Winter Cometh Yet Again

November 2 2011 by Darrin.

 ’Tis the season!  Our first Winter Storm Warning resulted in about 6″ of snow on the level yesterday, November 1, 2011.  It’s 25º this morning - pretty mild for how it looks… 

With the woodstove stoked and the house toasty, Charlis-dog has “assumed the position” for the next five months…

 

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The Answer (to Life, the Universe, & Everything)…

April 23 2011 by Darrin.

…is, in fact, forty-two.  (You’d know this if you read the right books.)

Today, and technically for the next 364 days, I will be of this Earth-time denominated age, having completed 42 trips around the sun.  I am now twice an “adult”, and I hopefully have at least an equal number of trips around the sun remaining .

My mother blessed me with this card this morning, which I think is wonderful, yet horribly atypical of Mom…

…and the inside (Mom - I decided to leave your scribblings, so your position is clear and you are vindicated)…

 To celebrate tonight, I’m having burgers, cheesecake, and Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters.  If this rings no bell, you’re clearly not reading the right books, OR you’ve already had one.  It is “the best drink in the whole universe, and rather like having your brains smashed out with a slice of lemon, wrapped around a large gold brick.”

Here’s the original recipe…

 

Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster

1 bottle Ol’ Janx Spirit.
1 measure Santraginean seawater.
3 cubes frozen Arcturan MegaGin.
4 liters Fallian marsh gas.
1 measure Qualactin Hypermint Extract.
1 Algolian Suntiger tooth.
Zamphour to taste.
Olive garnish.

Anyway, to celebrate the remaining 364 days of forty-two-ness, I am going on a quest to find the best Terran Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster.  Tonight, I’m trying this one, made from champagne, vodka, blue curacao, bitters, and a cocktail onion.  It glows interestingly under UV light…

 

And with that, I’ll tell you that it’s now April 23rd, and I never made it back to the blog last night.  Somehow, it was like my brains got smashed out…  Just so you know, I’m keeping a pack of matches around, just in case.

Posted in Misc. Stuff | 1 Comment »

On Liberty, Safety, and Tyranny

January 15 2011 by Darrin.

I keep the politics to an absolute minimum on our blog and websites.  The latest shooting in the USA is still making headlines around the world, as folks wonder why we “cling to our guns” and create such an “unsafe society” for ourselves here.  I’ve been following this debate heavily for the past week, and I have boiled my thoughts down to just one pithy comment of my own…

 I’d rather endure the risks of Liberty than suffer the consequences of Tyranny.

 To those thinking that “safety” is something that can be achieved by giving up Freedom, my dear friend Wendell put it this way…

 If one could actually purchase safety with Liberty, then there would be no safer place on Earth than prison.

 

 

Posted in Politics and Economics | 1 Comment »

Bye-Bye Blue and Green, Hello Brown and White

November 12 2010 by Darrin.

We’re home safe, and there’s nothing finer!  The drive wasn’t too bad, but as predicted the bridges were icy.  Fueling in Cheyenne, I noticed (but forgot to photograph) a windshield wash bucket frozen solid and capped in snow.  You won’t find that in Hawaii.  Nevertheless, we wouldn’t trade our place for anything.  Frozen buckets of water have their own level of charm, at least to us after two weeks in Hawaii!

Back to finishing our story…  With hours to kill after leaving Heaven’s Door, Anna and I took our time driving north along the east coast toward Waimea and finally to Hawi and Kapa’au.  This was all new scenery for both of us, as I’d not ventured farther north than Waimea in 2009.  It is some fantastic countryside, full of lush grass and sleek cattle.  (Trivia:  The Parker Ranch in this area was once the largest non-corporate cattle ranch in the USA, at about 200,000 acres.)

Driving through this area, we were in and out of clouds and rain.  The landscape was creepy, but awesome…

Our goal was to look south-east from Pololu Valley Lookout.  It’s the “other end” of the tough jungle land that has Waipi’o Valley as its southern border.  (We visited that a few blog-days ago.)  It’s kinda the same thing, just reversed…

On the way, I had some yummy VVT exhaust pizza.  Thanks Toyota!  Nice and crispy.  You can tell when it’s done when the interior smells like food…

On the way south to the Kona airport, you can see Maui off in the distance (and in its own clouds).  It’s probably all we’ll ever see of it!  We heard the rich and famous love it, so we’ll avoid it at all costs…

Okay, that’s about it for our trip.  It’s also about it for our love affair with Hawai’i.  There was a time when Anna thought it might be the perfect place to live.  There were things about it I really loved too, tho’ I wasn’t quite as gung-ho as Anna on relocating there.  After this vacation, nobody’s leaving Wyoming.  Why, you might ask?  Well, here are a few things…

• HUMIDITY - Everything is wet, all the time.  Clothes, books, toilet paper, towels, etc.  It’s impossible to clean camera lenses, and I can only imagine the havoc wreaked on electronics in (short) time.  Driving around, the island IS gorgeous…but then you open the glass to snap a photo and the thickness hits you and you remember how miserable it is outside the power windows.

• MOLD - (see above but) it’s everywhere and you can’t get rid if it.  A/C?  Why is there no air conditioning?  Well…

• HIGHEST ELECTRICITY COSTS in the USA.  It’s crazy.  The 2009 US average is $0.12/KWHr.  In Wyoming, it’s around $0.07.  In Hawaii, try $0.26.  At that rate, it would cost more in electricity to weld than it would for welding wire!

• HIGHEST FUEL COSTS in USA.  Around Kona, $3.89/gal for low-grade petrol.  And about $4.25 for #2 diesel.  Sheesh.  No thanks.

• GROCERIES are extremely expensive too.  $6 for a pound of Jimmy Dean Sausage.  $6 for a pound of local 80% lean beef.  Kiwis are 3 or 4 for $1 in Wyoming.  They’re $1 each in HI.  They come from New Zealand.  Ain’t Hawaii closer to NZ than Wyoming?  Pineapples are $8 minimum on Big Island.  EIGHT DOLLARS!  We get nice ones from Costa Rica for $3 at Sam’s.  They taste better, too!

• SMALL ISLAND - you’ll go stir-crazy after a while.  Don’t ask us how we know.

• MOSQUITOES - I have no problem with the little blood-suckers;  I eat poison, so my blood is poison.  If I do get bitten by one, I don’t even get a mark.  But Anna…  She gets devoured by them, AND gets horribly itchy welts that last a couple days.  I told her, “Eat Spam, honey, and they won’t bother you!”

• CRIME - you can’t go anywhere without seeing warning signs about not leaving things in your car.  Everyone locks their gates - even the automatic-opener ones have a manual chain and padlock on them.  And every home has a beware of dog sign on the gate.  (Don’t worry about the dogs - they’re everywhere BUT it’s so hot and humid, they just sleep in the shade and pay you no mind.)  The owner of Heaven’s Door warned us to lock our gate down the driveway, and suggested we use her floor safe for valuables when we were out sight-seeing!  It was a home in the middle of the jungle, for God’s sake!

• LOTSA ROAD KILL - Dogs and cats are all over the roads.  It sucks, and breaks our hearts.  We know it happens all the time, but we see it there 100 times more frequently than we see it here.  Anna came home and hugged her dog and cats for hours last night.

• STRICT GUN CONTROL- You want a gun of ANY kind?  Talk to the head of law enforcement, and hope he likes haoles and will let you have permission for one.  No hi-cap mags, no concealed carry, and rules that protect the wrong people.  That cinches the deal for me.  HIGH CRIME and no way to protect yourself.  Darrin came home and hugged his guns for hours last night.

• HIPPIES, HIPPIES, and MORE HIPPIES- They’re all over, wreaking of pot and mumbling gibberish.  There was one guy at the health food store trying to ask an employee a coherent question.  No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t get it out without breaking into the giggles.  Anna thought he had a small child, until she realized he was talking to the potatoes, not someone under them.  (Seriously!)

• RACISM- you’re a minority here, and you feel it.  Of course, not everyone is like this, but you do often feel uncomfortable when you get the “stink-eye” from locals.  Our first host, Harry, is a substitute teacher.  He’s a really nice guy, and the farthest thing from a “person of prejudice” he could be.  (Heck, his rental is listed as gay-friendly, and he’s fundamentally pretty liberal on everything we discussed.)  But even Harry told some tales of feeling like the minority he is down there.  All us white folk be haoles, Bra.  Haole (HOW-lee) - literally meaning something like “without breath”.

• FAR AWAY - the 6-hour flight sucks, period.  I’ve done 17 hours (one way) to Australia and back - two round trips.  I don’t think I ever will again.  Oh, my achin’ back!

I guess there’s one other thing I must say, before closing.  It seems SUCH a dualistic society.  I don’t know where the locals derive their income, but they seem to have enough for brand new diesel pickups.  Then they park them under tarps tied loosely to their houses, among a couple hundred bags of old garbage.  And right next door, a palace.  Remember the cute church the other day?  For every one of them, there are ten of these needing love…

See this beautiful entrance, with house listed by Sotheby’s at over $2mil?

Well, here are your neighbors in different directions…

Trust me, this isn’t just around Hilo.  This is everywhere.  Even north at Pololu, there was this killer place (well hidden behind these little trees)…

…and it sat right next to this place I snapped a photo of as we drove by (sorry for the lack of clarity, but you get the idea)…

What, are we having a “who can collect the most garbage” contest?  It’s amazing.  I suppose, IF you bought a hundred acres, and IF you lived there full-time to defend it, and IF you liked humidity, and IF you had way more money than you needed to run the air-co, and IF you had a G5 corporate jet, then property in Hawaii could be really pleasing (between the raindrops).

Unfortunately, we strike out on all of those things, so Wyoming will remain our home for some time to come.  We have incredible freedom here, and we cherish it immensely.

On a more positive note, Anna had great luck getting something back she lost.  She’s had a small good luck charm she’s used for traveling for about ten years.  At the Comfort-Inn DIA on October 27th, it slipped out of the pocket of her jeans, and she discovered missing it at the airport as we were about board our flight to Phoenix.  I called and asked the hotel to look for it and keep it for us if the found it.  As you can imagine, we expected it was gone forever.  When we picked the car up on Nov. 11th, I remembered to ask about it.  The manager was a nice guy from, I’m guessing, Africa somewhere.  (cool accent)  He was skeptical that that they’d have it, but he and the staff looked in three places and FOUND IT!!!!  I asked him to come out to the car and tell Anna himself, so he could see how important it was to her.  Man, this guy played it perfectly, asking her to describe her “rock”.  Then he handed it to her and she literally squealed with delight!  Comfort Inn gets a killer review for that!  Here’s the charm, back in Anna’s hand after more than two weeks lost…

 One final note… Coqui (Coke-ee) Frogs.  Coqui Frogs managed to come to Hawaii from Puerto Rico a while ago, and they’ve infested the East side of the island.  Most people living there hate them, but Anna and I seem to love them.  I always sleep to “nature sounds” on my bedroom stereo, and I liked them so much, I made some recordings and edited them into a ~35-minute MP3 for use at home.  Download the file here if you wish…

COQUI FROGS in HAWAII MP3 FILE

It’s about 30 MB.  Please save the file to your computer if you want it for your “soundscape” MP3 source.

Mahalo for reading!

Posted in Hawaii, 2010 | No Comments »

Last Night Here

November 10 2010 by Darrin.

Funny…  We’re really looking to head home tomorrow.  We have to wait until 2200 to fly out, and we have to be out of here by 1300, so that leaves 9 hours to kill before the airport, then about ten hours of three flights to get to Denver, then four hours to drive to Douglas.  Even more funny…  SNOW IN DENVER Thursday.  It will likely make that four hour drive into an eight hour killer!  Oh well…  We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it - or more realistically, many, many ice-covered bridges all the way home.

Today, I promised Anna I’d not venture out to sink into hot lava tonight.  We spent the daylight hours exploring some back roads again, all on on the mauka (inland/mountain) side of the Belt Road.  There are numerous little churches like this one…

 

…and idyllic landscapes with horses and cows grazing…

We found lots of properties for sale, and many vacant houses perched high up over the ocean.  The places are finished, but empty! (?)  What’s the deal?  Speculation?  Burgled? Beware of Dog sign didn’t work?   In 2006, the average home price around Hilo was $400K.  Right now it’s $260K.  Maybe people are just “sitting” on them and not putting them on the market…

We eventually drifted back to Laupahoehoe Point.  It’s a favorite for us.  (You can even rent an old Buddhist Temple here - the whole thing - as lodging for $100/night.  It sleeps ten people!)  Anyway, the coastline is stunning no matter the direction you look, and we found a rock that would hold the camera for us…

This evening before dark, we made one more 18 mile run into Hilo and checked out a big Japanese garden/park…

We going to try and catch up on sleep tonight, with the 36-hour-awake-’til-home schedule starting tomorrow morning. 

Wish us luck.  The snow awaits!

Posted in Hawaii, 2010 | 1 Comment »

Wanna see lava? GO AWAY!

November 8 2010 by Darrin.

After failing to make it all the way to the flow the other night (just short of it, no flashlights, remember?) we went back with our one flashlight and bought another at Wal*Mart.  Taking a different route this time, we drove out to the where the official road got lava’d away years ago.   We were told where to park by a “security guy” and then went out with the backpack of cameras.  We noticed people kinda smirking at us on their way back.  You could see the steam rising from the ocean, just out of view…

About 1/4 mile in, we found two scientist-type young punks sitting behind a few plastic barricades.  They paid us no attention until I finally interrupted them and ask what the deal was. 

“The deal”, said Aussie-Hippy, “is that the lava is about 4 weeks old on your left, toward the ocean, and there are still hot spots where you can fall through the crust.  No one is getting past me.  The only way you’ll see lava is to take a helo-flight over it, or take your chances with one of the $35 hikes to the beach.”

First of all, it’s been raining like mad and I’ve been killing time watching The Sopranos on my eeePC.  No one is getting past this young, arrogant, dread-locked hippie?  Sheesh.  I shoulda done a “Paulie Walnuts” on his head.  Where’s my shovel?  <grin>

NOW I understand the people shouting at us the other night in the dark, something along the lines of, “You’re not allowed here!”  But according to the folks living here, NO beach is private or forbidden.  And they can’t stop you from going out there.  I guess it’s all about the blessed revenue!  See it yourself by taking a hike, and, well, they lose money.  Our last rental owner told us to just go out anyway.  Screw ‘em.

I may just give her a try tomorrow night, our last night here.  It’s the last thing I want to see on Big Island so why not?  What’s the worst that can happen? I could die?  Might it be the last thing I’ll ever see, on the Big Island or the Big Planet?  More people die in swimming pools than in lava.  (I understand the statistics.  If it works for the gun-grabbers, it can work for me too.)

We met a German guy out at the barricade.  He was pretty disappointed with getting shut down too, so I gave him our trip report from the previous night, hiking “almost there” from Kahena Beach.  (nude, by the waybut we never peeked over the bank.)  He said he’d try it and I gave him my business card and asked him to email me if he made it.  We’ll see!  Let’s just hope that if he burns up, my business card does too!  (Wait, too much Sopranos again.)

Picture time, eh?  I forgot these from the other day, out at Laupahoehoe Point…

 

The sun’s actually out again today!  It’s gorgeous.  And our buddy the heron is back, right on schedule…

I love those dreadlocks.  They look good on him (or her) - MUCH better than they do on Aussie-Hippy Lava Police Dude.  Here’s the Black Crowned Night Heron in as best resolution as I can get with the Nikon, at about 40 yards away.  (click to enlarge, of course)…

Shopping in Hilo today, just to walk around.  We *should* go to the hot springs, but they’re crowded, and we’re from Wyoming.  Anna said she’d watch me go in, but that’s no fun.

Posted in Hawaii, 2010 | No Comments »

Killin’ Time, Waipi’o, Birdwatching

November 7 2010 by Darrin.

I’m trying a slightly different format today with the blog.  I usually “thumbnail” all the pictures, so they’re small and download quickly, but can be seen full size with a mouse-click.  However, I don’t really like the look of so many tiny images, so I’m posting a few larger photos.  They usually can’t be enlarged.  (Tiny thumbnails WILL still link to full sized images, tho’.)  I welcome any comments about this change, so fire away! 

You gotta love this.  The forecast today is “clear” here…

When you click the “Hourly” forecast at the bottom, you get the details, and no where does it say “Clear”…

We’re still in that “Mostly Cloudy” range right now, at 10:45.  See…

And the rain is still coming down…

Right now, Anna’s taking a nap and I’m waiting on the automatic fish feeder to release the morning portion of tilapia food.  There’s a Black Crowned Night Heron here who evidently also has a Timex, because he lands on the feeder every morning just a few minutes before the feeder does its thing…

When the feeder goes off, he jumps down and goes fishin’…

Today, however, he got skunked.  Clearly it’s called “fishing” and not “catching” for birds too, ‘cuz here he is, hungry afterwards (he seems to be picky - there are a few carp in here and he avoids them.  The tilapia are what he’s after!)…

Yesterday, Anna and I drove up the coast to see Waipi’o Valley.  It’s been recommended to us, and we were really looking forward to it.  Generally, the weather gets better as you go north, but this was the scene the whole way…

We arrived at the scenic overlook, and this killer view…

Blackberry to the rescue again!  (We currently have internet for the PC courtesy the ‘Berry, and it got us off the lava in the dark the other night too .)   With a few bars of CDMA signal at the overlook, we downloaded the following picture of the valley, so we could say we saw it…

 

Just as we were about to leave, the fog broke up and we could be sure the scene on the Blackberry existed in real life!  Note the waterfall pouring off the cliff in our image (when you enlarge it), but not seen in the shot off the Web…

Well, in an hour and a half, we’re off to the Puna District again, to try and see the lava.  On the way, we’ll swing by Wal*Mart, for an LED head-light.  We won’t be making THAT mistake twice!

Posted in Hawaii, 2010 | 1 Comment »

Bored in the Rainforest, Part 2

November 6 2010 by Darrin.

Before we explore more of Big Island, let’s back up a bit and introduce you to our home for the second week, which we’re about half way through.  It’s another VRBO rental called Heaven’s Door.  The owners live on Oahu, and I recall them saying they plan to retire here.  It is a very private gated property, nestled in the jungle around Ninole…

Out front, there’s a tilapia pond…

Out back by the bedrooms, a Koi pond (Anna loves feeding them a scoop of Koi food at night)…

…and the best of all - EXCELLENT SLEEPING by our own private little waterfall, heard in stereo with the windows open in the bedroom…

 The gate is about 75 yards from the house through lush vegetation…

Inside, the place has fully tiled floors and pine tongue and groove walls and celing.  It’s nice and cozy…

We do notice that when motoring around inside, you get the sensation of walking up and down slightly.  Considering the only foundation seems to be concrete blocks on which the house’s stilts are sitting, we can understand the wavy floor…

So, it was another rotter today, weather-wise.  (Basil Fawlty, anyone?  Anyone?)  Evidently, it’s a lot for these guys too!  Beaches have washed out, places are closed, the roads are covered with palm fronds, coconuts, and bigger limbs.  Even dirt banks next to the belt road have given way in some places and there are lava-boulders out in the middle of 60 mph traffic.  The stream next to the tilapia pond and driveway has been raging  since last night, and the little waterfall behind the bedroom has quit running.  (The little dam that diverts water to the Koi pond has washed completely away!)  Here’s the stream, near the front gate…

So what have we done since being on the Hilo side of Big Island?  We started out Wednesday with a meal at Sombat’s Thai restaurant.  Sombat grows her own veggies at home, and cooks up phenomenal chow.  Anna’s starting into an order of stir-fried veggies and mahi-mahi in oyster sauce, and the bowl in front of it is mine: pineapple curry with pork.  There’s also one of Sombat’s basil spring rolls left on the plate (which didn’t make it home).  It was the best Thai food I’ve had, ever…

Thursday, we spent the morning checking out Akaka Falls, just five miles south of us.  I saw it last year, but Anna didn’t.  It was crowded, but a nice walk anyway.  Check out the huge bamboo, too (that speck is Anna!)…

  

Now it’s time for a map.  After Akaka, I thought we might take a drive out to the lighthouse at Kapoho Point on the eastern tip of the island, then head south-west to where the lava is currently flowing into the Pacific and making Big Island bigger…

The lighthouse was a bit of a disappointment, for a guy who loves Mainland USA lighthouses.  This was more like a lamppost…

Anna noticed that I found email on my Blackberry much more interesting…

From Kapoho, we traveled down the coast as planned, and found a place where the surf was crashing into volcanic rock…

 

Just after that, another little cove yielded a gorgeous scene…

The road finally ended where we thought we were supposed start walking toward the active lava as it meets the surf.  With no flashlights (the guidebooks mandate flashlights!), we headed south-west across the older stuff…

It is wicked landscape, full of interesting patterns and a surprising amount of color!

 

After hoofing it more than a mile, it was almost dark.  We were getting close, as we could see and smell the plume of steam and smoke as Madame Pele birthed more land…

Unfortunately, we started to rethink the whole “hiking over lava and ankle-breaking cracks in the total darkness” thing, and turned around at this point, just shy of our goal.  By the light of the Blackberry screen, we made it back to the parking lot and were thankful for it! 

Sunday, WX-permitting, we’ll try it again.

Posted in Hawaii, 2010 | 1 Comment »

Bored in the Rainforest, Part 1

November 5 2010 by Darrin.

Here we sit in Ninole, Big Island, Hawaii.  (pronounced ni-NOLE-ie) It’s a beautiful, quite tropical place.  Who woulda thunk that “rain-forest” implied a forest where it rains all the time?  Anna warned me, but I didn’t listen.  Our current VRBO rental, Heaven’s Door, is in the North Hilo District on the east coast…

Heaven’s Door is a beautiful place, but more on that in the next post.  Our vacation started last week with a flight from Denver-Phoenix-Kona.  Here’s Big Island as we approach at ~20,000 feet…

We stayed last week just south of Captain Cook, over on the other side of Big Island at Makalani Oceanview Cottage with our friend Harry…

Makalani is close to lots of swimming and great beaches.  Most mornings, we drove 15 minutes north to Ho’okena Beach where Anna caught some rays and I snorkeled around hoping to glimpse a dolphin…

 

As it’s on the west side of the island, sunsets can be pretty nice.  Honestly, not Wyoming-quality and Wyoming-quantity, but still, this is right out the cottage window, and is certainly nothing to sneeze at…

The place almost next door to Harry happens to be for sale.  It’s just over 5 acres, and has three really nice spots with building potential.  All of them have gorgeous ocean views and don’t have another house in direct sight.  There are even three existing structures (all un-permited and technically illegal) where you could “shack up” while building something nice.  Here’s one of them…

Unfortunately, it’s right off of the Belt Road and traffic noise is incessant.  It’s also overpriced at an asking price of $410K.  I’ve never seen a meth lab, but I imagine they’d look like these shacks, with all sorts of bottles, tubing, and chemicals.  Once I considered that, I got outta dodge fast!

Makalini Cottage is in the Kona District - the area where Kona coffee gets its name.  Just south of Harry, you’ll find Sudy, who feeds hundreds of feral animals like cats, chickens, and pigs while her husband is busy tending the coffee trees.  Miss Sudy’s coffee is picked and roasted right there; it’s not co-op coffee that’s picked from many farms, mixed together, then redistributed to small farms for retail sale.  Yeah, that’s even her real zebra, next to a bag of her Zebra Roast (dark and light blend)…

On Saturday, we drove over to Hilo to the downtown Farmer’s Market.  Along the way, rain, rain, rain.  Anna said, “Are you SURE you wanted to stay another week over on this side?”  I assured her that it was mostly sunny, but cloudbursts could happen.  No big deal.  It’s a fluke…

As for the market, we discovered it last year and it was awesome as ever (we go again tomorrow)…

Anna got all sorts of fruits and veggies and some HORRIBLE little apple bananas that were so far gone, you could get drunk eating them.  I picked up some Avocado Garlic Dip and Lava Salsa from a young chef from Colorado I remembered from last year here.

Monday, Harry invited us to go in his Jeep over to South Point and Green Sand Beach.  Last year, I drove over, parked, and hiked to the beach.  I recall it is about 1.5 miles one way - maybe more.  You can drive it with a 4WD, but last year you may recall that I rode Shank’s mare and was beat upon my return to the car.  I’d made it to the overlook, but not the beach.  This year, Harry drove us in, and we parked at the place I got to in 2009…

While it looks like it could be tough to walk down, it’s not.  Here’s the beach…

…and the easy “stair-stepped” climb back out (Anna and Harry)…

To my friend Robin in Baltimore…  NO, I didn’t bring you any sand!  Here’s why…

We also visited the “boat launch” at South Point.  Anna missed this last year too, so Harry made sure she got to see it.  The water was much more calm than last year, and just incredibly clear.  Had I known, I’d have brought my mask and snorkel…

This place is called the boat launch because Polynesians used to (actually still do) launch fishing canoes from this place.  There are even ancient mooring points still visible, hand-carved into the volcanic rock…

There’s another pretty little beach very close to Makalani, called Pebble Beach.  It’s five minutes away.  Here are some photos of it…

 

Interestingly, the black pebbles contain the mineral Olivine - the same stuff that makes the green sand at Green Sand Beach…

Our last night at Makalani, we met Harry and Roman (an exchange student from Ukraine, staying with Harry for a year) down at Pebble Beach and Harry showed us a portion of the King’s Trail - a trail that will eventually circumnavigate the Big Island.  Here you can see Anna, Harry, and Roman hiking south along the trail…

We’re actually located just down below Harry’s place, and there are some burial grounds that go all the way up to his property.  Down at the coast, some are clearly marked…

I should point out that Anna woke up to the Mango Hut shaking a couple nights, and she dreamed of long white ghosts!  She later read that other people have experienced these thin, wispy things in dreams and in person, and they’re commonly known to be island spirits!  She had no idea there was a burial ground just below.  Whatever they are, they can enjoy the sunsets from their burial ground…

 

Stay tuned.  More to come soon!

Posted in Hawaii, 2010 | 1 Comment »

The Long-Awaited Shop Pad

October 25 2010 by Darrin.

I built the workshop back in 1999/2000.  At the time, I didn’t think I’d need a slab out front.  (Five years prior, I didn’t think I’d need a shop, so go figure.)  Over the first few years, it became obvious that my initial logic was flawed, with my feet always muddy from trips to and fro.  I also spent countless hours building little railroad-style tracks for heavy projects to roll outside on, after meticulously shimming them in the dirt out front, on pieces of lumber and steel.  Here’s an old shot of what the site looked like previously…

It was just Mulie season here.  Gary, a friend and annual deer hunter from Wisconsin, was debating whether or not to come out this year.  He makes his living in construction back there, so I suggested he consider pouring this slab for me if he came out.  He got here hoping to go hunting, but the season was shorter than normal and the weather was not in his favor.  He rearranged his plans and we did some preliminary work Tuesday, he and a hand from South Dakota excavated and set up Wednesday, and they poured Thursday and Friday to just beat some impending unexpected rain (and now snow).

Things could have been smoother, but Murphy’s always around to mess with you.  Tuesday night, we tried to bust out some “extra” concrete that had been placed in front of my walk door years ago.  It was poured solid around a frost-free hydrant, and wasn’t the 4″ expected, but a whopping 13″.  Too make a long story short, the hydrant broke and I had to replace it - 5′ down, 24″ hole, and virtually impossible to work in there to repair it…

Thursday, the first load of mud came - 4000 psi with fibermesh, to be poured 6″ thick…

By Friday, it was all in place…

 

And that damned hydrant?  Here’s the new one installed, properly protected from moving with the slab.  Notice that the concrete is scored in a 3′ square, and ready to break out with a hammer if needed.  It’s 4″ thick there, instead of 6″, and should come out okay IF I need to dig it up again.

Monday morning now, Gary’s heading home and he just made it out of here.  I guess our long-lasting summer has finally come to an end…

 

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