Going To Hawaii

I read an article (like this one) about medical research showing that people who take regular vacations are healthier and live longer than people (like me) who don't. "Let's go on a vacation." I said to Leslie afterwards.

We decided to spend a week in Hawaii. Afterwards Leslie would join a cruise on the Oscar Elton Sette, a NOAA ship, and I would return home to the cats and the dog and the music copying.

The primary purpose of the cruise is to collect trash - mostly loose drift nets - from the ocean near the Northwest Hawaiian Islands Monument. Leslie was asked to go along to identify little sea critters.


Much of my vacation time involves taking pictures with my new camera. The other travelling pictures are on Flickr here. As I cull my favorite shots I'll be posting them to this page at Flickr in various categories. Check it out. I'll also post a few here as teasers.

So far I've posted pictures from the first day. It began at Los Angeles International Airport, a strange place where toilets flush themselves, bars are open all day and bookstores are crowded at 7 in the morning.

After much sitting and waiting and sitting we arrived in Hilo, Hawaii, a different sort of strange place on the Big Island. We ended the day looking east over the Pacific Ocean.

Someone (like me) who has only seen the Pacific Ocean from California might be surprised to discover himself sitting right in the middle of it looking at it from the wrong direction. They tell me that's a good reason for taking a vacation - to get a new point of view.



Travel Tags: travel. . . LAX. . . Hawaii. . . NOAA. . . Northwest Hawaiian Islands