Nā Nananana o Mauna Loa (Or: The Spiders of Mauna Loa)

Two weeks ago I went to the optometrist and got some new contacts of a different brand to try, which also happened to be at my newly-updated prescription strength. Since then, every time I look further than a few hundred feet away I get a mini-jolt as I realize that I can see everything! In focus! No matter how far away! I can make out craters and maria on the moon again! (Apparently my eyes had drifted more than I realized from my old prescription…)

Due to a confluence of factors, I haven't actually been going up Mauna Loa for my job since before my eye appointment (instead working down in Hilo), until this week when I went up both Wednesday and Thursday (I write this having recently returned from the second night). The first night I was up there, I noticed a surprising number of spiders out in the middle of the night, where by “surprising” I mean “I'm surprised there were any spiders up there at all.” (Though come to think of it that's also the same evening a passing moth flew into my ear and freaked me out, so perhaps I shouldn't have been too surprised.) I noticed two spiders at different times over the course of the night by seeing the light from my head-lamp reflected in their eyes, both just out and about in the 5 °C/ 41 °F weather with apparently nary a care in the world.

I didn't think much of it beyond “Huh, there are spiders up here where I didn't expect them” until tonight, when I was driving down just after sunset after a short observing session in the late afternoon/early evening (which involved me getting a video of the telescope opening in daylight, so look for that in the future!). As I was driving down I noticed a spider's eye reflecting the headlights back at me, and pointed this out to my coworker Kristen who was in the car with me. She thought it was absolutely hilarious that I could pick out a spider at 30 miles per hour on a dark road, especially when she couldn't see the dozens of additional ones that I started noticing every few minutes down the road. (Other than a single one of the ones with a lustrous dark green/blue eye color.) Funnily enough we'd just been discussing contacts and glasses and other eye-related things and my updated prescription on the way up and how she'd been thinking of going to the optometrist and getting an updated prescription herself, and she's definitely going to do it soon after tonight!

So yeah: apparently “noticing lots more spiders” is one of the perks of correct prescription strength contacts. I think I'll keep the memory of those tiny spider eyes reflecting back at me from the dark handy for the next time I read The Hobbit. A hui hou!

(For the Hawaiian scholars out there, I debated on whether the spiders should be kino-ʻo or kino-ʻa for Mauna Loa [roughly, the difference between things owned inherently and things owned incidentally] and I'm not sure I chose correctly. Anyone who knows for sure feel free to confirm or correct me!)