Posted 6:15 AM by Angie Schultz

Foto Friday: Garden of the Gods

What with one thing and another, I have had no time for scanning. Maybe next week I can scan in a bunch of California.

So for now, something I was going to re-do:

Garden of the Gods, Lanai, Sep. 2003

I just photographs 'em; I doesn't explain 'em. That's Molokai in the background there. As I said before, the Garden of the Gods is an area of colorful rocks on the island of Lanai, the smallest of the publicly-accessible, inhabited Hawaiian islands. There's a rainbow of rock there, from yellowish to purplish to brown, with a generous helping of red. Here's a similar picture (must've been the next rock over), and if you absolutely cannot get too much Lanai, and have a fast connection, you can look at this site. I couldn't wait for all the pics to load. (Dude, it's OK to cull the photos. Really.)

We were there twice during our stay on Lanai. I think this was taken near sunset. Sunset and sunrise are the best times to photograph the Garden, but it takes actual divine powers to get Niles up before dawn.

Who or what stacks the rocks like that, I don't know. The Gods are said to have done it, but I think -- and call me a fearless iconoclast if you must -- it was done by humans. On our second trip to the garden, we were about to leave when we turned to notice a ledge just above our heads on which someone had carefully spelled out, in rocks, FUCK MURDOCH.

That would be David Murdoch ("billionaire and high school dropout"), CEO of Castle & Cooke, a real estate company which is (or was) a part of Dole, the pineapple company. Within the last few years, Dole has ceased its pineapple operations on Lanai -- an industry which employed essentially everyone on the island. They've replaced the pineapples with some plush resorts. The Aug. 15, 2003 edition of the Lanai Times[1] reported Murdoch's impromptu remarks at the 11th Annual Pineapple festival. He urged the residents to grow more stuff in their gardens and start making a bunch of artsy tourist gewgaws in lieu of their former pineapple-centered occupations.

Anyhow, from the remark written in stone in the Garden -- ostensibly by Gods, remember -- one gathers that the transition from pineapples to gewgaws was not going smoothly for everyone.

[1]No link. I have a souvenir dead trees edition. But a search for the paper turns up a Houston Chronicle article on the island that begins:

LANAI CITY, Hawaii - A notice in the monthly Lanai Times shook at the very fabric of society on Lanai, an this Hawaiian island of 3,000 residents.

A new law, the newspaper reminded, prohibits leaving car keys in the ignition at the airport.

Lest, I suppose, someone steal the car and drive to Maui.

Labels: Foto Friday, Hawaii