Author: Peg

Mostly travel today.

I even had the same seat both flights.

We had a little trouble with the rental jeep. But it was worked out

The cheap hotel is pretty sweet.

Yesterday, we left the hotel and turned right. Today we turned left. First. We stopped for a little breakfast in town. Plan was to stop at every shop, store, and beach along the way. When the road ran out we would turn around and come back.

Started off with breakfast. And the Kumu Farm Stand was the first stop. Next stop was Maunaloa. It’s a ghost town in the making. Back in the day it was a plantation town. We inspected several shops and headed off on beach quest.

There was one guy surfing. One guy
He had the place to himself.

This was a totally end of the world sort of a beach. There was sand as far as you could see in either direction. The beach was very crowded. There was one other person on the beach.

Fortunately the road ran out. Well rather the paved road ran out. I believe we were all sort of beached out by then. Back to town for another little Hawaiian kind lunch. And some more shopping. Because tomorrow we’re going to Lanai. It takes 2 little planes to get there.

Sam is in charge of ground transportation. And she has decided that today we will drive out of the hotel lot and turn right and drive to the end of the road. Pretty simple. Moloka’i is pretty simple. 

We inspect the Goods and the Grinds and decide to skip breakfast but we’ll get lunch here on the way back. A bit peckishly we continue on.

The road is long and narrow. Traffic is non-existent.

We come to the Pu’u O Hoku  Ranch. They have a ranch store. It sells deer steaks. Cool t-shirts. And really good large cookies. I know they are good because we got some. Remember. No breakfast.

After travelling down incredibly narrow road, we come to the end of the road.

Time to head back towards the hotel and lunch at Goods and Grinds.

And, I wanted a picture of this very unique hibiscus.

One little plane trip down and 3 to go.

We arrived before 9am and got a car and a 5,000 calorie breakfast before heading out.

Well, now that we have done absolutely everything that there is to do on Moloka’i it’s time to find our hotel.

It’s going to be interesting to see what we do next.

Part of the ultralight packing is an attempt to save my life. I left my fins and mask and snorkel back in Kona. On purpose. More people than you would imagine. Die snorkeling in Hawaii every year. And nearly every one of them is a visitor. I don’t really consider myself a visitor but I do consider myself an overconfident old woman. So to prevent being totally humiliated by drowning like a dumb tourist, I decided to just leave the gear at home in Kona. After all, moderation only leads to long life.

A normal person would have taken the hotel shuttle to the hotel. Not me. I walked. The hard part was finding sidewalks.

The hotel is modest.

The room is huge. I can see the airport, the ocean and Diamond Head. And it’s as far away from the highway as possible.

And I am such a party animal. It’s 6pm and I have dinned and am all settled for the evening in my room.

And I hate doing the blog with my phone. That’s surely one of my first world kind problems don’t you think?

Feeling a little out of sorts mentally today.  So, I went out on “dinner quest”.

And what was wrong with my mental state today? I was annoyed that I am old. That is not very productive. Accept and Adapt.

Gratitude

---

Grateful that there isn’t a good ice shop within an easy walk of my lodgings.

---

Living on the wild side this morning. I put on my swimsuit and put everything else in the washer/dryer. I had a very bad experience doing that 50+ years ago. I had visions of walking to WalMart in my swimsuit to buy underwear. Then, go to the thrift shop to get shirts and shorts. Turns out it would have been a good day to do that because the thrift shop was having a “buy one get three free” sale today. So for 4 dollars I could have had 4 shirts and 4 shorts. The washer did not eat my clothes and the dry cycle didn’t burn them. So. No worries.

Heading to Honolulu tomorrow. Then the adventure begins on Sunday morning with a flight to Moloka’i. (Kaunakakai )

Moloka’i has a population of about 7,000, and cell service is marginal. I don’t know if the hotel has Wi-Fi.  After Moloka’i we’ll go to Lana’i by way of Kahului Maui. Only 3,200 people live on Lana’i. But since Larry Ellison owns 98% of the island – I feel sure that it is well served by cell and wifi. We’ll see.

Speaking of billionaire tech boys. Does anyone besides me think Elon Musk might have just bought himself a country?

Fishing is a lot like photography: It involves waiting for something to happen. I watched this guy for 15 minutes or so, and he never got a throw. I didn’t see any fish either.

But if you need a minute of ocean watching. Here it is.

First-world problem: The water pressure in my shower isn’t sufficient for proper hair washing. So, I wash my hair in the kitchen sink. And my hair tries to escape down the garbage disposer. 

Careless old woman problem: I forgot to bring a little SSD backup drive with me. Whenever I take my computer on a trip, I take a little TimeMachine drive. This time, I forgot. This apartment has concrete floors and no carpets. I carry my computer and a cup of coffee all over the apartment. It’s a matter of “I haven’t dropped the computer YET.”  

I trotted off to Target and bought a 1TB SSD drive. Almost everything is backed up to some cloud or other, but I am old. I like to see the backup device. 

Today: Accept and Adapt.

We Democrats lost—fair and square. No whining about “Well, we won the popular vote.” We didn’t. We must be grateful that we could never get rid of the filibuster in the Senate. That’s about the only thing we have to be grateful for. Accept and Adapt.

Accept and Adapt. Do whatever it takes.

Accept and Adapt.

These are the trees in the first photo in the post.

Here we go again.

The first time was a shock. This time was expected. 
Either way is bad.

Even with my binoculars, the dolphins were hard to see. But it makes me happy to see them out there, not being chased by a dozen or so “swim with the dolphins” boats. The boats out there are anchored. 

The Twilight Zone

---

• • • There are fewer years ahead of me than behind me.
    • The years go by much quicker.
    • Multiprocessing is no longer possible. 
    • Everything takes longer

---

It is raining this evening in Kona. A general feeling of dismay settles in my universe. No matter what happens tomorrow there will be waves to catch, pigs to hunt, and coffee to drink here in Hawai’i.

I declared jet lag over this afternoon. No napping allowed.

Out on my morning walk I am surprised to see a cruise ship. It is the Viking Neptune. It’s a small ship with a capacity of 930 passengers.

Nobody surfing at Honls this morning. But, I did find the Sunday morning yoga group.

It wasn’t all palm trees and beaches. There was uglyness and evil.

These are giant snails. They are a major pest attacking all manner of vegetation. They are also part of the rat lungworm parasite life cycle that infects humans. Nothing good can be said for them. They were intentionally introduced in 1936.

This pest was also intentionally introduced. And like the African Snail, eradication appears to be impossible.

Went for a walk at the Old Airport with Billy, Monique, and Bella to watch the sunrise.

After my walk and socialization period, I returned to the grocery store. 

Let there be Linner.  I have limited cooking “stuff”. Pan-sear yellowfin tuna in butter. Plate the tuna. Toss the tomatoes in the pan with some “spicy” mayo. Let the stay for about 60 seconds. Then add the tomatoes to the plate. How hard is that? And it was excellent. The tomatoes were not great. So heating them and adding some hot mayo helps them along. 

 Last night there was The Coffee Parade. Kona *loves* parades.  

It’s only 5:30 and I am sleepy JET LAG. A walk would help but I have walked almost 5 miles today. First world problem.