The setting sun silhouettes the trees and evening beachgoers at Ko Olina Lagoons on the island of Oʻahu in Hawaiʻi, as seen during our 2023 Hawaiʻi Trip.
As I look back at this photo, it is slightly difficult to believe that our most recent Hawaiʻi trip was almost a year ago. Much has happened since that time, but the memories still seem fresh in my mind. Hopefully, those memories will not fade anytime soon.
As you may remember from an earlier post, we saw the aurora borealis, or northern lights, from our home in Tennessee on May 10, 2024, as did many other people all across the United States. While that first post featured photos of the more “traditional” aurora borealis look, that look did not last all that long. However, the sky still put on a great show for quite a while. Have a look at these photos! Not to bore(alis) you, but there are several of them!
Rushing water roars over Great Falls on the Caney Fork River at Rock Island State Park in Tennessee, another park that we visited on our Tennessee Waterfalls trip.
The horseshoe-shaped Great Falls was a fascinating sight, as the rushing water appeared to be quite turbulent, creating a loud roar as it fell. The falls were so wide that I could not fit them into one photo, so here is another view:
The aurora borealis, or northern lights, shine over the skies of Southwest Tennessee during their North American visibility on May 10, 2024.
You have most likely seen by now that the aurora borealis was visible into the southern United States, thanks to a major geomagnetic storm due to solar flares and coronal mass ejections. That all sounds like I know what I am talking about, doesn’t it? Yes, the sun spewed out some plasma, which made its way to earth, causing geomagnetic storms. While these storms can sometimes disrupt things like communications and power systems, they also do some nice things to the aurora, like what you see in the photo above. But just one photo will not do, so here is another:
Looking out over the waterfall down below at Cummins Falls State Park in Tennessee during our Tennessee Waterfalls trip.
It is difficult to judge the height of these waterfalls, but this one is 75 feet tall, which to me is a pretty good size, because, as I have mentioned before, we don’t have waterfalls of any size near where we live. You can at times access the base of the falls. However, it requires a permit, strenuous hiking, wading through water, and climbing and crossing slippery rocks. Besides all of that, the gorge trail was closed on the day that we were there because of all the rain that had come through before our visit. But that is okay, because we still enjoyed the view from the overlook.
The sun gives its last light of the day as it sets over the Pacific Ocean, as seen at Ko Olina Lagoons on the island of Oʻahu during our 2023 Hawaiʻi Trip.
Water rushes over the tallest waterfall at Burgess Falls State Park in Tennessee, as seen during our Tennessee Waterfalls trip.
Burgess Falls was the first of four Tennessee State Parks that we visited on our Waterfalls trip, and it was worth the visit. We walked along the trail that runs alongside the appropriately-named Falling Water River. Could there be a better name for a river with waterfalls? I can’t think of one. Maybe Waterfall River, but that does not sound as good as Falling Water River.
It looks like a near-perfect beach day at Haleʻiwa Beach Park on the North Shore of Oʻahu in Hawaiʻi, as seen during our 2023 Hawaiʻi trip.
When you hear of North Shore beaches on Oʻahu, people are probably talking about beaches just a bit east of Haleʻiwa Beach Park. But this park was a nice place for us to visit, and we saw lots of sea turtles out in the water while we were there, too. You can read all about it in Part 7 of the Hawaiʻi trip report.
