Snakes. Why’d it have to be snakes?

Since it is a gloomy day and I had way much coffee, I'm back!  But Allison, that doesn't make any since.  Why would you not find something else to do with all of the energy the coffee gave you?  Well the lesson here is so never drink too much coffee on an empty stomach.  I had three cups, a peach, decided to go upstairs to workout and all of the sudden I felt like I was going to be sick.  And so thus, I am here feeling dog tired and wiry all at once.  I've been trying to give up coffee, but it really doesn't help that my dad has acquired all these wonderfully fancy and delicious types of coffee (some being from Hawaii) and I really have no will power.  So I apologize for my jumpiness in advanced.

Unfortunately, that last post concludes our trip on the Big Island. :( Buuuuuut, now we get to move on to the much more beautiful and exotic portion where we stayed on the Island of Kaua'i!

Kaua'i is actually pretty famous.  Tons of movies were filmed there (Pirates of the Caribean, Indiana Jones, Jurassic Park to name a few) because it is just so jaw droppingly beautiful and remote.  It is populated, but even like 5 miles away from the airport is miles of completely undeveloped land. 

So naturally, I had a hay day with picture taking. 

Our hotel happened to be surrounded on either side with miles and miles of trails and beaches.  But this first post is just me exploring the beauty of the hotel.  Not to many, but don't worry - there is plenty more to come.

This is probably my favorite shot out of everything I took this entire trip.

The endangered Monk Seal! There is this really neat foundation there that comes and blocks the Monk Seal off from obnoxious tourists that might get too close (guilty!) whenever there is a sighting.

Just chillin at the hotel.  Like a villain.

Tide Pools

And we are back!  Tropical paradise from the eyes of an armature photographer, novice blogger, and explorer.  Lets get to it:

Although sitting by the pool getting your tan on might be fun for like an hour, I much prefer going out and exploring what we flew 13 hours to visit.  Tide pooling is something my mom actually got my into.  If you are not familiar with the process, it is basically going out during low tide and investigating the little pools of ocean life that are left in the lava by upturning rocks and breaking you back bending over.  It's actually a lot more fun than I am making it out to be, which is why we did it almost every day. 

This sea urchin was astounding just because of the greenish tips of its spikes.  Although, I am assuming mold or fungus was the cause of this. O_o

Black sea urchins are the poisonous ones, but it looked so pretty on the pink rock!

This is a brittle star, they were EVERYWHERE and when you pick them up they wiggle their arms around a lot and kind of squirm.  I always thought starfish were slow moving creatures, but apparently not.  And, in case you couldn't figure it out on your own, the name indicates that they are super fragile, so you have to be very careful picking them up so that you won't break off any of their arms.  We encountered many brittle stars with fewer or half limbs :(

The underside of a sea urchin!

This is a sea snail! Or so I was told by the boyfriend.  And what was so amazing about it was its size.  You can kind of scale it by the boyfriends hand, but to give you another reference, it was about as long as my iPhone. 

He really was super adorable though.

We also encountered lots of sea slugs or sea cucumbers.  When they feel threatened, they squirt their intestines on you!  My poor mother got slug intestines on her and they almost wouldn't come off -_-

The reason I took another shot of a sea urchin was really just because of the cool shadow it created on my mom's hand.

If you click on this pictures and zoom in, you can see all of the tons of sea urchins.  You had to be super careful where you stepped!  And I had to be UBER careful with my camera.  I was tiptoeing around like I was a prima donna. 

Unfortunately, this is the best shot I could get, but that's a moray eel.  He was huge - about four feet long.  Probably the coolest find of the entire trip.  My boyfriend wanted to pick him up, but knew that that would just lead to being bitten, and he couldn't remember if they were poisonous.  But he was really waffling with the idea.  :)

The boyfriend with some sea cucumbers!

Another sea slug!  He was holding on for dear life!! To get this shot, the boyfriend actually had to lift and rotate this rock, which was about half his side, to the sun.  That's the real reason I keep him around ;)

Just so you could see how sea slugs hold on with their little feetsies. 

The boyfriend and my mother.  I told you it was back breaking!

My mother has me take pictures of all of the cool birds so that she can identify them when we get home, and it just so happens I got this awesome pose out of one.  Mom still hasn't gotten around to identifying it, but I'll update this when she does.

That's about it for today! 

Live Long and Prosper, people of the interwebs.

Malasadas, Volcanoes, and White Men Tanning

So I'm back!!! Turns out, not having much going on leads you to having VERY much going on.  Hence the delay in posts.  So sorry to all of my millions of adoring fans that have been chomping at the bit to read this. ;)

On to more tropical adventures!

While we were on the Big Island of Hawaii, it was obvious we had to go see the volcanoes.  Now my family has been to Hawaii before; thus, we had a few places we knew to go.  First was Tex's Malasadas.  Now, I don't know if you know what a malasada is, but it is heaven.  Basically sweet bread that is dense, but not cakey.  The dough is then shaped into squares, tossed in some hot oil, then immediately covered in sugar.  Oh my goodness, it's one of the most delicious things on this earth.  You don't know this about me or my family, but we are foodies.  Basically we plan trips, events, and everyday life around food.  Both of my parents cook and bake fantastically, and both of my sisters and I are becoming baking wizes.  I also cook, and have dabbled in healthy cooking/baking which is basically experimental. 

But back to Hawaii!  Stay focused! 

So here are some malasada pictures and pictures of the drive to Tex's.

Funny stop sign!  They really have great sign humor out there.

The guy looked at me when I was being all touristy and taking the picture, so you can kind see him chuckling at my touristiness.

DON'T THEY JUST LOOK DELICIOUS?! The Bomb Dot Com.

Artsy shot of the trunk of a palm tree

This doesn't even begin to capture the beauty of the flowers and life there.  Vibrant colors and luscious plant life where ever you go. 

So that was on our way to the volcano.  To get to the volcano, which was on the opposite side of the island, we drove 3 hours around one side of the island, and then another three hours in the same direction to get back.  So we drove around the entire island! In one day.....  But it was SOOOO worth it.  The sights were amazing, as you will see below.  The history was fascinating.  And my family and the boys, who I will point out below, definitely made it fantastic. 

This is the boyfriend.  He's passed out on the sidewalk from too many malasadas.

This is my sisters boyfriend.  He was so exited to jump around after being cooped up in the car.

So this is a MASSIVE crater/volcano that we got to hike around. Well we actually hiked the parameter of the edge at which this was taken on.

Here is the boyfriend again.  If you look closely you can see the reflection I was trying to catch in his sunglasses.

The best thing about this hike was that it would go from desert like, to rainforest like, to temperate like constantly.

Me being fanned like the princess that I am!!!

So from right to left, my boyfriend, my sister, my sister's boyfriend.

So on our trek back to the hotel, we passed the black sand beach, which we had to stop at and snap some shots.  :)  The sand itself is made from the lava.  But unlike silky regular sand, it is super coarse and hard to walk on in bare feet.  And surprisingly not as hot as regular sand. 

Yes.  My camera did get wet as I took this picture.  Luckily I had my suncap on!  But I think it was worth it.  It turned out pretty awesome.

DRIFT WOOD!  Perfect subject for any artsy picture.

There were so many adorable sea turtles. <3

I felt like a stalker!  But it was too good of an opportunity to pass up.  I kind of love the juxtaposition of his pale skin and the black sand.  Plus his super Speedo never fails to make me giggle. 

THEY WERE EVERYWHERE!  And they just kinda sat there all chill and stuff as obnoxious tourists like me came up and snapped pictures and made loud noises. Pretty impressive.

 So that's it for today.  I hope you enjoyed the pictures!  And if you like the stalker photo of the man suntanning, go to my friend Meredeth's blog (flameofmadness.blogspot.com).  She is a fantastic photographer/photoshopper.  She has some amazing street art photography as well as some awesomely creepy madness stuff.

Thanks for reading!! And please comment and ask questions!

Mauna Kea

So originally this blog was created as a requirement for my photography class.  But now I am graduated, but it would be silly to think I would stop taking pictures!!!  So this blog is turning into a place to post my photography of my travels through the unpredictable life of summer, college and then the real world! O_o Yeah, I hope it goes well too.  But I just got back from my graduation present - a trip to HAWAII!!!!  So obviously I prance around looking as touristy as possible with my big camera and bag of lenses.  But with good reason!  I took 650+ pictures and thought over the course of the next week or so (depending on how productive I am) I would take my time to share them with you, the good people of the internet.

So lets start with the beginning....

Ah, Hawaii.  Beautiful Paradise.  For a cost.  Which is why we didn't actually stay at this super high end resort (The Mauna Kea located on the Big Island of Hawaii).  Instead we stayed at a more financially friendly resort not far from here.  But we had to come here because their brunch is FANTASTIC.  All you can eat crab, sushi prepared in front of you, warm steak and, my favorite, dessert!  After such a feast we had to walk around the facilities to not feel so horrible about the amount of food we just ate, but also to take advantage of the gorgeous sights while we happened to be there.

Saftey

The Passage of "Time"