Those pictures are so pretty!  I would love to go to any of the Islands someday.  Of course, there are a lot of places I would love to go someday- so Hawaii will just have to take a number :)

Haven't been to Hawaii, but Yosemite was my old stomping grounds while growing up.  We would go the weekend school got out and go up to Tuolumne Meadows for one month,  go home for a weekend to mow grass, get mail, wash clothes and buy more food then go back to the Valley for the rest of the summer coming home only to "fresh things up a bit".  We did this from 1959 until I left home on 1967.

Loved it!  That was back when they had the Fire fall, and not so many restrictions on where you can go.  Mirror Lake was still there, the Indian caves etc.  Fell off Stoneman's bridge once (thank goodness I fell in the deeper area of the water).  Loved to go rafting.  Hiked a lot of trails up there.  Their library was really interesting too as all the books were OLD!  The museum was interesting too!

Lots of good memories.

 Sharonc..  yep, I remember the good ol days in Yosemite as well.  I wasn't lucky enough to stay long though because of work and lack of money.  I go to Yosemite a few times a year now just to hike and keep in shape.   I do miss the old days though. Mirrior lake?  What lake? lol  I took this picture 9 days ago... lots of water up there right now.

Kauai is my favorite island. My dad was born there, back in the '20s when it was real wilderness!

Beautiful pics, Sparks, makes me want to go back this year! Not in the budget, though....

:-(

I've never been to Yosemite. I'd love to go someday. I spent a lot of time at Yellowstone, when I used to live in Idaho.

I've been to Hawaii and Maui but Yosemite is still by far my most favorite place on earth. We went there every summer - starting in 1954. Back in the days when you could drive your own vehicle wherever you wanted to go - even to the dump to watch the bears eat. The firefall was so awesome, as was Mirror Lake which is now Mirror Meadows. I made it to the top of Vernal Falls, but never could quite make the slippery slope up to the top of Nevada Falls above. I hiked the eight miles from Glacier Point to the valley floor. Had my first real summer romance there. We were there in the housekeeping units a few years ago when the Merced River flooded its banks, we were moving our stuff in the middle of the night in that freezing water. When I was three, I committed my first "criminal act" there. I saw everyone getting things from the souvenir shop on Glacier Point, so I helped my self to a scarf. My mother discovered it when we got back to the car, of course she went back and paid for it, and I still have that scarf!  Wow, so many wonderful memories...

I've heard that Hetch-Hetchi Valley was even more incredible, but John Muir lost the fight to save it from becoming a vast reservoir.

I've been to Yellowstone also, quite breathtaking in a different way.

Hey Sparks,

I just read this article I thought you'd find interesting. Actually, anyone who's been to Hawaii might find this info a little surprising. I'd never heard of this movement before:

http://www.commondreams.org...

"We are calling on the US left to join our movement opposing these threats and to add our quest for independence as a plank of the broad US left strategy for a nonimperialist America. If you support peace and justice for the United States and the world, please support demilitarization and independence for Hawai’i."

As a progressive, I'm not sure I can support these folks. I guess I love Hawaii too much to let it go.

I know I'm going to go a little crazy here oochild,

BUT I'm having a bad morning.  My sister called me this morning upset because she found out that me and my boyfriend went skinny dipping in my pool on my own flipping property when a couple of Christians she knows came to my house in AZ a few weeks ago.   Of course her Christian friends had to tell her that I am the devil himself.     Nope.... I'm a girl.  lol  My sister told my mother who simply laughed at her and now they are arguing as well.  My sister believes everyone should live as she does, and she often insists on it... not that anyone pays attention to her, however she can make our lives a living HELL (pun intended).  Due to the crap I had to deal with this morning, I am purchasing a sign that will be posted on the gate to my back yard that will state:

NOTICE: Do not open the gate to my back yard to preach to me if you are afraid to see me naked. 

Anyway, I'm just tired of people who can't live and LET LIVE.   Ok back to the topic.....

I have been to Ke Awalau o Pu’uloa, now known as Pearl Harborr a few times..  Yes I would hate to let it go, BUT, as a liberal who believes we all should have the freedom to live our lives as we want as long as we do not harm others...  I would indeed support this cause. 

You see oochild, my biggest disappointment in people is the fact that some won't ALLOW other people to be and do what they want.  The religious fight with each other as well as with the atheists, different cultures fight with each other, different countries fight with each other... EVERYONE wants everyone else to live as they do.  Why can't we all just LIVE and let LIVE?   I'm so sick of other people telling me how I should live... I could scream.  Don't tell me how to have sex or with whom, don't tell me what I can or cannot watch on TV, don't censor art, and don't force your beliefs and your way of living on me.  Bigots and control freaks irritate me to no flipping end.  

Whew!   If I feel that way about people why not an entire state?  Hawaii wants peace and independence... let them have it. There is much to think about, they will lose major security..   Do they plan to buy Hawaii from the government?  It's complicated.  I suppose I should wait until I get the sign for my backyard before I answer a definite yes or no...  lol

Sparks, I am a Christian and If I ever looked over your fence and saw you skinny dipping, I would kneel down and thank God for one of his beautiful creations!, no harm no foul, swim on!!,    ;)

Starbucks   Oh, you are a charmer, thanks for the compliment. BUT, at my age, you might be glad I stayed in the water.  lol    

I know not all Christians are as uptight as my sister and her friends, these ladies take the cake.  There are good and bad in all people regardless of whether they are religious or not... I didn't mean to generalize.  I didn't know you were such a flirt Starbucks...we need more guys like you in town. (smile)

Independence for Hawaii would only correct an historical injustice.  In 1893, threatened by the initiative of Queen Lili'uokalani to expand voting rights to poor people, American and European planters formed a group called the Honolulu Rifles to overthrow her.  

Working with the US ambassador, this group succeeded in exploiting the desire of the Queen to keep the peace and the United State's interest in seizing the country.  When the mob took to the streets the United States landed marines (from a ship then in port) to assist them.  To keep the peace, the Queen abdicated and annexation followed.   

At her abdication she issued this statement:

I Liliʻuokalani, by the Grace of God and under the Constitution of the Hawaiian Kingdom, Queen, do hereby solemnly protest against any and all acts done against myself and the Constitutional Government of the Hawaiian Kingdom by certain persons claiming to have established a Provisional Government of and for this Kingdom.

That I yield to the superior force of the United States of America (who) has caused United States troops to be landed at Honolulu and declared that he would support the Provisional Government.

...to avoid any collision of armed forces, and perhaps the loss of life, I...under protest and impelled by said force yield my authority until such time as the Government of the United States shall, upon facts being presented to it, undo the action of its representatives and reinstate me in the authority which I claim as the Constitutional Sovereign of the Hawaiian Islands.

The "time (for) the Government of the United States...to undo the actions of its representatives" has long passed.  Hawaii for the Hawaiians, I say! 

I'm sure they'll still let us visit.

That just sucks, Sparks. I've got some weird siblings, but yours sure does take the cake. I just stopping talking with one of my brothers when he got strange. I haven't seen him in over 8 years.

While I can certainly sympathize with native Hawaiians & understand that they want independence, I just don't think it would work. First, it sets a dangerous precedent. We fought a Civil War over states trying to secede from the union. What if some islands of Alaska got the same idea? Second, I don't think the majority of Hawaiian citizens would support independence.

Maybe they should consider becoming a territory, like Puerto Rico & Guam. Anyway, I was surprised there was such a organized effort in this regard.

There has been a Puerto Rican independence movement for a long time.  President Truman survived an assasination attempt by one of their advocates, and President Clinton recently pardoned others who had opened fire in the House galleries in 1954, hitting several members of Congress. 

And it should be at least as independent as Jamacia, or any of the former colonies in the area - we took Puerto Rica away from their colonial master in the Spanish-American War.  Had we not taken them, Spain would have been forced to give them up just as the other colonial masters gave up the neighboring islands in the 60's. As precedents go, giving it up is more like the independence of the Phillipines - another colony we grabbed as the spoils of the Spanish American War.

Hawaii was an independent country running itself quite well until some land-grabbing pineapple farmers decided they'd rather own it. Of course some variant of that could be said about most of the country, including California,  (To gube's dismay, the glorified theft that was the Mexican American War appears to being righted by demographics.)   But Hawaii is a especially nice case for separation.  As an island, its return is the ultimate clean break.  Everyone wins. 

If it inspires further state independence efforts, even better.  Since when is insisting on concentration of power a progressive position, anyway?

As a progressive, I reject any attempt to seperate peoples based on ethnicity. As I read more about this issue, that's exactly the goal of the independence movement. I don't believe anyone is superior based soley on race.

http://www.instanthawaii.co...

"...Hawaiian sovereignty activists, whether they support tribal status or independent nation status, believe that ethnic Hawaiians are entitled to racial supremacy in Hawaii on the theory of "indigenous rights." Their dispute is focused on whether ethnic Hawaiians can best preserve the racial supremacy they already enjoy in Hawaii, and expand it, by asserting indigenous rights inside an independent nation of Hawaii, or by asserting indigenous rights as members of an Indian tribe inside a state of Hawaii which is part of the United States.

However, there is a third choice which the Advertiser left out, and which it always leaves out in presenting the alternative scenarios for the future of the sovereignty of Hawaii's people. This third choice is undoubtedly favored by the vast majority of Hawaii's people of all ethnicities, and is probably favored by a majority of ethnic Hawaiians themselves. This third choice is to favor unity, equality, and aloha for all.

Unity has two aspects: the unity of Hawaii with the United States (contrary to the desire of the independence activists to rip the 50th star off the flag), and the unity of all Hawaii's people under a single sovereignty of the State of Hawaii (contrary to the desire of the Akaka bill supporters to divide Hawaii along racial lines by creating a race based government exclusively for ethnic Hawaiians)"

This is just a part of the article, but Dr. Conklin pretty much sums it up for me.

Attacking the character of your opponents, as opposed to challenging their ideas, is straight out of the demogogues' play book.   As in "(my opponents) believe that ethnic Hawaiians are entitled to racial supremacy...".  

But Conklin is right in opposing the AKAKA bill - which would, as he points outs, create a racial spoils system within the United States with all the racial preferences familiar to the Jim Crow south.  In this he is almost certainly in the majority of Hawaiins.

But did it escape your notice that AKAKA is FEDERAL legislation?  Its existence is due precisely to the power of the Federal government and their power to negotiate with Native American tribes, power that under independence would reside in Honolulu instead.

Membership in the United States is not preventing the imposition of this bad idea on Hawaii, it is the United States that is threatening to impose it!

Anyone who thinks that they are superior simply because of their ancestry is open to questions of character. Seems the Hawaiian sovereignty supporters think this way. How is it wrong to point this out to people who may not know of their racist views?

And yes, I realized the Akaka legislation is a federal bill. Why would I think otherwise? I'm well aware of who Daniel Akaka is. My grandfather lived the last years of his life on the islands, participated in Hawaiian politics for many years, and my father was born there.