Category: The DayBook

This Blog started in 2001 as a Trip Log to record a summer in Alaska. Since then, it has morphed into my online diary.

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Kona – Day 24

0745am Waiting on Monique and Billy. Plan is to go to the farmers market.
In my case it was more like the bakers market. 

After all that, we are hungry. BREAKFAST! Monique wants poke. And fortunately it’s almost 9am. 

Best Poke on westside of Hawai’i Island.
Outstanding breakfast. Rice, raw fish, seaweed. To die for.
This is one of my all time favorite bathroom signs and it’s a damn fine bathroom for a poke shack.
Then on to another market in quest of tomatoes.

But wait. We need tomatoes. Stop at another market. This one is more crafts and less food. But, they have tomatoes.

In addition to tomatoes, the resident rooster has truly impressive spurs.
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Kona – Day 23

Between Iron Man in October and Christmas, the village is very quiet.

Quiet, that’s how I like things these days.The older I get the quieter I like it. But, my hearing isn’t what it used to be. So, maybe that’s why things seem quiet.

Christmas starts to sneak in.

Which reminds me, I need to fold some stars.

The Baldwin locomotive on Lāna’i is named “Waiahole” and was manufactured in 1882 by the Baldwin Locomotive Works. It was originally used on Maui at the Spreckels Plantation before being brought to Lāna’i in 1899.

The Lana’i sugar plantation was a complete and speedy failure. 500 Japanese workers arrived. A village was constructed. This would be in 1899. In 1900 plague struck in Honolulu and it made its way to Lana’i. And the plantation’s source of fresh water turned brackish in 1901. The train was blamed for all the problems since a heiau (temple) was destroyed when the tracks were laid for the train. The sugar plantation closed in 1901. 

Cat picture below.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is our resident mouser.

She is small. But good at her job.

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Kona – Day 22

Molokai. A walk along the road.

One evening, I went for a walk along the road to get some exercise. This was the only time I had ever taken a walk in an “urban area” and encountered a deer skeleton and a deer in the process of becoming a skeleton. Guess no needed deer meat.

I did grownup stuff today. Stuff like going to the store for breakfast foods. 

Other grown up stuff was checking to be sure I had the “best” medicare coverage.

And, I thought “would I like to take a last lap around the planet?” And if so, how? It’s common among my neighbors at the home to take a world cruise. That’s not for me.

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Kona – Day 21

0738am It’s Boat Day.

Out doing my aerobic exercise this sort of early this morning. In the afternoon I went for a little swim. The bathrooms and shower were closed. I am sure that made many of the cruisers very unhappy. It made me unhappy. Had to walk home with sandy feet. Anyhow, public bathrooms are scarce in Kona.

Did I tell you this story about Molokai? We were out in the car and decided that we needed a pitstop. SO. We went to the airport. It was nearby. Parking was easy and about 100 feet away from the terminal. And there were no guards or TSA. Just nice clean bathrooms. Can you imagine going to Dulles Airport just to use the restroom?

Just Science Fiction? I am re-reading Robert Heinlein’s 1982 classic Friday.  Two quotes:

    • It is a bad sign when the people of a country stop identifying themselves with the country and start identifying with a group. A racial group. Or a religion. Or a language. Anything, as long as it isn’t the whole population.

    • Sick cultures show a complex of symptoms such as you have named…but a dying culture invariably exhibits personal rudeness. Bad manners. Lack of consideration for others in minor matters. A loss of politeness, of gentle manners, is more significant than is a riot.

Just Science Fiction?

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Kona – Day 20

Old Airport.

Went out to Old Airport with Billy to welcome the sun this morning. We also did breakfast and cruised around doing errands and visiting.

One stop was at the hardware store. It doesn’t sell origami paper anymore. That was a bummer. I’ll make my holiday origami out of an old calendar as planned.

Ruddy Turnstone, Akekeke, comes from the Arctic in the winter. How does a bird that’s smaller than a robin do that?

This was the end of cruising around in Billy’s truck.

Keahou Bay.
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Kona – Day 19

They are looking pretty damn good, aren’t they? Notice, that they are looking off to the left.

One of today’s projects was to get cracking on some holiday origami. So, it was off to the thrift shop where I hoped to score some sheet music no luck. So, I had to get a book or two to turn into origami paper. I left the Bush and Cheney books. And settled for a 2021 calendar (free) and a Japanese book (75 cents).

Origami 5-point stars. Pennies for scale.

I have never folded this star because it starts from not a square of paper but a pentagram. The pentagram was just too much trouble. Well, it turns out, as long as you have scissors, the pentagram is not a problem, and the star is a crease-and-collapse model, so it’s all rather fun.

Gratitude

I am grateful to not be using the Pixel Phone to update the blog. 

Another from Lana’i jeep trek. The abandoned Japanese cemetery with its Buddist reference to the 3 realms of desire, form, and non-form was seriously not cheerful. Especially since the cemetery is surrounded by thorn-infested kiawe. (Serious 2-4 inch thorns.)
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Kona – Day 18

Moloka’i Sunrise. Sounds like an umbrella drink.

Five weeks. Then back to “real” life at The Asylum.

I hope to make good use of my five weeks. I have several computer projects to work on. Just for me projects.

I really need to increase my aerobic fitness. There is a fine hill right out my door. Everyday Carlton walked up that hill. BEFORE his first cup of coffee. The man did die at 79. But, except for terminal cancer, he “died in good health”. So. I am not sure I can do it BEFORE the first cup of coffee however.

Guess Carlton is on my mind today. I had his favorite local breakfast – spam musubi. And I did his walk. Now I am having coffee and Diamond Bakery Graham Crackers at 4PM. That was another Carlton Kona ritual. Sometimes he swapped out the Diamond Bakery Graham Crackers for Hilo Creme Crackers. 

Gratitude

Thank you Carlton.

One of those computer projects is to get the 2024 photos, current number 4035, culled and cataloged.

Moloka’i.

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Kona – Day 17

Ka Lanakila O Ka Malamalama Church – ca 1903

The “old church” on the backside of Lana’i. From yesterday’s jeep adventure.

Made it safely back home to Kona. Arrived home about 5:15. Went to the grocery store. Doing a load of laundry. Sorta unpacked. Made chicken and broccoli for dinner. Having coffee and bread pudding for dessert at this instant. Then heading off to bed soon. I am tired. 

Ka Lanakila O Ka Malamalama Church – ca 1903

More about the grand trip to Moloka’i and Lana’i later. 

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Lana’i Day 16

Coffee on the porch.
After getting breakfast and some sandwiches for lunch we head out to find petroglyphs.
And we found them. I’m not 100% sure that this one is authentic. But I like it.
Most likely the highlight of the day was watching a monk seal happily swimming along the shoreline. The picture isn’t much but we loved it 

Much of today was spent driving down a four-wheel drive Jeep road. Stopping from time to time to see this or that abandoned something or the other. Church, school, graveyard, Baldwin train engine, and a stone bread oven. Too many pictures to interest anybody.

Sooner or later, we get to the end of the road. And we turn around heading back to the hotel. But first, pull over to the side of the road and have lunch.
Back in town, I head out for a little fitness walk and check out some wall art.
We liked dinner at the hotel so much last night that we made reservations for dinner again tonight. We ate outside and it was cold so they brought the ladies really nice fluffy blankets. It was sort of funny eating dinner wrapped up in blankets in Hawaii.
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Lana’i Day 15

After a 5000 calorie breakfast, it’s off on an adventure.
I believe we end up on Mars.
Next stop. The cat sanctuary. They have 803 cats at this instant.
Time to find the beach.
The four seasons hotel is next to the beach. So we strolled around the hotel. Looking at the carp and eating ice cream. There are three hotels on Lanai. Two are four seasons hotels and there’s the cheap hotel. We’re at the cheap hotel.
Back in town, we go for a little stroll.
Today’s sign.

Isn’t technology grand? 98% of the island and 100% of the hotels are owned by Larry Ellison. So it’s no surprise that our little hotel is technologically up to date. We have a Toto toilet. 5G cell service. And fine Wi-Fi. We also have shades, lights and air conditioning that are “smart”. Well, yesterday I could not get the bedside lamps to go off or the bathroom lights to turn off. No matter what I did. I solved the problem by unscrewing the light bulbs by the beds and closing the bathroom door.

Unknown to me the kids had the same problem. I’m results-oriented. The kids being process oriented, reported the problem to the desk and got moved to another room. While we were out on our adventure today, the so-called smart system seems to have smartened up and the kids are back in the original room and my lights are all working now.

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Lana’i Day 14

Finally, somewhere over the rainbow

Mostly travel today.

We took this plane from Molokai to Maui. We got off this plane. And 20 minutes later we got back on this plane. And we took this plane from Maui to Lanai.

I even had the same seat both flights.

For sure, this is my favorite sign of the day. I must add that there is no such thing as TSA. You could take a machine gun on the plane and no one would care. As long as it weighed less than 50 lb.

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

We get checked in do the cheap hotel on the island.

The cheap hotel is pretty sweet.

We have our own porch complete with rocking chairs. But it’s quite chilly up here. I wish we had our own fireplace!
We decided to have linner again today..
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Moloka’i Day 13

Kumu Farm Stand. They sell DINO kale and Sam discovered Kumu Farms provides papaya to her zoo.

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.

Beach number one. Dixie Maru. Good surfing could be found here. And there were a lot of deer bones laying around.

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

Beach number two.

Near Beach number 2. Was this totally Jurassic Park compound.

Beach number 3.

Beach number 4.

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.
Beach number five.

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.