Hawaii, installment #1

Aloha from the Big Island of Hawaii!! We're on day 3 of the grand adventure. The flight over was long...we got delayed out of Oakland by about 2 hours. But it's only gotten better since then. Billy, Laure and their son Max, great friends of Justin's that we are staying with, have been fantastic. It's really nice to have personal tour guides around the island. They live in Wiamea, which is more on the northern part of the island. Saturday we drove northeast for about 20 minutes and spent the day on a beautiful white-sands beach. Although overcast, we got lots of sun. Funny the weather over here...some places are always wet with huge tropical plants, while other areas are drier and have desert vegetation. But for the most part, it's really cloudy and likes to start spitting rain between 3 and 4 in the afternoon. Yesterday we got up early and drove north to the Po lu lu Valley. We hiked down the valley to a just fantastic black-sands beach where the waves crashed far out from the shore. Amazing...a site I've only seen in the movies. Here's a few pics to illustrate the first two days here.

Galena Creek

Here's a few pics from Galena Creek from last weekend. We were there installing a precipitation jug for Justin's Ph. D work. This creek was really hauling some butt!!

Blurring pic...crazy tree.

Constructing the precipitation jugs.

Installed precipitation jug...plus a weird guy :o)

Visited States

Rob's friend, Josh, had a version of this map on his blog. Highlighted states indicate which states I've visited. And just being in the airport doesn't count. My criteria was if I spent a night there or at least have driven through a section of the state. I may have been through a few more of the eastern states when I was younger...I just can't remember. Maybe Mom and Dad can shed some light on that for me. I'll be soon able to add HAWAII to the list!! 3 days and counting!

I've updated the map with, for a second time, other visited states since the original post.

River beginnings

Back in the day, rivers used to start when streams drained a watershed and flowed into a single channel. Today, however, many rivers begin below a dam. I grew up calling the Kinzua Reservoir up at camp "the lake". No...it's just a flooded valley holding water to form the Allegheny River. Similarly, these pictures depict the beginning of the Boise River below a dam. Those Idaho people like to put messages on their dams.

The Willy rapid series

Here's just a fun progression of Willy pics from our time on the Payette river outside of Boise. hahaha

Boise, ID

Last weekend Justin, Willy and I made a trip up to Boise, ID. Justin owns a house there...so we went to check in on the house and visit with his friends. This was Libby's first roadtrip and she did quite well. After 6.5 to 7 hours, I didn't feel that her seats were quite as comfy as I once thought, but I probably would have come to that conclusion no matter what vehicle I was in. This was also my first time to Oregon, which we drove through on the way, and Idaho. Knock two more states off the list!

We took our bikes and road all around Boise. They have what they call the "Green Belt", which is about a 30 mile long bike trail all along the Boise River. The river was quite high. We had to detour off the trail once because it was flooded.

Justin and Willy in one of many pond/small lakes in Boise.

A park in downtown Boise. The city planners actually thought about large parks and bike trails. I was quite impressed with the city.

We took a driving tour one day. Headed up the south fork of the Payette River, which is mostly in the Boise NF. You know me and pics of new NF signs!

Saw a nice moutain goat along the way. Looked like he was molting.

Stopped and played around in the Payette for a while. COLD snowmelt water!

Hidden Beach, Lake Tahoe

Here's a few pics from hanging out on Hidden Beach at Lake Tahoe.

Carson River

Yesterday at work I traveled to the Weeks bridge over the Carson River. (I95S east of Carson City) We did a discharge measurement (determined how much water is flowing past the bridge at that particular time, i.e. it was 2,600 cubic feet per second yesterday) and some mercury sampling. The area is pretty contaminated from all the gold mining that happened back in the day of the Comstock. I guess they used to use mercury to get the gold out of the rock. Mercury is fine, but when it becomes methalmercury, then it's quite a bad thing. Anyway...sorry for all the nerdy stuff, but...

...this was looking upstream from Weeks bridge. Water is quite turbid (dirty/carrying lots of sediment) during this spring snowmelt time...

...we used this guy on the crane to do the discharge measurement...

...and I almost stepped on this guy when I jumped the guard rail to go pee under the bridge!

More snow sampling

We did some more snow sampling last weekend in the Incline watershed. Kinda funny when you have to pull snow pants on overtop of your shorts!

Washoe Valley

Justin and I took a drive up the Mt. Rose highway on Saturday and got a great view of Little Washoe Lake and just plain Washoe Lake. This is the 2 lakes in the valley between the valley that Reno/Sparks lies in to the north (Truckee Meadows Valley) and the valley that Carson City lies in to the south(Eagle Valley). So, it's the connector between Reno and Carson City. Anyway...there's so much water in the valley right now that Little Washoe Lake and Washoe Lake have connected! Unfortunately, Little Washoe Lake is just out of the picture to the left in the pic below. With how warm it's been lately, there's only bound to be more water down there soon.

Libby improvements

I said I'd put up some pictures of my birthday gift from my parents when I got it installed. Well, here ya go. They got me a sweet personalized spare-tire cover for Libby. I actually modified it a bit, but I think it looks great. Ed and Sue Tassey also got me the cargo nets. Unfortunately, my cargo area is not equipped for such nets, but I used the larger one creatively. There are a few more pics to show off the detailing job I did to her on Sunday.

Girl's night

Last Thursday was the first girl's night I've made it to in a long time. It was a lot of fun. At at a good mexican restaurant, (margaritas all around) then went to the Sienna. I had only ever walked through the gaming floor of the Sienna, but it's a really nice casino right on the river. We were able to hang out on the balcony overlooking the ragging Truckee River.

Joan, Ellen and Conny

Sooz (who just got engaged!), Joy, Amanda, Ellen and Anna

From back left to front right: Ellen, Conny, Amanda, Jena, Anna, friend of Brianne, Brianne, Joy, Sooz and Joan. Good group!