Ground water sampling

The last few weeks of work have been full of ground water sampling for me. I don't mind at all since I get to be outside for most of the day. Although, now that it's close to 100 degrees everyday and there are fires burning everywhere, I'm sorta glad to be in the air conditioned confines of my office. (More on the fires in an upcoming blog)

This is Don when we were up at our Ash Canyon well. The well is just below the bumper of the truck...you can see the metal casing around the well. That is most of Carson City in the background. Pretty cool. Oh, so Don is the hydrologist that is the ground-water specialist for our NAWQA program (National Water Quality Assessment). Annnnnnnnd, I'll be taking over this responsibility for him when he retires in October. Yikes!!

This is our sampling set-up at another well. Actually just behind me was the Truckee River. Basically, the well heads are within the metal box on the left. The black widow spiders like to hang out in there. And the hose down the well is pumping ground water from the well. The water flows through the tube and into that funny looking thing on the table, which we have different probes in. When the readings on the probes stablize (pH, temperature, conductivity, dissolved oxygen) then we can start taking our samples. We fill the bottles within that white framework on the right side of the table. The garbage bags are clipped up on the frame and the tube flows water into the bag. We do this so the water isn't all that exposed to the atmosphere where it can get contaminated by gases and such.

Ok, now I'm being a total nerd and you guys probably didn't want to know all that stuff. But, now you do!

Hawaii, final installment

Well, I've finally come to my last Hawaii posting. Making me sad again...anyhoo. Saturday we kinda had a lazy day around Billy and Laure's house until the afternoon when we ventured down to the seashore again. This time we visited the Hilton. I know, I know, you ask why is a hotel a point of interest in my trip. Well, wait till ya see the pictures.

Yes, there was a tram/train thing to get around the Hilton. Wow. But wait, it gets better.

Aww, yes. You could ride around the Hilton on a boat-taxi too! We did this. Pretty cool. I liked it when you could get off the boat and sit at the bar. hehehe

Lagoon beach. There were dolphins too.

Vegetation.

From left to right, Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea, as seen from the plane on our way home on Sunday morning. sniffle, sniffle.

And that's Hawaii as Justin and I saw it.

The End.

Hawaii, installment #7

On to Friday of the trip. We made it back to Waimea the previous night and Friday we spent at Anaeho'oomalu Beach...I think. I've been trying to find the names of all these places. Anyway, it's a private beach for the most part. They only let a certain number of the public come on the beach at any one time. Luckily for us, we made the cut.

This was the walk down to the beach. Lava, lava everywhere.

This was the inner lagoon on that beach. Very cool. Justin and I went snorkeling into the outer area and it was amazing. :o)

A better view of what this beach was like. Having the palm trees for shade was really nice.

And this is in downtown touristy area of Kona. Isn't that tree great?

Hawaii, installment #6

Back again! Even though my last update was so long, I didn't get to finish what we did that day. After leaving Volcano National Park, we drove farther up the eastern shoreline into Hilo, which is the city we flew into. We had a tourbook of the island and decided we were going to waterfall hop our way back to Waimea. After a failed attempt within Hilo (found it, but wasn't all that impressive and the water was NOT inviting for a swim), we continued up the eastern shore and found this!

This is Akaka Falls. If I remember correctly it falls about 420 feet. Crazy!

This was along the path to Akaka Falls, it's a state park. Funky trees.

And this was a really neat park where a freshwater creek flowed into the ocean. A mixing zone. Watching the waves from the ocean crash up the channel of the creek was cool to watch.

Hawaii, installment #5

This is a long one, so make yourself comfy. Continuing on, Wednesday night we camped in Volcano National Park.

It’s pretty sweet because they had a couple of free camping areas around the caldera. We camped amongst a grassy lava field, imagine that. Thursday we spent touring around the park, mostly just around the large caldera. There’s a road that goes all the way around the caldera, which has (at least) two smaller calderas within it.

Here is one of them.

We took a guided tour put on by the Park Service, I believe, but the guy talked way too much. We did get to learn about one of the other calderas pictured above. It's called Kilauea Iki. The dome is just that, a lava dome.

Here’s a close-up of the rim. Notice how it looks like its “splashed” up on the sides and is sinking in. That was the height of the dome back when it erupted, which was only in the 1950s. The dome has been sinking back down into the volcano, Kilauea, ever since.

Another inner caldera.

Rift zone. AKA, were the Earth is pulling apart.

When we broke of from the guided hike, we went down to the lava tubes. These are “tubes” formed from hot lava, where the outsides cooled and hardened, then the hot lava flowed within the cooled part. Some of these tubes make it the whole way to the ocean and the lava pours into the water. The 2nd pic has bad shutter speed, but you can see what it’s like down there.

Steaming sulfur vents.

Awwwww.

Justin’s artistic photography. I put is as the background on my computer at work because I liked it so much.

Hawaii, installment #4

Back to the amazing Hawaii trip. I believe we're up to Wednesday of the trip, which is when Justin and I got up at 4:00am and followed Billy to Kona (eastern coast of the island) and went to work with him. Billy works for a company called, if I remember correctly, Kona Blue. They raise one breed of fish, which I can't remember the name of right now, in big submerged nets off the coast of Kona. It takes about 8 months for them to mature to harvesting size. They they are sold to local restaurants, but mostly shipped off the mainland of the U.S. and sold at fish markets and places of the like.

This is looking down into the main part of the boat. That's Billy up there putting saltwater into the big cooler filled with ice.

This is the very top of the net emerging out of the water.

Then the fish are sucked out of the net, through the piping the scuba divers hook up, and are spit out into the coolers. Notice the nice padding on the back of the cooler the fish hit before bouncing back into the cooler.

Billy, holding up one of the fish.

And from Kona, Justin and I drove south along the coast, around the most southern part of the island and finally into Hawaii Volcanoes National Park.

Tahoe weekend

Just a short break from the Hawaii reporting. This past weekend I spent mostly at Lake Tahoe. Saturday doing sampling with Justin.

Where there was once over 10 feet of snow...now there is none. Willy is much happier hanging around at the sample site when his paws are freezing!

And on Sunday we spent the day having fun on Justin's friend's Eric and Stacey's boat out on Tahoe. That area looks a whole lot different when you're looking back at it from the middle of the lake.

Here is Eric, his son Garrett and Justin on a raft headed for shore to play some horseshoes.

Justin and a few others did some "skirfing". New to me, but it's a cross between water skiing and surfing. One can start out in the water and be pulled up by the boat or start by standing on the board that is half-way on the back boat deck and just scoot in. The rope is very short...just behind the boat, as you can see Justin in the above pic. Then you toss the rope back on the boat and surf on the wave directly behind the boat...keeping up with the speed of the boat. The speed is slower than water skiing to create the big wake behind the boat. It's nuts!

Hawaii, installment #3

Tuesday we took a very scenic driving tour...all the way to the top of Mauna Kea! (Volcano, in case you didn't know) You could see Mauna Kea from Billy and Laure's house if it was clear. Most of the day is wasn't clear enough; early in the morning seemed to be the best time to catch a glimpse.

This is a stop along the road before we started climbing up Mauna Kea. Lava fields. Crazy!! That's part of Mauna Loa in the background. Notice the different colors, those indicate different lava flows...I believe the darker it appears the younger it is.

The road up to the top of Mauna Kea was long and VERY steep. A few more switch-backs may have been a good idea. Anyway, up on top, which is just over 13,700 feet, is home to a bunch of the world's most powerful telescopes. Because they are up so high with no city lights around and on an island, this is one of the best places to study astromony in the world. Each big Ebcot Centerish looking gulf ball is only one telescope.

It was beautiful up there...and EXTREMELY windy! It was so crazy to be standing at almost 14,000 ft and be able to see the ocean. Actually it was quite easy to miss the seam between the sky and the ocean. They just sort of blended into each other out there.

Hawaii, installment #2

Sorry for the Hawaii #2 delay...they were doing maintanance on the site yesterday. Well, we're back on the mainland now, but there's still many pictures to share. I left off with our hike on Sunday...so on Monday we went to a different beach for the day. Close to the first one, but different. The sand was much coarser...therefore younger.

On the drive there, it was awesome to see lava fields coming down the terrain toward the ocean. They had to be less than 100 years old because there really wasn't any vegetation sprouting up in there yet.

There were fields of lava in the water accomanied with coral and all the sealife that come with that.

Justin and I did a little snorkeling. Billy and Laure had all the equipment that we could borrow. They both used to be scuba diver instructors too. Justin did more snorkeling than I did though. I have this thing were I don't like being too close to objects in the water; whether that be seaweed or fish...and this area was shallow. A little too close for comfort for me. BUT, I did get to swim (swirm) about 10 feet from a sea turtle!