enough.

I'll try to link more of the photos of the front porch here.

The Concept of Time in Renaissance Italy

Bologna, Italy (June 23, 2014). In the decade after Galileo was placed under house arrest (in 1632), the church had come to a realization that it made a mistake. Church leaders needed to make predictions that depended on knowing several important astronomical facts. In particular, they needed to know exactly how long the year was, and whether the sun moved across the sky at varying speeds. The latter problem would help answer the question of whether the seasons were exactly equal. In addition, Kepler had already introduced the idea that orbits might be elliptical instead of circular, and this created the need to know exactly how far the sun was from the Earth at various points of the year.

The Meridian Line in San Petronio Basilica, Bologna. At noon the sun
crosses this line. It crosses at different points during the year.

Now, if Galileo and Kepler were heretical -- and their hypotheses incorrect -- then there would be no reason to ask these questions. And, there would be no reason to place solar-observing instruments in churches in Bologna and elsewhere. Yet, they did. The meridian line in San Petronio was installed first in 1648 (but not corrected for accuracy until twenty years later).

Such was the background for a week-long course and sightseeing trip to Emilia Romagna with two of Cornell's most distinguished professors, Martha Haynes and Riccardo Giovanelli. (More to follow...)