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Trapped in Kōkeʻe
Trapped in Kōkeʻe
Went up to Kōkeʻe today. That's the park at the top of the island (or at least the topmost part of the island that's accessible). It's got a lovely meadow where I lunch and do some work on my computer and then some nice hikes.
It was a bit bizarre today because when I got up there, there were some ladder trucks from some communications companies at the sides of the entrance to the rear parker-lot. (I think of it as the local parking lot or the meadow parking lot; there's a front parking lot for the Lodge and the Museum and that's always jammed up with tourists, and then there's a road back from there that often is parked solid with cars on both sides, turning it into just one lane, and then there's a dirt parking lot beyond that which is *not* jammed, and is where I park when I hike.) As I was eating and working a bit on my computer, the two ladder trucks put up a banner between them that said "In Memory of ..." some guy and had the US Flag, the Hawaiian State Flag, and the Hawaiian Royal Flag hanging down from it. So that explained the trucks.
After hanging out for a couple of hours I went to drop most of my stuff in the car and someone asked me to move my car over a little. When I'd got to the parking lot at a bit past 10am there'd been almost no one there, but since my arrival cars had parked up on both sides of me and I'd ended up with not quite a car width to my left and a bit to my right, and this lady was looking for a space. I could see that there was now a big tent being set up for the memorial, and so I was game. I scooted around and the woman who'd asked me pulled into the new space next to me.
As I was heading out for my hike I saw someone else park behind a couple of cars. I assumed it was for the memorial, and I paused to look at it for a moment, because it looked like a really bad idea. Like that guy might know the two cars he was parking behind would be there as long as he was, but he was just going to encourage other people to do the same.
I actually thought about parking elsewhere a few times. When I'd been pulling in, I'd considered parking right in front of the museum, because that easy to access space on the end was empty. And then as I was heading out for my hike, I considered seeing if there was space in the teeny little dirt parking lot next to one of the hiking trails. (There's just space for 4 or 5 cars, so the answer is often no.)
Anywho, I went out and hiked for a bit less than two hours. I have a nice little ridge trail that I've been liking lately after discovering it last year, and that's what I took. It was good, and I felt stronger than I have since I started taking alpha blockers last year, which has played havoc with my muscles.
And I got back and I discovered the memorial was in full swing and the back parking lot was like a game of Rush Hour, except without any spaces. In other words, the whole thing was solid cars, going every which way. There was no way Julie the Benz was getting out without at least half a dozen cars moving.
I'd thought I *might* get boxed in from what I saw before I left, but I hadn't imagined quite that level of chaos.
Here's something weird about Hawaii: there definitely is aloha spirit. A kindness and a desire to help people. But there's also a really surprising amount of selfishness and self-absorption, of doing things that obviously are going to inconvenience other people and just not caring. We see it in our local neighborhood if we have the bad luck to be coming home in the hour or so around when the elementary school is letting out, because the parents literally line up their cars in the street, blocking it, and in doing so block the ONLY WAY to get onto the one-way street we live on. And here it was again, with those people not even knowing if they might be blocking in people not even at the memorial (as they were).
No problem. It was only 2pm. I'd been planning to call it an early day and get some shave ice from the best shave ice store on the island (Jojo's) on the way home, a treat I haven't had in a year or so. But I could hang. I grabbed my computer and headed back to my lunch table. It was getting a little chilly, but I had a raincoat. So I did a bit of work and played some games. I can keep myself entertained until the battery runs out when I have my laptop.
(Current work? I did some reorganization of some chapters of TSR Book 4 this morning, thanks to a shower revelation about how to improve them; and then in the afternoon I went back to formatting my recent AtoZChallenge, for publication on RPGnet and in a PDF.)
I was there for a bit more than two hours more.
For the first hour, the memorial was going on, and I'd occasionally see cars head to that back parking lot. Sometimes just one, but frequently two or three at once, because cars get stuck behind slow cars coming up to Kōkeʻe. They'd edge down that long lane, lined with the cars, and then they'd come to a halt at the entrance to the back parking lot, under the banner. Then they'd edge in anyway, and be lost to my sight for a while. Then the car, or sometimes two or three cars, would do the Reverse of Shame as they backed up about two football fields, down that tight, car-packed lane, through the Museum parking lot, until they could at least turn around in front of the Lodge. I must have seen a dozen cars do it over the course of an hour!
The memorial finally finished and I started seeing people leave. The first half-dozen had to do the Reverse of Shame too, but then cars starting coming out going forward.
But the vast majority of the people stayed around as there was food, and places to talk. A bit after 4pm, I decided that the parking lot must have cleared out enough that I could get out. So back I went to Julie the Benz.
The parking lot was still Rush Hour. But there were at least spaces in it now. A woman seeing me looking puzzled at what I should do asked which car I was trying to get out, and I pointed to Julie. She identified the two cars that had to be moved and grabbed the owners, and poof! Julie was free. Well, I had to make a really tight exit from the parking lot because there was a big truck almost blocking the exit. And then I had to go down the car lane, but in forward. But then I was free.
And I was home at least an hour later than I would have liked. But home at least.
DUNGEONS & DRAGONS
On the way back from Kōkeʻe, I discovered that the only movie theatre on island, which only ever (occasionally) shows Marvel movies, started running the new Dungeons & Dragons movie yesterday. Looks like they have five showings, and maybe five again next week (unclear, but they say it's a two week show).
So Kimberly and I got tickets for next Wednesday. It'll be our first time in a movie theatre on-island (and also the first time since the pandemic started, though we've been to some plays).
THE DECK FAILURE
In other news, we have now failed three times to paint our lanai, which my dad and I finished putting back together a week and a half ago.
Last week Kimberly and I pulled out the three cans of deck paint that my dad had brought over, which were labeled with our street. The first two were sort of the color of the deck, but with a red tint, and they smelled rotten. The third one had the lid rusted out and had turned to black goo.
So after that Kimberly and I brought some shards of wood to Home Depot for paint matching, but the guy told us that because they were moldy and otherwise dirty he couldn't get a good color match. (We also tried some numbers I'd pulled off the old can, but they didn't turn up anything useful in his database.) Fortunately, I remembered that we'd cut and kept about four foot of deck on the theory that it might be good for reuse.
So I powerwashed that Thursday and then we brought it in to Home Depot on Friday, and they got a (hopefully accurate) color match ... and then discovered they didn't have the right base to make the color. (What they had was, ironically, too red.) They might have the base in next week, but probably not.
We've also been waiting on a new 6 Amp-hour 40V battery from Home Depot for my lawn tools that was due in about a month ago, so I definitely don't have hope the correct base will show up soon. The paint lady told us she'd call us when they got in the base, but in Hawaii that often doesn't happen, so we'll see ...
Went up to Kōkeʻe today. That's the park at the top of the island (or at least the topmost part of the island that's accessible). It's got a lovely meadow where I lunch and do some work on my computer and then some nice hikes.
It was a bit bizarre today because when I got up there, there were some ladder trucks from some communications companies at the sides of the entrance to the rear parker-lot. (I think of it as the local parking lot or the meadow parking lot; there's a front parking lot for the Lodge and the Museum and that's always jammed up with tourists, and then there's a road back from there that often is parked solid with cars on both sides, turning it into just one lane, and then there's a dirt parking lot beyond that which is *not* jammed, and is where I park when I hike.) As I was eating and working a bit on my computer, the two ladder trucks put up a banner between them that said "In Memory of ..." some guy and had the US Flag, the Hawaiian State Flag, and the Hawaiian Royal Flag hanging down from it. So that explained the trucks.
After hanging out for a couple of hours I went to drop most of my stuff in the car and someone asked me to move my car over a little. When I'd got to the parking lot at a bit past 10am there'd been almost no one there, but since my arrival cars had parked up on both sides of me and I'd ended up with not quite a car width to my left and a bit to my right, and this lady was looking for a space. I could see that there was now a big tent being set up for the memorial, and so I was game. I scooted around and the woman who'd asked me pulled into the new space next to me.
As I was heading out for my hike I saw someone else park behind a couple of cars. I assumed it was for the memorial, and I paused to look at it for a moment, because it looked like a really bad idea. Like that guy might know the two cars he was parking behind would be there as long as he was, but he was just going to encourage other people to do the same.
I actually thought about parking elsewhere a few times. When I'd been pulling in, I'd considered parking right in front of the museum, because that easy to access space on the end was empty. And then as I was heading out for my hike, I considered seeing if there was space in the teeny little dirt parking lot next to one of the hiking trails. (There's just space for 4 or 5 cars, so the answer is often no.)
Anywho, I went out and hiked for a bit less than two hours. I have a nice little ridge trail that I've been liking lately after discovering it last year, and that's what I took. It was good, and I felt stronger than I have since I started taking alpha blockers last year, which has played havoc with my muscles.
And I got back and I discovered the memorial was in full swing and the back parking lot was like a game of Rush Hour, except without any spaces. In other words, the whole thing was solid cars, going every which way. There was no way Julie the Benz was getting out without at least half a dozen cars moving.
I'd thought I *might* get boxed in from what I saw before I left, but I hadn't imagined quite that level of chaos.
Here's something weird about Hawaii: there definitely is aloha spirit. A kindness and a desire to help people. But there's also a really surprising amount of selfishness and self-absorption, of doing things that obviously are going to inconvenience other people and just not caring. We see it in our local neighborhood if we have the bad luck to be coming home in the hour or so around when the elementary school is letting out, because the parents literally line up their cars in the street, blocking it, and in doing so block the ONLY WAY to get onto the one-way street we live on. And here it was again, with those people not even knowing if they might be blocking in people not even at the memorial (as they were).
No problem. It was only 2pm. I'd been planning to call it an early day and get some shave ice from the best shave ice store on the island (Jojo's) on the way home, a treat I haven't had in a year or so. But I could hang. I grabbed my computer and headed back to my lunch table. It was getting a little chilly, but I had a raincoat. So I did a bit of work and played some games. I can keep myself entertained until the battery runs out when I have my laptop.
(Current work? I did some reorganization of some chapters of TSR Book 4 this morning, thanks to a shower revelation about how to improve them; and then in the afternoon I went back to formatting my recent AtoZChallenge, for publication on RPGnet and in a PDF.)
I was there for a bit more than two hours more.
For the first hour, the memorial was going on, and I'd occasionally see cars head to that back parking lot. Sometimes just one, but frequently two or three at once, because cars get stuck behind slow cars coming up to Kōkeʻe. They'd edge down that long lane, lined with the cars, and then they'd come to a halt at the entrance to the back parking lot, under the banner. Then they'd edge in anyway, and be lost to my sight for a while. Then the car, or sometimes two or three cars, would do the Reverse of Shame as they backed up about two football fields, down that tight, car-packed lane, through the Museum parking lot, until they could at least turn around in front of the Lodge. I must have seen a dozen cars do it over the course of an hour!
The memorial finally finished and I started seeing people leave. The first half-dozen had to do the Reverse of Shame too, but then cars starting coming out going forward.
But the vast majority of the people stayed around as there was food, and places to talk. A bit after 4pm, I decided that the parking lot must have cleared out enough that I could get out. So back I went to Julie the Benz.
The parking lot was still Rush Hour. But there were at least spaces in it now. A woman seeing me looking puzzled at what I should do asked which car I was trying to get out, and I pointed to Julie. She identified the two cars that had to be moved and grabbed the owners, and poof! Julie was free. Well, I had to make a really tight exit from the parking lot because there was a big truck almost blocking the exit. And then I had to go down the car lane, but in forward. But then I was free.
And I was home at least an hour later than I would have liked. But home at least.
DUNGEONS & DRAGONS
On the way back from Kōkeʻe, I discovered that the only movie theatre on island, which only ever (occasionally) shows Marvel movies, started running the new Dungeons & Dragons movie yesterday. Looks like they have five showings, and maybe five again next week (unclear, but they say it's a two week show).
So Kimberly and I got tickets for next Wednesday. It'll be our first time in a movie theatre on-island (and also the first time since the pandemic started, though we've been to some plays).
THE DECK FAILURE
In other news, we have now failed three times to paint our lanai, which my dad and I finished putting back together a week and a half ago.
Last week Kimberly and I pulled out the three cans of deck paint that my dad had brought over, which were labeled with our street. The first two were sort of the color of the deck, but with a red tint, and they smelled rotten. The third one had the lid rusted out and had turned to black goo.
So after that Kimberly and I brought some shards of wood to Home Depot for paint matching, but the guy told us that because they were moldy and otherwise dirty he couldn't get a good color match. (We also tried some numbers I'd pulled off the old can, but they didn't turn up anything useful in his database.) Fortunately, I remembered that we'd cut and kept about four foot of deck on the theory that it might be good for reuse.
So I powerwashed that Thursday and then we brought it in to Home Depot on Friday, and they got a (hopefully accurate) color match ... and then discovered they didn't have the right base to make the color. (What they had was, ironically, too red.) They might have the base in next week, but probably not.
We've also been waiting on a new 6 Amp-hour 40V battery from Home Depot for my lawn tools that was due in about a month ago, so I definitely don't have hope the correct base will show up soon. The paint lady told us she'd call us when they got in the base, but in Hawaii that often doesn't happen, so we'll see ...