Hawaii 2023 - Miloli'i and South of Kona

Gallery (35 images): Hawaii 2023 - Days 1 & 2

In mid August of 2023, a week after Emily and I got married, we were off to to the Big Island of Hawaii for our honeymoon. Following will be an excerpt from the above linked blog post about our wedding...

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For a few days at the start, my father joined us since he'd been wanting to revisit the memorial for my mother one more time, which is on the outskirts of the village of Miloli'i, on the Kona Coast, where my mother's ashes were scattered in the ocean back in 2008. A night shot of the memorial that I took in 2019 can be seen below. I am sad that my mother never had a chance to meet Emily. She was an artist herself and she and Emily would have had many fascinating discussions no doubt!



Being 92, travel is becoming more of a challenge for my father and that may well have been the last opportunity for him to visit the memorial with Emily and I. For more on this memorial, see this blog post of mine from 2019. Once my father flew back home we started our honeymoon proper, spending a few more days on the Kona Coast, then over to the east part of the island, staying just south of Hilo at a wonderful little private set of three walkway connected bungalows in the jungle.

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Oregon 2023 - Shaniko & Antelope

Gallery (30 images): Oregon 2023 - Day 5

On the last day of this trip, during our drive north, we stopped by the ghost town of Shaniko. There are still people living in Shaniko (30 as of 2020), but it is mostly deserted and there are numerous historic buildings. As you'll see in the gallery, I was fascinated by the "Chrysler Fluid Drive" emblem on an old car there, haha. Shaniko does have a hotel, and you can see it in the gallery where my Subaru Crosstrek is parked. For more photos of this quaint location, see the first twelve photos in my 2019 gallery here: 2019 Grand Canyon Trip - Days 1-3

After Shaniko, we drove onward to the town of Antelope and briefly stopped at the historic school there, built in 1925. The school is stated for restoration work to become a city hall / community centre. The last three photos in the gallery were taken inside a quirky little shop in Condon Oregon, called The Condon Local. There, they serve breakfast & lunch, have ice cream and milkshakes, have an espresso bar, sell vintage items and clothing, and have numerous little displays with antiques, like the old boxes of Kodak Developer Tubes shown in my photos. This was the last blog entry and gallery from our 2023 Oregon trip. Next up, photos from Hawaii later in 2023, when Emily and I were on our honeymoon!

Read: All the blog postings from my 2023 Oregon Trip

Oregon 2023 - Pine Mtn. and Paulina Lakes Obsidian Flow

Gallery (30 images): Oregon 2023 - Days 3 & 4

After the Painted Hills, we drove further south and camped up on Pine Mountain, where there is also an observatory run by the University of Oregon. After hiking to the top of Pine Mtn, we drove to Bend, where we had an amazing breakfast at The Victorian Cafe. Then, for the rest of the day, we drove around Bend, checking out some shops until camping at Skull Hollow to the north.

The next day we drove further south, stopping at the Bend REI and then heading to the Paulina Lakes at the Newberry National Volcanic Monument and hiking up the 1300 year old Big Obsidian Flow, which is actually the youngest volcanic lava flow in Oregon. The photo at the top of this blog post shows the edge of the massive basalt and volcanic glass lava flow and photo 29 in the gallery also shows how deep this flow is at its edge in spots, dwarfing some fairly tall trees right next to it. Photos 10, 20 and 27 show some good views of this black volcanic glass, which is formed by rapid cooling of magma which had minimal water and gas content, rapid enough to not allow the molten minerals to crystallize. After hiking around the obsidian flow and taking some photos, we started heading north again, through Bend and camping at the Postpile Campground on the Crooked River.

Read: All the blog postings from my 2023 Oregon Trip