Buddy's Blog

Dave H just opened the door re: my sailor suit photo. He insinuated that it was my high school picture. Not quite Dave. I was even cuter in god ol’ Sea Cow High:

  Ain’t I cute?!

Hey, that’s what I used to wear.Want to see me in my sailor suit?

We had one last day in San Diego before flying back to Tampa. While there we visited Old Town San Diego, about ten miles north of the harbor. It was interesting and worth visiting. It was like what they called it, an old California town – shops and businesses and residences like you would have found in the late 1900’s.  

We ate there at Fiesta de Reyes, and the food was pretty tasty. And the good news is, that’s the last of my vacation pictures.

On the way back from Hawaii we stopped in Ensenada, probably because they had to hit a foreign port for some reason. Ensenada is a crummy town. We took the bus downtown, turned right around and came back.

There was one thing worth seeing there:

Magnus wanted to meet Sid’s Mom. This is from 1998.

For a while, way back when, I had P.O. Box 66. That was in Oakton VA.

On the other side of the Island of Hawaii is Hilo.

It wasn’t nearly as nice as Kona. Kind of junky. But they did have a nice farmers market with beautiful fruits and veggies.

Lots of rainbows in Hawaii. Hilo is on the wet side of the island. They get about 200 inches of rain per year. Kona on the other side of the volcano gets much much less.

First stop was Rainbow Falls outside of Hilo. Though the water is brown, they told me that when the sun was shining there is a rainbow in the mist.

From there we went up to Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. The park is where the current eruptions take place. It is on the lower slope of Mauna Loa, elevation 13,678 feet. The vent, Kilowauea, is around 4000 feet. It was cold wet and windy.

In this next video you can see Mauna Loa in the background.

The nicest place we saw was Kona on the big Island. It seemed laid back and clean, what you imagine Hawaii should be.

We took an excursion which was advertised as a raft trip and snorkeling. The raft was like what the Navy Seals use to assault the bad guys. 40 mph over really rough seas , sitting on the sides and holding on for dear life. The snorkel place was about five miles from Kona. In the last picture above it was well around that point in Kealakekua Bay. Remember the song My Little Grass Shack? “Take me back to my little grass shack in Kealakekua Hawaii…”. And “It won’t be long till my ship will be sailing back to Kona…” Listen to the Mills Brothers sing it.

The Snorkeling was well worth it. I must have seen thirty species of beautiful tropical fish. If you ever go there get an underwater camera. Kealakekua Bay is where the King lived.  There’s a monument to Captain Cook there. See it in the photo. That’s where he was killed. He made the mistake of grabbing the king and immediately was hit with about a hundred spears. The royalty lived on the peninsula where the Monument is. Everybody else lived across the bay on this peninsula:

Separating the two peninsulas is a high cliff where they used to bury the femurs of the chiefs and the great warriors after they died.

On the way back to Kona we passed the lava grottoes where the priests used to hang out. They believed the formation was the image of Pele, the Volcano Goddess. At the left end were two grottoes up out of the water. They would burn fires there, that would look like her eyes. The hoi polloi would bring baskets of fish and pigs and things.

On the way back to Kona we saw one whale off in the distance. I got a video of it but it was really too far away to get a good shot.

Speaking of the Volcano Goddess, here’s a cartoon I drew many years ago. It’s in my Guess Who Got Lucky book.

And I’m pretty sure I got the day right this time.

We went to a “Luau”. Kinda. They had a roasted pig that had been in the pit for a couple of weeks.

We got the food from a buffet. It wasn’t too good. I finally tasted poi. Don’t.  It was Germaine’s Luau. We rode about 50 minutes from Honolulu in rush hour traffic to get there. You go through what looked like a big industrial park of some kind, lots of steel work. It was pretty ugly. Then just adjacent there was a little stand of palm trees. It was next to the ocean, but they wouldn’t let us on the beach. They had barricades.  I was filming with my IPhone, and I didn’t know this. It was dark and I couldn’t see. But my phone said it was recording, but it wasn’t. The hula girls were absolutely fantastic. I was filming away but not recording anything. Damn. From the waist up nothing moves except the arms and hands. But from the waist down it’s like a mag 8 earthquake. God only knows how they can move like that.

Here’s was I was able to salvage:

Oops…

One day in Honolulu we took an excursion to what was supposed to be a rain forest. Not quite. It was a formal garden, the Lyon Arboretum up through the Manoa Valley. I was a little disappointed. I wanted to and expected to see a rain forest. The excursions aren’t always as advertised. But the gardens were nice. There were lots of exotic flowers, shrubbery and trees.

I picked up some seeds from the second one. The guide said it was somewhat rare. We’ll see if I can grow one. I also picked up some nuts from a threatened palm:

On the way back to the boat we stopped at an overlook. The first is Diamond Head looking toward the southeast, and the second is Honolulu looking more to the northwest. In the distance is Pearl Harbor.

Oops. That one didn’t make it. Here’s the replacement:

King Kamehameha was the guy who united Hawaii back in 1791. He killed lots of people to do it. This statue of him is in front of the Judiciary Building. That’s where Jack Lord’s office was in Hawaii 5-0.

Directly across the street is the Iolani palace:

Pearl Harbor. The rainbows were constantly in the sky.

The Arizona memorial is to the left of the picture, the USS Missouri to the left of that. This next shot I took from the Memorial looking toward the Missouri. I wanted very much to tour the Missouri, but there wasn’t enough time. This next shot was taken from the Arizona Memorial:

My regret is that we didn’t have enough time in Honolulu. We didn’t get to go to Diamond Head or Waikiki Beach. If I were to go there again I wouldn’t go on a boat. I’d stay in a hotel for a week.

Remember when Arnold dated a chicken?