Monday With the Grandkids

February 24, 2020, Davis, CA

A nice day.  We got a call Sunday night from a friend who asked if we would watch her son for about three hours Monday afternoon.  We agreed and canceled any plans of leaving the house today since we don’t have a car seat for the extra kid.  It was OK.  They raced around for three hours, inside the house and outside, and got along well.  At one point they found the lego car and wanted to put it together.  I asked if they were willing to keep at it until it was done and they assured me they were.

Here’s the car,

So we got started.  A short time later 180 pieces and we’re making headway,

Still later we were going OK but they wanted to play hide and go seek.  Here’s about where we ended up,

That was pretty much it for the car for today except one granddaughter played with the unfinished car for about an hour which I thought was great.

Throughout the afternoon we were assembling dinner.  For the adults that is,

And that’s the way it was.  Oh, I almost forgot, Nana had to stay up late because one kid thought she was going to get sick just before bed.  She didn’t.

Back in Davis

February 22 and 23, Davis, CA

Back home, getting over the two hour time difference but glad to be here.  Took early morning bike ride into town and picked up supplies for dinner.  Son and daughter-in-law dropping off the granddaughters so they can get away for a week in Hawaii at Baby Beach.

Dinner was this baked pasta with ricotta along with an artichoke salad,

But before starting dinner, time to unpack the bike,

Kids got left with us and they’re spending their first day here exploring for any new toys, remember the excitement?  They found some too,

And one is fascinated by the Rubik’s Cube, well, I don’t blame her, I am too.  I scramble it a little bit and she tries her best to solve it with more success than failure,

She also likes the Art Angle toy, yikes, so do I,

She found she could combine the Art Angle toy with the Rubik’s Cube,

Fun.  We’re off to the park.  And that’s the way it’s going today.

Travel Day

February 21, 2020, Paia, Maui County, HI

Today is a travel day.  Filled the rental car with gas yesterday and boxed the bike.  We want to leave the house by 9 AM.  All is ready and we bid adieu to Baby Beach.  No more to hear the rolling surf and the doves and it’s 70 degrees when you get up in the morning.  Oh well, we’ll be back.  One more look from the lanai before we leave,

Here we go, new facility at OGG for rental cars.  Much easier, I would say,

Walk to the terminal after dropping off the car,

Don’t want to walk?  Take the tram,

Lynn is waiting, time to check in,

See you in Davis.

Last Day at Baby Beach Hale

February 20, 2020, Paia, Maui County, HI

Our last day here.  It’s really windy, probably the windiest day yet.  Mornings start breezy but by afternoon, a gale.

Scenes from the morning bike ride.  We’re thinking about bringing the family to some condos here,

Looks like their restoration is holding up well,

I found another baby beach on Stable Road, a coral reef separating a calm lagoon from the breakers,

We took our recycling out as we cleaned up our nest and we stopped at Ho’okipa Lookout on the way home.  This is looking toward Kahului,

And our last sunset over Kahului and Wailuku,

Aloha and Mahalo Baby Beach

Whale Watching

February 19, 2020, Paia, Maui County, HI

It is so windy today riding a bicycle is questionable.  The winds are supposed to pick up this afternoon too.  I rode into town anyway, headwind towards Paia, tailwind home.  Beach is not a good choice today.  No matter how much I stubbornly dispute the fact that it’s just too windy, it is.

Lynn wanted to watch the democratic debate, which is early afternoon here, so we drove to the outlook point on the highway to Lahaina to see what we could see.  This year we are not taking a whale watch cruise.  We were there thirty to forty minutes and saw several whales.  It was nice but so windy that the whole time we were out of the car I was afraid my glasses were going to blow away.  Really windy.

Ran some errands and came home and made a shrimp scampi with orzo from a recipe in the NYT.  Not bad, we’d do it again.

That’s our day, windy so picture taking was limited.

Lynn got a picture of our friends the java sparrows, she did a much better job than I did,

There was a Geodetic Survey marker at the outlook parking lot.  I am not sure of the significance of this but I always enjoy finding them,

Lynn is waiting in the car in the Safeway parking lot watching the planes on final approach to the Kahului airport, OGG,

And, finally, at least one picture of the ubiquitous Hawaiian chickens, this is a nice looking rooster,

Tomorrow’s our last day, darn

To the Plantation

February 18, 2020, Paia, Maui County, HI

It was windy and wet this morning so we didn’t get outside too early.  Things cleared up eventually and a walk and a bike ride were in order.  I am reduced to taking pictures with my phone and I am getting used to the quicker accessibility.  The bigger camera requires getting off the bike and retrieving it from its bag.  So I’m thinking I can get shots of all the birds I see because you gotta be quick.  There are many beautiful species here and one I see regularly is the red crested cardinal.  There’s one in this tree but he kept hopping around.  Can you find it?  I can’t either,

If you could see the darned thing this it what you would see,

Pretty bird.

After lunch we went back to the Mill for gifts.  I sat in a chair watching the world go by.

As my gaze drifted lower I noticed I was being watched as well,

By more than one set of eyes,

After all this we picked up some poke and fresh vegetables and headed home for dinner.

Another wonderful day, thank you

Spa Day

Monday, February 17, 2020, Paia, Maui County, HI

We have spa reservations today at Hoomana.  It’s upcountry, as they say here, meaning somewhere on the windward side of Haleakala.  Hoomana is between Makawao and Olinda, about a 45 minute drive.  I went on a short bike ride before we left and tried to get some bird pictures with my phone.  I think these are Java Sparrows,

There are five of them on the grass.  This is what they look, if you could see them,

Here we are at the spa,

More spa pictures.  They very much practice traditional Hawaiian rituals.  Peaceful and serene,

After returning from the spa it was lunch and off to the beach.  We shared the sand with one turtle today,

We left the beach about 4.  It started rainiing but another great day.

And that’s the way we rolled.

Windy but Nice

February 16, 2020, Paia, Maui County, HI

Late start today, sleep in, no big plans.  Still had no plans for the day as we each headed out for some exercise. Lynn walks, I biked into Kahului for the Sunday papers.  Here’s a picture of the Kahului VOR.  The route to town passes around one end of the airport runway.  The VOR sends a beacon out 360 degrees around itself.  Planes have a receiver that can follow a radial from the VOR inbound or outbound.  Not sure, in the age of GPS, how much they are still used.  For older general aviation planes probably.

Further along the route the tower is visible.  At this point along the way it is starting to sprinkle lightly and I am having some trouble with my camera.  I wanted to zoom in on the tower picture but when I touch the zoom button the camera shuts down.  Darn, what could be the problem?

I turned away from the tower towards the bike and took a picture of the bike as sort of a reliability check.  Also, the image in the view finder is fuzzy.  Ye gods, this is a Sony camera not even six months old.  This is not supposed to happen.

I was biking along, on the edge of town, trying to find my way to Safeway for the papers, and by the tree there were two geese.  I think they’re Nene or the Hawaiian goose, the state bird of Hawaii.  I had never seen them in the wild before.  I did not want to walk closer and spook them and the zoom on the camera is not working and the view through the view finder was fuzzy/blurry but I took the picture.  You’ll have to take my word for it, there are two Nene geese to the right of the tree.

The wind by now is strong, probably, as predicted, over 20 MPH but Lynn wanted to go to the beach.  Go or stay in, it didn’t matter to me.  She wanted beach it though, so we went.  At about 4 PM, off to our right clouds were starting to build and a rainbow developed.  The wind is blowing from our right, moving the clouds towards us.  Looks nice still but it’s starting to rain on us.

To stay or go home?  And it’s really windy.  Lynn says go, so I listen.  She’s meteorologically tuned in here in the islands.  This is what it looks like as we leave the beach at 4,

We stayed out of the rain, played gin rummy and had dinner.  That was our day.

A Really Lazy Day

February 15, 2020, Paia, Maui County, HI

We had to get rolling early this morning because we were tasked with making a trip, OK we volunteered to make the trip, to the Saturday morning Pukulani Farmer’s Market.  Our hostess at Baby Beach had a knee replaced just before we arrived so her mobility is limited and she asked us to go for her.  She’s normally there at 7 AM.  That’s a good idea.  We got there a 8:30 and parking was way out and the place was way crowded.  But the flowers were, everything was, lovely,

More flowers, or are these the same ones?

This Farmer’s Market is big, seems bigger every year, and we go on our own when we’re here every trip.  There’s a turmeric guy that Lynn likes.  She gets, at least, a quart of his concoction for arthritic joints.  It tastes good.  Just like the Davis Farmer’s Market, there’s a bit of everything: produce, flowers, meat and fish, baked goods, crafts and jewelry, and hot and cold take out.

As I said, it’s very well attended,

Our hostess had pre-ordered from her usual, favorite, vendors and she gave us cash to pay them so we got our stuff and picked up hers and headed home.

Then we headed to the re-cycle spot to get rid of our collection of cans and bottles.  On the way there we pass Hookipa Beach, a favorite surfing and wind surfing spot.  Here’s today’s lineup,

These are what one of the local weather forecasters calls beginner surf, 2 to 3 feet.  Looks pretty gnarly to me.  They’re fun to watch the waves and the surfers.  Some look like very accomplished riders, they don’t fall they just ride the wave until it peters out and then drop down and paddle out again,

Waiting for the next set,

After that it was make dinner for later then off to the beach, too windy for Lynn, she took a walk, but tolerable for me.  I’m in Hawaii dammit and I’m going to the beach.

That was the day.

The Wailea Makena Promenade

February 14, 2020, Paia, Maui County, HI

We decided to take a Valentine’s Day walk together on the beach promenade that fronts all the condos and resort hotels from Wailea to Makena.  Its a nice rolling concrete pathway that also passes three public beach access points.  Also nice because there are restrooms and the resort towel stands have ice water dispensers.  Not a hike but a civilized stroll.

We started here, at a public parking area,

Down to the beach and about of a quarter mile of sand before you get to the promenade,

The paved promenade is about two miles or so.  At the end of the promenade we kept walking on the road through some of the 20+ million dollar homes along the waterfront in Makena.  This is looking back over the beaches at the beginning of the promenade,

Some other sights on the water off the walkway.  I am not sure whether this was a tourist excursion or a training paddle but the guy in the front was barking orders,

And a boat full of snorkelers,

On the return trip this boat was still there and there must have been a hundred people in the water around it on pool noodles floating face down snorkeling.

This was still near the beginning of the walk and, unbeknownst to me, the camera battery was about to go dead.  I learned something about charging it, oh well.

Interesting, at the very end of the walk past the Makena homes we came across  an open house event put on by the realty company selling the house.  Lynn didn’t want to go in because we were kind of sweaty but after a short discussion we did.  We were the only ones there so the realtor was glad to have someone to talk to.  He admitted that the house was dated and would be considered a tear down at 11.6 million.  “You’re buying the lot”, he said.  Yikes.  We toured the house and it was kind of odd and dated and there were other houses between it and the water.  Unbelievable real estate prices.  We thanked him for his time and left.

Back to Baby Beach for beach time and a Valentine’s Day dinner at the Haliimaile General Store.

That’s what happened today.