fresh off the boat!

 We arrived in Kona and made it to the nice little retirement/condo gated community where Beth’s company has a condo on Tuesday afternoon.  Its super cheesy, and I wouldn't want to live here,  but a nice place to land in!  We woke up at 5 Wednesday morning (5 hours behind MN here) and walked to the beach (5 mins!) to watch the sunrise with our coffee.  It was longer than I expected from what I've heard of the tropical twilight.  This is big sky country! nothing but the ocean out there.  There was a rainstorm moving through somewhere over the ocean, so there were plenty of clouds to make all pink and purpley.  There were already 3 surfers out-- I think beth and I are going to like stand-up paddleboarding.  It looks like a good intro to surfing, using some of our canoeing skillz. It's already getting warm here at 9 AM.  The sun gets up high and zaps down around here, I think.  

The flight over here was wild.  We flew over the insanely dry and rugged desert between Phoenix and LA.  That is not a place for people.  Then north along the coast just long enough to get a really good view of LA, the valley, and Catalina island. that was cool.  then 6 hours of nothing but massive impenetrable blue ocean with a few clouds poofing up in places. Then, there is this mountain just sloping super gradually up out of the ocean, like it was just feet below the surface the whole time.  Very casual. no indication it was coming.  like it could have been anywhere it wanted  Not what I expected the tallest mountain in the world to look like.  it was very cool. 

Then, the lava flow where the airport is built looked like the moon, or mars, or some kind of desolate nuclear wasteland.  Just jagged brown and black lava flows over jagged brown and black lava flows.  with lots more topography than I expected.  20 foot tall collapsed caves of lava in the essentially planar field. very few plants.  Beth thinks it is 10 years old.  I would think it could be over 100 and still look the same. (Update: the map says “Lava flow of 1801.”  Maybe I misheard her)

This is a crazy chunk of planet, from what I can tell so far.  You'll have to come see for yourself! (all we've seen of the town so far is a very typically american big box edge of town drive from the airport, and a very touristy downtown)