I mentioned that I caught a nice sunset the other night. Here it is, the sun just having gone down a few moments before. This is the far northeastern tip of Oahu, and the mountain on the left is the end of the range on the eastern side of the island. Imagine enjoying this all to yourself, with the sound of the surf and nothing else and no lights or light pollution or other people. In fact, the only hint of civilization are the telephone poles reaching up to the tiny weather station at the top of the mountain(not seen here, only part of the telephone pole). This is what a vacation means to me.

Several miles east of that sunset location is a caldera, which is the remains of the volcanic crater that formed this part of the island. Eons ago, there was a volcano, and at its summit surrounding the point of eruption is a rim, which is the caldera. Eons since, part of that caldera eroded away. On the right side of this picture is this eroded edge, eroded all the way down into the bay, but the rest of the caldera is intact, and reaches around to the left of the picture, behind me, and all the way to my right, where it erodes again into the sea. This means the caldera is now a horseshoe shape today, miles across, and there is no way to fit it all into a picture without a shot from the sky. I like to imagine geologic processes and geologic time, something usually very difficult for humans and our short lifespan. This was a LOT work, forming the island, the caldera and then eroding part of it. Wow.