Looking to the Skies

Well, the Lopers (Steve's parents, that is) have been dropped at the airport and should be well on their way home by now. Team Klida should be getting on their plane shortly, and we are getting ready to head up to the Visitor Information Station on Mauna Kea, the 13,796-foot high mountain where several world-class observatories are located. We can't go all the way to the summit because the boys are too young to deal with the altitude, but we will be at about 9,200 feet. It will be interesting to see how our bodies deal with that altitude, since the highest we've been in the past two weeks is about 2,500 feet.

At the visitor center, we will be able to check out the nighttime skies using one of their telescopes. If the weather is clear, the viewing tonight should be awesome. I don't know what kind of pictures I'll manage to get from this, but I am looking forward to it. I really think that M will enjoy it, as he has been interested in space since he was about 4 years old.

On a completely different topic, have I talked about the geckos here? Apparently, geckos (yes, like the insurance commercials) are considered good luck and are welcomed into Hawai'ian houses. There are at least a half-dozen geckos that we are sharing space with, ranging from the teeny one that likes to sun itself on the porch steps to the big guy that runs around near the fridge. Since they are cold-blooded, we don't see much of them early morning or late at night, but come afternoon they scrabble everywhere. Today I got some good closeup shots of one guy that decided to explore our table and another that was peeking at me from the kitchen curtain.

Overall, the geckos seem to be pretty harmless. They eat bugs and fruit and are pretty much afraid of people. At night, they click and chatter (sounding a bit like frogs), which is so much better than the rooster that crows whenever he feels the urge (like at 3 a.m.)! Of course, they do poop, so you find little black balls around the house. Erin was freaked out by them for most of her stay, but D loves seeing them.