Hawaii: The Big Island

So far i've been to Maui, Kauai, and as of this spring, Hawaii. Hawaii, or "The Big Island" as it's most commonly referred, is indeed a big island, relative to the other islands in the chain. If sea level was 200 feet lower (which it has been in the past)  the island group of Lanai, Molokai and Maui might be bigger. But even so, the Big Island is actively growing larger, and contains some of the newest land on earth (at prices low enough to melt rock!).

In the Captain Cook area there's a nifty antique store on the ocean side of the main road. "Discovery Antiques - Ice Cream" is jammed full of trinkets & oddities, and ice cream.

We were there for 12 days and made generally good use of our time, so i have a ton of pictures to issue out over the next five years. Hawaii has the most varied landscapes of any of the islands i've seen. Due to the geography coupled with the typical slow driving roads we decided it would be best to stay for a few days on both sides of the island, to eliminate hours and hours of backtracking through super low speed limits and endless no passing zones. That was a really good idea.

Mamalahoa Highway (road 180) is a nice old road running through a historic district high on the hill between Kona and Captain Cook. Along the way is a cool historic stop called the Keauhou Store. The store was opened by a Japanese immigrant by the name Yoshisuke Sasaki in 1918. As much a museum as a store, the enthusiastic owners are delighted to relate it's history to visitors.  

Speaking of driving, i need to say something about tourism in Hawaii. I have had a lot of rental cars in my time, and nowhere have i encountered more deceptive rental car agents than on the islands of Hawaii. In Maui they practically threatened to sue you in their efforts to up-sell you on car insurance. Kauai was similar. But this latest experience near the Kona airport really takes the cake. I had rented a Jeep Wrangler "or similar" . When i arrived the guy said i probably needed to upgrade to a far more expensive 4-door version of the Jeep. I was immediately pissed off because during the reservation process there was no choice between a 4 door or 2 door. What followed was me getting very irate while the rental agent aggressively tried to convince me that a two door car wasn't going to work based on my amount of luggage. I stuck to my guns because i was absolutely not going to pay more than i had already agreed too. When i walked around back to pick up my 2 door, the car lot agents told me "they didn't have any 2 door jeeps so just go pick out any 4 door"?!?!

So, instead of being a cool rental car agent and making me happy by letting me know how "lucky" i was to get a free upgrade, as i have encountered at other rental desks around the country, this jerk lied through his teeth to the point that he was trying to convince me he was doing me a huge favor in getting me to pay for something more that i shouldn't have too. He was pretty much attempting to con me out of about $150 because he didn't want to upgrade me for free. As i said though, when i rented the car that wasn't even an option, so the whole idea that i was getting any upgrade at all is questionable. Beware of Hawaiian car rental agents. They are not there to help you. Now, the guys out in the lot were perfectly fine fellows even when we drove in with a flat tire later on.

This was our rental car. One day it got a flat tire about 4 miles from the rental lot. I was able to drive to the lot and get a replacement before all the air leaked out. It was the most convenient flat tire i've ever had! Our replacement was a silver version with a hard top, which was a lot quieter.

We started off our foray on the west side of the island, which is the "sunny" side. Previously we've always stayed in hotels but this time out we went a different route and decided to rent a condo in the west, and a house in the east. This was also a great idea, and not only provided us with more luxurious and private accommodations, but saved us a ton of money on eating out. If you haven't been to Hawaii, eating out is going to be your greatest expense relative to the value for your money.

Also along the Malahoa Highway are a couple of old cemeteries. This one is the Holualoa Japanese Cemetary (their spelling). It was interesting becuase it's a "do it yourself" burial grounds. Families buried in the cemetery are responsible for digging their own plots and the result is a variety of unique gravestones.

Our first stay was south of Kona in a mostly residential area known as Captain Cook. Our house was, coincidentally, called the Captain Cook Suite. I probably spent 4 to 6 hours scouring the VRBO website analysing photos with a military grade intensity, and it really paid off. Our suite was nearly everything i was looking for. I wasn't disappointed in the least. The owner lived in a house adjacent to but not connected to ours.

Our steep driveway.

Our nice big patio, which you must refer to as a Lanai while in Hawaii.

The kitchen had no stove but it had a toaster oven and a double hotplate, and that was sufficient.

The only thing i was worried about from the photos was the furniture, but it was all sturdy, comfortable and clean.

The bathroom had double sinks with plenty of counter space as well as two shower heads.

The jacuzzi tub had an awesome bamboo grove right out the window, usually covered in geckos. The geckos in the house were good for the bugs. Did you know if you get  a dozen geckos together battle will ensue?

The view from out Lanai was very nice. The weather patterns were blowing smog from the volcano to the south, making it look pretty hazy in that direction most of the time.

Captain Cook is about 15 minutes south of Kona/Kailua, which is where the airport is located. Kona is in the sunny zone. Captain Cook is far more lush than Kona and exists on a border zone between the sunny and wet portions of the island. As such, it was often sunny, often cloudy, and occasionally rainy, every day. We arrived at 11pm during a torrential downpour which continued most of the first night. That made me nervous, but the next day it was nice again. I ended up really enjoying the area. The location at 1,000 feet above sea level coupled with the afternoon clouds that developed throughout the day really helped keep the place cool most of the time. It was a welcome respite to come back to after getting baked in the sun during our activities at the beach. The other nice thing about the location was it was very private, tucked away on a very steep hillside dotted with luxury homes.

Over there is the house where the owner lived.

The property had nice flowers around the front door.

Our driveway was almost a corkscrew.

The downstairs apartment was a lot smaller than ours, but it did have this nice little lawn with pretty much the same view as ours.

So there you have it. I thought i'd get rid of the "boring" stuff first. We had a lot of fun, and i've got some pretty cool pictures to share in the coming weeks, so stay tuned!

Birdsong

Front cover

Birdsong is a delightful picturebook written and illustrated by Ellie Sandall and the first of her picturebooks to be published.  She's since written two more and they are winging their way over to Portugal as I write! She doesn't seem to have a website, but Sunshine smiles have beautifully showcased her work here. 

Her picturebook, Birdsong is perfect for pre-school, with quirky illustrations and a fun rhyming text full of wacky bird sounds. 

BAck and front covers

The front and back covers come together to make one illustration, which when seen opened up show several of the birds who appear in the story, peering out from the other side of the tree on the back cover.  A tree with a lovely rough texture, oil pastel on coarse water colour paper, a nice contrast to the smoother looking birds, who are painted in watercolour, as well as the little, delicate butterfly who flutters nearby.

We open up to the page many paperbooks have, "This book belongs to ...", where that pretty butterfly can be seen again, paused on the word 'to...'

Front endpapers

Next the front endpapers, a textured pasture with collage flowers and a tree in the distance, covered in pastel pink flowers - there's the pink bird from the front cover and, if you look closely, that butterfly is there too. The copyright and title page bring us even closer to the tree ...

Copyright and title page

... and the pink bird and his companionable butterfly begin our story. 

Opening 1

"One small bird, in a tree. Kitcha, kitcha, kee, kee, kee:" You can guess what will happen can't you? 

Opening 2

"Here's another come and see! Urrah! Urrah! Rah, rah, ree. Kitcha, kitcha, kee, kee, kee:"
And so as we turn the pages these lovely birds, mostly watercolour with tiny bits of collage stuck on, see the crest on the yellow and green bird's head. Two more birds come along, and their onomatopoeic sounds continue the rhythm.  "And now an owl's come into view ..."

Opening 4

"Too-whit, too-wit, too-wit, too-woo. Chucka, chucka. Weet, weet, weet. Tchikka, tchikka.Tweet, tweet, tweet. Urrah! Urrah! Rah, rah, ree. Kitcha, kitcha, kee, kee, kee."  These sounds are wonderful, but you need to concentrate as you read through them!  The rhythm helps get the pronunciation right though! Then along comes a parrot, "Ru-tu, ru-tu, ru-tu-tu!"  Then two more, Kirri! Kirri! Kip, kip, kip:" 

Opening 6

The butterfly is still fluttering by and the branch gets more and more bent (an ideal opportunity for talking about accumulated weight!). And don't the birds look happy, together, some of them nuzzling comfortably together ... "Can any more fit on this tree? It looks a little full to me!" Well, along comes a very large colourful bird, we see him flying towards the tree, and then landing ...

Opening 8

A huge bird with a mighty beak joins them with a piercing shriek! KEEYAAAAAAAA!" the font screeches across the page too and knocks the other birds off.  Is he an gaudy bird?  Notice the butterfly is the only creature to fly above the loud noise.  Our gaudy bird sits proudly on the branch, "The little branch is all his own:" But he doesn't see (or hear) the branch cracking, do we if the words didn't warn us? "He hasn't seen the butterfly, gently, gently floating by... Look out bird!" Butterfly lands just by the crack and ...

Opening 11

What a lot of feathers! "... Whatever could have made him fall?"

Opening 12

How forlorn he looks, as the butterfly flutters by and he nurses his head!  The other birds are high in the sky, can you see them? That's spread 12 which is the last in the body of the book, but true to form, this picturebook has not yet ended, for the back endpapers show us how the story is resolved. 

Back endpapers

The eight birds are on the other branch, the one we saw on the back cover and the biggest, loudest bird is skulking off.  Who's in the foreground?  Our butterfly!  
So simple, yet so clever.  Children love the silly bird sounds and pick up the rhythm really quickly.  A lovely book to share and if you want to talk about companionship and sharing it's a nice place to start. 

Nisha Kothari Stills From Hari Om Movie!

Another Year, Another Surgery

I'm finally caving and trying out Bloggers Dynamic Views. It seem to work well for some aspects of blogging but it misformats the pictures and text for older posts. So let me know if you like or don't like it. I've heard it can mess with the stats too. This post will serve as a trial.

Just after Thanksgiving i had a second surgery on my shoulder. So i was in a sling for  6 weeks, again, unable to really do much of anything except visit with people and play Skyrim. So that's what i did. I spent a few weeks with my Seattle relatives and then made the trip to Alabama for another two weeks before returning to Snoqualmie. I didn't even bother to bring my camera with me, because it would be impossible to use it without going to great efforts. I did bring my iphone though.

This is what i like about the forests in the Pacific Northwest. 

A fern forest.

 I spent a lot of time walking on the neighborhood trails around Snoqualmie for exercise.

 I found an old Ford Ranger and a "Scout Custom" that were nearly reclaimed by the forest.

In Alabama my friend Mike took me out to this place i somehow had never heard of all the years i had lived in Alabama. Near Bucks Pocket State Park, down an inconspicuous dead end county road 144, is a very tiny park called High Falls. It's a fantastic waterfall that would make for a great swimming hole in the summer.

Yes that's a natural bridge window on the right.

On the road that leads to the falls is this pretty neat old house.

 Inside were some very steep stairs.

When i got back to Seattle we had Christmas dinner at a house being rented by my sister Noni. It also had steep stairs.