HAWAII!!

Today was a ridiculous(ly awesome) day.
It started early, with a departure time from our hotel at 7:30am, with all sights set on LAX from which we were preparing to fly to Hawaii. It took a ridiculous amount of time to get our ridiculous amount of luggage checked, and I think we got some strange looks from the other passengers for all of the large black plastic boxes we were carrying with us. I thought security would be ridiculous as well, since half of us didn’t even know what we had in our carry-on cases (the joke conversation of: “What’s in here? I don’t know, it isn’t mine, someone just handed it to me and told me to take it on the plane, etc…” happened a lot), but somehow we all made it through okay. Apparently spectrometers aren’t actually that shady after all.
The flight was relatively uneventful as well, especially after all the flying I’ve done in the last few weeks. But it was a GIGANTIC plane, with little TVs in every seat, though the only free movies available were documentaries about Hawaii made some time in the 90s (still interesting though!). After landing, the first twenty minutes were spent frantically trying to count those shady plastic black cases to make sure we hadn’t lost anything in transit. As far as I know, they all made it through relatively unscathed, and after another hour or so of some sort of transportation figuring-out, we finally got out of the airport and into the unbelievably wonderful beauty that is Hawaii!
The way the islands work out, the winds come in from the north-east (I think, can’t remember exactly), bringing with them rain and clouds that get all clogged up in the mountains and consequently rain out everything right there. The result is that the north-eastern side of the island is lush and tropical, while the south-western side is more arid. We drove between both in about twenty minutes. The vegetation was slowly growing more dense as we went, until we went through a tunnel and suddenly emerged in the Hawaii that I’ve seen in pictures. Because of the rain on the northeastern edge, the rate of erosion has produced extremely sheer, extremely tall cliffs broken up by cave openings and patches of forest. That’s on one side of the road, and on the other is the ocean and beach, equally attractive, so I spent a lot of time turning my head back and forth in the car.
The place we’re staying at here is absolutely awesome. It’s a working barn, meaning that horses are our neighbors, and we’re staying in the gigantic space above it. It’s a really giant room with large balconies, a few separated bedrooms, a bar, hammocks, and TONS of big screen TVs. I don’t even know what you would use so many TVs for, but definitely a sight to see when you’re staying above a barn.
For dinner we had authentic Hawaiian food (I think…?). Rice and a sort of baked chicken prepared by our wonderful hosts who are allowing us to stay on their property for the next three weeks. I felt a little bad eating the chicken while watching chickens on the other side of the property, and I’m slightly afraid that I ate someone’s brother. It may or may not answer the question of why all the chickens were crossing the road…
There are a few more brilliant points about staying here: 1) Lots of animals. Horses, cows (bulls!), dogs, the aforementioned chickens, possibly some pigs, and a goat that was sitting in a golf cart when we first arrived. And 2) proximity to the beach. It’s less than a mile away! We went swimming this evening, and the beach was ridiculously shallow, so no matter how far out I swam (I don’t like touching ocean bottoms without water shoes when I can’t see them), I couldn’t find a place where I couldn’t touch the bottom. I guess that’s the business for a day swim, then.

Tomorrow we’re going to start exploring the valley where we’ll be collecting data, and I’m super excited to actually see it in person! (You can only get so far with Google StreetView). Hopefully I’ll have a lot to write about tomorrow. Until then, goodnight!

Our extremely impressive collection of stuff.