Thinking Out Loud

More than anything, I wanted to see a volcano while I was in Hawaii.  Unfortunately, there are no live volcanoes on Maui.  I knew that before I left.  The next best thing would be to see an extinct volcano crater.

The Haleakala Highway takes you to Haleakala National Park.  It’s a narrow winding road that takes you from about a 1000 feet above sea level to a little over 10,000.  And at the top you can see the collapsed crater of a volcano.  Perfect.

Sherry was driving, and all was good until we passed a sign that said, “Turn headlights on while driving through clouds.”  Haleakala means “the land above the clouds.”  That’s when Herb began to clutch the arm rest.  White knuckled, he mentioned about every fifty feet of the climb, “We are very, very, very, friggin high.”  The rest of his conversation usually contained something like, “Do you have to drive so close to the side of the road?”

Sherry was driving perfectly.  I don’t know what would have happened if she was a little nervous about the road.  I think Herb would have simply passed out.  Read the rest of this entry »

Sherry and Herb wanted to go shopping today.  Of course, that didn’t interest me very much, but I tagged along with them because I told them I knew how to get to Lahaina.  I thought a couple of hours of souvenir shopping, and then we could do something else.  But the conversation on the way soon led to the impression this was going to be an all day event.

Uh oh.  Time to move into alternate plan persuasion mode.

I convinced them to take a drive towards the western end of the island, and maybe head up to Haleakala National Park.  We bought a road map and turned around with just a little griping from Sherry.

Our first stop was the Kula Botanical Gardens. Read the rest of this entry »

We were on our way at about 5:30 am to snorkel our way around the Island of Lanai.  I was looking forward to this.  I had been scuba diving a couple of times – but only in dirty old Saskatchewan water and this sounded fun.

We arrived at the docks at Lahania around 6:30 and once everyone was fitted with fins and snorkel gear – all given special names by the Captain of the boat and her crew – we headed out to sea.  My mask and snorkel was called Mahi-Mahi.  Mahi-mahi is Hawaiian for dolphin fish.

I had bought a small digital camera that was waterproof the day before just for the trip.  Yeah – I know – I really needed another camera.  But I didn’t think saltwater would be good for my SLR, considering how my cell phone reacted to dampness.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Iao Valley State park was the last stop on my day trip. By now it was around 4:00 pm, and the sun sets at around 6:30 pm. I had no idea what to expect. There was a little star on the map the car rental place gave me that said “Iao Needle.”

The park is in the valley formed from a collapsed volcano (a caldera) Iao means “cloud supreme” from the bank of clouds that are usually hanging over the valley. Throughout the park, there are signs saying that flash floods occur regularly because of the frequent and heavy rains.

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After my big day at Costco (I still can’t believe I did that – I’ll likely be bungee cord jumping or skydiving next) I was looking forward to a more relaxing day. Audie called me from the lobby first thing in the morning, ready to go, but I hadn’t had my shower yet. I asked for ten minutes. He told me he had one other thing to do, and would be back in about a half hour.

Hawaii time is always twice as long as anywhere else. This morning, that was a good thing.

My shower was broken. It tried to squirt water. But it just couldn’t. Two little drops would leak out and then it would hiss at me and another bit of water would trickle out. And then it quit trying altogether. Read the rest of this entry »

I’m not going to accept any responsibility for taking the wrong road home from Edmonton.

It is clearly and undeniably my brother’s fault. All I wanted was to know the quickest way out of Edmonton to get me to the Yellowhead. He gave me too many details (or not enough, I’m not sure yet) Anyway, somewhere during the discussion there was a 14 mentioned (or perhaps a 214) and a 16 (or a 216) The final result, according to my brother, was that even if I missed the turnoff, all roads led to the Yellowhead, if i turned north (or maybe it was south) Read the rest of this entry »

I’m posting a couple of photos of my new boarders here. A pair of robins have built themselves a nest on top of the front porch light. I don’t mind, they don’t complain about the plumbing, the old paint, or anything else. We haven’t worked out the rent payment details yet. I don’t expect that to be a problem.

They do get up very early in the morning though, and since their nest is pretty much right outside my bedroom window, sleeping in past 4:30 AM is out of the question. Read the rest of this entry »

A few more photos from the other night. Read the rest of this entry »

Despite the fact Bandit the Wonder Dog and I acted as tick bait (I mentioned yesterday I hated wood ticks) I did manage to get some good photos of the sunset setting over Buffalo Pound Lake.

The pictures were taken at the old causeway on #2 Highway. Read the rest of this entry »

Some more lady bug photos…

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