noise to signal

In which I finally go home to Hawaii for a visit

Somehow it had been over two years since I had been home, so when we landed in Honolulu a couple of weeks ago I felt like a cartoon character diving into a desert oasis.

We started out with a couple of days of rain but after that it settled into typical gorgeous Hawai'i weather.

We'll get to the art soon enough, but for today I thought I'd post a few panoramic images to give you an idea of what it looked like while we were there.

First off, I've been meaning to shoot a panoramic photo of the view from my parents' condo for years but only finally got around to it on this visit. Here's the view I grew up looking at, the neighborhood of Mo'ili'ili out to Manoa valley and the University of Hawai'i.

Honkin' big full-sized version

One of the things that was odd about this trip was that since we had an adorable little travel buddy with us this time, there was no way we were going to be able to all fit in my parents' condo, so we stayed in a hotel in Waikiki. The Doubletree Alana was great for our purposes. Definitely not a five-star hotel but the room was nice, the staff was great, the hotel was convenient to everything we wanted to do, and a suite — room 1620 — was perfect for the three of us.

Here's the view from the two lanais this corner unit had. The blue and white building just to the right of the tall condo tower in the middle of the first panorama is the building I grew up in, and the previous panorama was shot from just about the same height as this one, facing the same direction.

Honkin' big full-sized version

Honkin' big full-sized version

Yeah, the weather was OK... sigh. I'm home now and it seems like a week in Honolulu completely reset my internal thermostat. 40° F was bearable before we left Seattle but now it feels like I'm swimming through ice when I walk outside. Ah well. I'll adjust back sooner or later.