Welcome back to National Parks & other public lands with T! If you are seeing this on Twitter or Facebook, please visit the blog to see all of the photos and read the story by clicking the link.

Long Pond Ironworks State Park preserves the historic village of Hewitt, which was a bustling ironworking community in the 1700s.

I was driving by after a hike at nearby Jungle Habitat and noticed that the visitor center was open. I stopped in and chatted with the park ranger for a bit.

This building was once the General Store and also a boarding house for the iron workers. It now houses the museum as well as the visitor center.

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The museum depicts life in Hewitt and showcases many iron artifacts from the period. The ranger told me one of the most precious pieces in the collection is the stove, made at Long Pond…

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Aliʻiōlani Hale NRHP

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Aliʻiōlani Hale means “House of Heavenly Kings.” It was built by King Kamehameha V in 1874 (and Aliʻiōlani was one of the King’s given names.)

It was originally supposed to be the royal palace, but it was converted into a much-needed government building. The interior was gutted and remodeled to accommodate the court system in 1911. Today Aliʻiōlani Hale houses Hawaii’s State Supreme Court, a law Library and a museum on the Hawaiian judiciary.

The famous gold-leaf statue of Kamehameha the Great stands in front of the building and it’s across the street from ‘Iolani Palace.

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Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park: Kīlauea Iki

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Welcome back to National Parks & other public lands with T! If you are seeing this on Twitter or Facebook, please visit the blog to see all of the photos and read the story by clicking the link.

Kīlauea Iki is a crater next to the main summit caldera of Kīlauea in Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park on the big island of Hawaii. This crater was a lava lake in 1959 with fountains spewing molten lava up to 1900 feet in the air. This activity lasted for several months until the fountains fizzled out in November of 1959.

Today, visitors can view the crater from the Kīlauea Iki Overlook. There is no longer molten lava here and the crater is vast (though compared to the main crater, it’s small or ‘Iki’.) It’s a mile long and 400 feet deep.

The 2018 eruption and its accompanying earthquakes damaged the Kīlauea Iki Trail. It was still…

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Walkill River National Wildlife Refuge: Liberty Loop Trail Revisited

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Welcome back to National Parks & other public lands with T! If you are seeing this on Twitter or Facebook, please visit the blog to see all of the photos and read the story by clicking the link.

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I was in the area and decided to revisit Liberty Loop Trail in the Walkill River National Wildlife Refuge. The last time I’d taken pictures here was in 2004. Digital photography has come a long way in the last 15 years and even my phone captures better images than the 2 MP point and shoot I was using back then.

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Liberty Loop is a level 2.5 mile trail that begins in New York State and follows the perimeter of a former sod farm that straddles the New York/New Jersey border. The sod farm was restored to its natural wetland state after becoming part of the refuge.

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