Today I screwed up a little. I agreed to do two of the “How it all began” talks to get some more practice, and we all took it down in the huddle meeting. We just call it “how” talks and all the activities get entered on a small sheet in the huddle room and then transfered to our ranger activities board, one of the screens at the center and we phone it across to Jaggar Museum so they can display it there, too. For whatever reason I decided to announce my talk over the intercom at the center at 5 to 11, although I then realized I only had scheduled it for 11.30. So of course now I need to go out to do the talk at 11, which attracted a fair crowd that had heard it only via the announcement, and then right away again at 11.30. There were not very many people this time, but those who did come were really interested and questioning. New people walked up as I had the discussions, adding to the questions, and with horror I realized that I hadn’t come back into the center before like 12:20 or so. We should man the front desk quite sensibly over lunch hours, as most people crowd us then and as some of the rangers should get lunch. So it was pretty busy, and of course my third “how” talk of the day started at 1, so I did not get lunch until after that, although this time it was a pretty short talk with little audience – after four days or so, the sun had finally decided to come out, and all the visitors complaining about the bad weather now went off in a hurry to catch some sunlight at the viewing platforms and the hiking trails. So that’s my three “hows” of the day.

I definitely need to work on some more programs, and I guess I will draft the summit hike over my off days so I can try it out next Wednesday or Thursday. Also I was very happy with what I had said so far, many people that I had interactions with I have met again, especially those complaining about the weather and that there was nothing to see – I promised to most of them that there would be a good chance of fair weather for the sunset at the Jaggar Museum, so they could catch the developing night glow. You may have seen the movie of the day from yesterday, as I wanted to check myself, and again we were really lucky. Perfect timing, right around 7 pm the clouds disappeared and it was a spectacular view across Halema’uma’u, Mauna Loa summit drifting above the clouds before the sky turned fully black, and a plentitude of stars including alpha and beta centaury and the southern cross right above the crater.

Everyone was focused on the crater and I told them to look left and right. On the northern flank, Mauna Loa was really just at her best, being this huge, gentle shield volcano jutting up against the clear sky with the sparkling stars, and as I turned my head, clouds were passing on the southern side, offering the perfect screen for a lunar rainbow or moonbow, as you can see in the picture below. Isn’t that awesome? This is featured on the HAVO Facebook page again and is close to another 100 likes.