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.

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.)

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.

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. 

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.

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.

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..

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.

Moloka’i Day 12

0705am. Perfect sunrise.

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. 

First stop. mano E Goods and Grinds. Also first hint that we’re not in Kansas.

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 first beach we stopped at.

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

We gain elevation to maybe 2000 feet.

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.

Of course, there’s a beach at the end of the road.
And another sign that we’re not in Kansas.

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

But wait, we have to make another stop at the ranch store. Because yours truly must have the cool t-shirt.

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

Moloka’i Day 11

I was the last person on the plane. I was told to be sure that door was closed.

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.

Kanemitsu’s Bakery & Coffee Shop. Serving awesome food since 1922.
Off for a stroll in a fine cypress forest.
Check out Kalaupapa Lookout.
One of Moloka’i’s prime attractions. The phallic stone.
The stone. It’s rather large and quite impressive. Actually. It was also adorned with several lei. Sam said she would not be staying the night.

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

Chickens, this must be our hotel.
The hotel is almost 60 years old. And it has a strange sort of cold war bomb shelter feel to it.

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

Honolulu day 10

Ultralight packing for this trip.

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.

My flight to Honolulu was completely uneventful. Just the way I like my flights to be.

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 hotel is modest. But I honestly believe they gave me the best room in the house.

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?

Kona – Day 9

625PM – Sunset, not Sunrise. Walking home from dinner.
That’s what I need. Fish, fries and a beer. At a place where they know my name.

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

The remains.

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?
That’s it for wildlife photography. He was on my lanai during breakfast.