Well, here it is moving day. When you move between houses, there is no front desk to dump off bags with while you wait for 'check-in', so it becomes somewhat of a 'wasted day. Out by 10AM and in by 3PM, plus the packing and other fun stuff - the second packing session for us in just 5 days - office machine, toilet paper, and all! But when you get this - at a last-minute recession sort-of bargain (still 30% more expensive per night than the Fire House, we might add) the move is certainly worth the effort:
Here are a couple of indoor images, followed by the 'House Tour' video:
And these photos don't do the place justice at all. The videos below do (#1 is everything but the jacuzzi area, #2 is just the jacuzzi area):
we found a new home. Yay! Drove down and saw the outside last night (there are still people inside!). Also checked out the WiFi from the parking area outside of it - it rocks! We're moving down there tomorrow, so on this evening we invited our neighbors from House #1 (the one unaffected by the fire) to come over for dinner, 1. Because they had been so helpful over the past few days and, 2. Because we had some food that it would make no sense to move to the new house tomorrow. Here you see little Joey, Mandi, and Camilla 'Doin' S'mores on Da BBQ':
Little Joey was already slightly hyper before the smores part began because his little fingers had somehow navigated their way to the marshmellow bag (all by temselves) while the rest of us were still eating dinner outside on the lanai. After a minor case of reprimanding, Joey, too - as you can see here - had the opportunity to enoy a couple of succulent s'mores:
It has been a couple of days of of home owners who don't seem to comprehend the particulars surrounding the fire at their house Friday evening. We're now on air card over the weekend to test its viability as Steve's trading tool and my work tool. We have spoken to Time Warner (since the owners did not get off their own duffs) and learned it would be 27MAR2009 before ANY cable for internet (and thus wifi) could be installed - even if it were merely to be installed in House #1, which was completely unaffected by the situation Friday (it is on a separate power line). The owner is acting funny, coming up with newer and brighter ideas about how we can make do with the facilities for the rest of March (not comprehending, for example, that once the $30 air card for blackberry expires at 5GIG, it will cost $400 PER GIG thereafter!! Helloooo!!) In other words we will be requesting a refund a little more firmly by sometime tomorrow. At the moment, we are therefore not snorkeling off some lovely beach somewhere but are mired in the task of suddenly having to find alternate housing for the entire remainder of March - and we're not exactly on a month-long hotel budget here, which exacerbates the challenge! Problem is, you normally get week #4 free on a monthly rental but at this point, we are just shy of a month until we leave this island so the scenario isn't the most favorable.
BUT, of course, diversion is important for soothing the nerves. Here is Franz doing his best. He lives in that there conch shell and comes out if something irresistible is happening - like nachos...or a telescope to look into!!
...and of course (s)he had to check out the nachos and condiments, licking the beer in passing....
Aloha from 'Da Little Green Monster', Kepani & Kamila
so we moved from the downstairs Ohana Studio to the upstairs Hale Apartment at 3PM this afternoon. Two hours later, as we're sitting in the sofa quietly typing away at our respective laptops...POOOF and a humongous blue flash shoots out from 'somewhere behind the TV'. Being from NYC, we first thought lightening had hit, but there was no thunder and aside from some rain, there really was no sign of foul weather. But we open the front door to check, because the POOOF also took with it a few light bulbs in the kitchen/living room area where we had been sitting. As we open the door, we see something resembling a fireball on the power pole out by the road, then we notice smoke emerging from the heavy tree (over)growth between the road and the house, and THEN we notice smoke billowing out from the grey plastic electrical box at the end of the house - OUR rental house!! Then 911!
It took three hours of fire department, electric company, cable guys, and fairly heavy rain (without rain coats as they were in hte house and the fire department told us to stay outside) before the power was off, the gutter and screen door were cleared from being potentially 'live', and an 'emergency temp job' had been placed on the house to allow power back in.
In summary, the overgrown trees had pulled out the 'neutral' from the power pole to the house, rendering the electrical current hot-in-the-house looking for an alternate return path. It chose the Time Warner Cable route, taking with it three of the house's 4 television sets (100% fried) and - unfortunately - the internet, as the house was on RoadRunner. Oh well!! Fortunately, our $5000 worth of laptops were spared. They could have been fried too!!
Anyway, here are a few visuals should you be interested. We have two nice videos which we will put at the bottom of this post. Steve says it so well...
For the photo portion, let's start with the melted electrical box mounted to the back of hte house. Pretty, isn't it? Note the deformed plastic on top and on the side. Had we not been home at the time, god knows what the outcome might have been...ouch!!
See the blackened cable and melted plastic at the left edge of the photo above? Well, here is a close-up:
And here, a close-up what the electric company took an entire hour dismantling - the external cable. In other terminology: Here, you see 'the internet' cut into very many not-so-useful pieces:
Below, the offending tree (i.e. the MOST offending of a total of about 20 overgrown trees). As you can see, the offense seems to have begun several circumferential inches (a.k.a. tree rings) ago. And in case you are wondering, yes, this is considered 'property owner negligence'
And finally, the so-called 'emergency temp fix' that the electrical company's emergency crew spent one hour assembling in the pouring rain, sparks flying (close to hair and clothing!!). The poor guy - who was both caring and competent - got all the Friday Night (8-9PM) he could muster. ..
Here are the 2 videos depicting the situation - complete with Helco Generator sound effects:
Altogether, a different kine of 'meet the locals' Aloha Friday sort of adventure...
so we arrive to the next house (have the downstairs Ohana studio for the first week or so, then moving upstairs to the upstairs Hale apartment) we discover that - in the packing frenzy earlier in the day - the bag with ice had unintentionally been stacked ON TOP OF a precious box of Camilla's office papers. Here you see the owner and her office drying out after the dripping wet contents of said box had painstakingly been disassembled:
But wait...there's MORE:
Meanwhile, as you can see, and ironically so, Kepani was busy exercising 'Good Riddance' on HIS paperwork on the backyard BBQ pyre (a.k.a. 'Poor Man's Shredder'):
And then it was time for a steak and some sweet potatoes!
today, we're visiting Pele's home, the halema'uma'u crater at Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. Here is Camilla with a Smokey (i.e. Ranger) looking at...well...smoke...
Here's the video:
And, where there is drizzle, there is sometimes also a Drizzle-bow:
this is Post #3 for today and this one is all dedicated to L-A-V-A. We start off with a brand new lava beach in the making. Then we drive across a road partially covered in lava for an evening view of lava entering the ocean (from the safe distance, per county rules). Gotta lava da lava!
Perfect pehoehoe lava, just the way Pele likes it:
Can you twist a rock into this rope-like shape? Pele can - at 2700 degrees Fahrenheit! Here is a not-quite-brand-new lava beach (hiking access only):
And now we are headed to a brand new lava beach in the making:
The green end is the beginning of a new coconut palm for the beach here:
Fast-forward a few months:
And now, fast-forward to sunset and the drive and subsequent hike over lava-covered road to the current viewing site:
And the actual viewing (camera looking through a pair of binoculars):
this day starts with a lovely morning drive along the windward coast (Post #1 for today), then later a snorkel outing (Post#2 for today), and finally, a visit to Pele's Plumes once again (Post #3 for today).
Some start with a morning surf:
A clip from the drive:
Don't know our limu types well enough to say if this is hte real thing, but it's pretty:
And a video clip:
There is a hint about 'the future' around every bend:
We seem to be off the the farmer's market an awful lot if judging by the number of market videos that have been posted here on this blog. However, market day is not an everyday event - it is a special opportunity once or maybe twice a week - to sample a slice of the local culture.
On this market day, we had mostly new discoveries - again - it is amazing what you'll find at these places. You think you have seen and tasted everything, but then you find new stuff yet. Today, we'll walk you through the following:
Bug-eating plant, 10lbs of sugar cane (for a buck), jackfruit, cooking bananas, mountain apples, puakenikeni (a HEAVENLY fragrant bloom), anthuriums, kapa cloth. Just watch...
And an order was placed here for some Coconut Turnovers for pick-up on Friday:
The afternoon was ear-marked 'coastal drive pending weather report'.
We ended up doing it anyway, despite an iffy weather report. The weather turned out to be a bit of a blessing - we got some seriously cool wave video as a result - including a very neat blowhole. You'll also see an Ironwood tree grove in this video.
Hat's off to Mother Nature - and Pele - for their rather spectacular abilities!
