The daytime of the night.

I've spent a lot of time outdoors in the nighttime. I've driven a lot of miles in the middle of the night with the moon so bright that sometimes I've just turned off my headlights (when there weren't other cars around) and driven by moonlight. I've always enjoyed hiking by moonlight, and I've been quite surprised by how well you can see, and how much you can see, by the light of the moon and stars. So a couple months ago when I was looking at the dates for our trip to Hawaii I was quite pleased to see that the full moon would occur during our trip. So I spent a few nights wandering around the resort and the beach with my camera and tripod. Here's some of the cool stuff you can see in the middle of the night at the Marriott's Maui Ocean Club.

the view of the pool from our balcony

palm trees leaning out over the beach, lit by tiki torches

a little farther away from the torches

hiding the moon to see the stars

amazing how much color you can see in the dark if you look long enough

the beach melting into the ocean

looking down the beach toward Lahaina

tiki torches + long exposure time = pretty cool

pretty cool how far stars move in 20 seconds

a little time lapse of the moon rising

Hawaii Highlights

I like Hawaii. A lot. Although I don't surf or boogeyboard, and I'm not a super-great swimmer, I _love_ the ocean. And it just so happens that Hawaii is smack dab in the middle of a great big, blue ocean. Very blue. I have always loved spending time outdoors. Having grown up partly in the South while my dad was in the Army, and partly in the desert and the mountains in and around Orderville, I have a little bit of a schizophrenic ecological preference. I like swamps. I like forests. I like deserts. I like mountains. And awesome-ly, Hawaii has all of that. And jungles, which I didn't grow up with, but which are quite cool nonetheless. I remember not quite knowing what to expect the first time we went, in 2003. Driving across the desert side of the island to the western side of Maui, you see a lot of brown grass, scrubby bushes and lava rocks. Sound familiar? Yup. Looks just like home. Only with an ocean. So now that we've established that I like Maui, here are some highlights:

sunset over the ocean. from my seat at dinner. yup. love that Lahaina Fish Company.

the daytime of the night. at the resort.

for some reason I like taking pictures at night.

not quite sunset from the boat.

closer to sunset. still on the boat.

apparently I like sunset pictures.

bridge on the road to Hana.

Wai'anapanapa. near Hana.

waterfall by a bridge on the road to Hana.

sunset at the resort.

the edge of a very hard seat. on a canoe.

patterns in the sand. Lahaina.

Me and the people.

Nicole reminded me after my last post that there were no pictures of me (or us, or me and the kids) in it. Which is not surprising, since all of those pictures came from my camera. So here's some pictures of with me in them from our trip to Newport Beach. And the ocean. And Disneyland. :) (These were all taken by Natalie or Nicole)

Me

Me and Nicole

Me and Ethan

Me and Chelsea

Me and Jayden

Gang pictures

Newport Beach trip 2009

So I'm finally getting around to documenting our trip to Newport last month. To begin with, an amusing photgraphic anecdote:

Nicole's shoes for the trip (she would like you to know she's not crazy):
My shoes for the trip:

The night we got down there had one of the most spectacular sunsets I've ever seen. After rushing back from taking the kids to the pool, I grabbed the tripod and took a few pictures:

Our first day at Disneyland, I was the designated water carrier so I didn't take my D60. Therefore, I only took like 3 pictures with our little point & shoot. But look how pretty I am... :p

Tuesday we went to Laguna Beach for a while in the morning and hung out at the pool and condo in the afternoon.

The next day was our Downtown Disney day, as well as Ruby's on Balboa Pier for some tasty burgers.

Thursday I left my Camelbak at home and took my D60 to Disneyland. As Nicole has said many times, one of the coolest things about Disneyland is the attention to detail. There's a lot packed into a relatively small area and it all, down to the last chair, is meant to add to the completeness of the park. Here's just a few of my favorites from Disneyland.

Friday was another mellow day at the condo and the pool. The grounds at the Marriott's Newport Coast Villas are fairly well suited for the whole Tuscan theme.

As is customary, we stopped in Baker on the way home for a gyro (for me--everyone else eats somewhere else). Here's a few pictures of the Halloran Desert, south of Death Valley.

We got back to St. George just in time for dinner and the sunset.