jon_chaisson | Finally as promised...Hawaii Pix!

It's taken me awhile to get around to this, sorry for the wait! And I apologize ahead of time for the lack of exciting pictures as well, but then again I spent most of that vacation having my vacation and not worrying about pictures or anything else... ;)

Yeah, it's not the best picture (I don't have the greatest camera), but if we went out on the tiny balcony, leaned over a bit, and looked to our left, we'd see Waikiki Beach. This was taken about twenty minutes after checking in, I believe...

Which reminds me:

Notice something missing? ;)

On the other hand, if we went outside our room, down the hallway where the elevators are, and walked out onto the fire escape (the door was propped open, mind you), you'd see Diamond Head!

Coconuts! This was looking up a tree at Pearl Harbor, in which Emm suggested not standing underneath said tree, just to be on the safe side. ;)

More Pearl Harbor shots:

Honor Roll at USS Arizona Memorial

The Big Guns on the USS Missouri

Mappy Goodness--one of the maps on the deck of the USS Missouri, showing not only the hills of Oahu but the depths of the waters around it

Looking through the crosshairs of a lone stationary machine gun on the Missouri--the, er....forward port side, if that's the right terminology?

I got a big kick out of this--I saw these all over the Pearl Harbor area, actually...

Okay, these next pictures were taken at the Audubon Center in Waimea, and pretty much take up the rest of the post here. One of the reasons I took so many here is that the layout--both the plants and the topography--really called out to me, specifically for the setting of my story Children of Dun Corran. It's not often that my brain goes OMGWTFBBQBRILLIANTIDEASFORMING when I'm visiting what's basically a botanical garden. It just worked, I guess. Even despite me losing some personal things there in the process.

To wit:

Oahu has these big honkin' trees in select places, and each time I saw one, my first thought was okay, what kind of characters would actually live in those sort of trees...? :p

This is me looking up from the main path and into a hill full of greenery. TCoDC is partly set in a valley, and this shot alone made me think of what looking up from that valley would look like.

The payoff to the long path through the Center is a waterfall/swimming hole at the end. This part of the park was very interesting in that it was "guarded" by steep hills on either side, and this made me think of the lookouts in the story, the older children who have to keep an eye out for the younger ones.

And a path on the way back. I think this was about the same area where I found the porcupine tree. Sadly, the picture I took of it didn't come out all that well... :( Still, more grist for the writing mill for that story. ;)

So these are pretty much the only ones I'll really be sharing with you, as I really didn't take too many. That, and a lot of the pix I did take, didn't come out as well as I'd hoped. The price I pay for having a cheapass WalMart camera, I guess...:p I'm sure