Hawaii is great - I want to come back with all of you! I think you'd really love it. It's hot and sunny, but I could get used to it, and just stay in the shade during the hottest part of the day. You guys would probably be out playing in it all the time!

I haven't gone surfing or seen a volcano, but maybe we'll drive up to the volcano today after the conference. After yesterdays conference we drove up to the North tip of the island, a place Paul's not been too, called Pololu Valley Lookout. It was amazingly beautiful. We walked down a half mile, very steep trail to a black sand beach. The waves were crashing in on a stiff offshore breeze. I hung out on the big volcanic rocks around the high-tide line while Paul jumped into the water. There were three local kids playing in the waves on boogie boards. On the way back I ran up about half the trail, but it was so hot that was all I could manage.

On the drive back we saw this huge, temple-like rock formation (there are hand-made rock walls all over the island). We stopped to check it out and ended up walking down to it. It was a Heiau. I took some pictures of it and the valley. We hung out there and watched to sun set into the ocean, which happens very fast. After sunset it also gets dark really fast, since we're near the equator and there are no mountains to prolong the event. Then we stopped at a local place and had some food, my first purchase of the day, some grilled Ono fish.

Lots of geckos around our kitchen, and Paul said he saw some small chameleons in the garden. I'm going to go look for them after sending this, then we're off to another day at the conference. Oh yeah, we saw this big, redheaded bird yesterday that startled both of us. It looked kinda like a giant kingfisher or a kookabura, but we're not sure what it was.