Hilo Side - Big Island

Hi Everyone,
Well, we made it to the Hilo side on Wednesday afternoon and it's Friday night. The Coque Frog dating scene is really uh...hoppin' (sorry, but I couldn't resist.)

We had an interesting day yesterday (which I'll blog a bit more about on my other blog at http://billshiblog.blogspot.com) and today was even more so.

Yesterday, we went into town to grab some lunch and got a good 'ole country lunch in Pahoa to go. We took it over to the Lava Tree State Park for a little picknic. Well, I got a flat driving into the parking lot, so the girls enjoyed their lunch while I called around trying to get some help, and eventually just figured out how to change it myself...fun fun fun. Anyhow, we managed to get a photo of one of the lava trees with the girls which is posted here.

Today, we drove down Highway 130 to where Kalapana USED to be. Wow. We really got a first hand view of what madame Pele can do when she's angry. A historic Hawaiian town is essentially gone. There are a few houses that were spared the lava flow, only to be declared "fine" by their insurance companies even though they exist in an area that no longer has any support...no electricity, no water, no sewer...nothing. I'm sure those folks wish that their houses burned with the rest of them. Also posting a couple photos of the lava flow.

We drove down to the end of the road and walked out to visit the new black sand beach, which was created at the end of the lava flow back in around 1990. I visited Kalapana back in 1989 as the flow was taking it, and had an opportunity to visit the "old" black sand beach there, which was amazing. It really is a shame that it was covered, but that's how this island works. Over here when you look at real estate there is a thing called "Fee Simple", which means that you own the land that your house is located on and "Leasehold" which usually means that it is owned by one of the big Hawaiian trusts or is "Hawaiian Homeland" land and does not belong to you outright. Well, I would submit that there is another type of land here on the Big Island, which is "leasehold from Pele" which means that even if you THINK you own your land and do so according to public record, that all this land really is on loan fro Pele and she can take it back at any moment. The good folks of Kalapana learned that back in 89 and 90.

We then drove up the beach road, which is beautiful and very rugged, not sure why they call it a beach road though, as there really are almost NO beaches around here. We stopped for lunch at a nice overlook and went for a short hike down to near the shore so we could feel some sea spray.

The girls are watching Lilo and Stitch... a classic, realistic Hawaiian film. (yea right) I'll try and get them to do some blogging soon. Tomorrow I think we will head off to the Volcano National Park and see what's up on the other side of the flow.
Aloha,
Bill

new photos!

Hi everyone,
I'm posting some new photos to the blog for your enjoyment.
We have had a lot of fun in the sun the last few days. I've also recently shaved my face clean, to which the girls said "why did you do that, I liked it the other way!" Oh well, first they tell me I look old with my grey goatee, and now they don't like it. I just can't win!

I'll pick one photo for the side, but there are several below at the end of the posts.

Peace, B.

Notes from Rachel;

Hi guys,
Thanks to the people that commented to me. I like to read your comments. I wish I could give you a comment back. Can you give me more? I miss you guys.
Today we were swimming for the whole day. I didn't see any turtles today, but my dad did. Mom and dad also saw some whales. Dad said one of them looked like a submarine coming out of the water in the movies. The waves have been really small the last few days so that means that we can go look at the little thingys in the tide pools like sea urchins. A few days ago I held one. Today we went to Turtle Bay and had a ginormous lunch. Me and my sisters mostly had sweets 'cause dad said we could have almost anything we wanted. I had very creamy oatmeal and two icecream cones and coconut cake. One of the healthy things I got was Poke, which is raw tuna. I loved it. Thanks, Bye. Rachel

Post from Jillian:

I am watching American Gladiators. It is a great show!! I have been doing a lot of swimming in the ocean and it is very very fun. The water is warm. I saw a camelion but I couldn't catch it. I had a nice brunch today at Turtle Bay. It was awesome because I had three ice creams.
Rock On.
Jillian.

Comments From Shelby

Hi Everyone, I'm having such a great time in Hawaii!!!! The waves have been pretty big here on the north shore. HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY !! Ahh... The love Holday , bye, shelby

Comments From Shelby:

Hi all, I havent posted in a long time. Did you people see the pic of the turtle running away from us because Jilly Bean touched it? I wonder how it felt. It's been high tide for a long time now. I miss everyone, I hope everyones having FUN back out there, bye Shelby

Monday update

Hi everybody,
Well, the weather here has flipped completely over. The last few days have been amazing. Light trades, sun all over the place. There's still a big swell coming in, though it never got gigantic last week. The weather said maybe later this week it will hit the 25 ft. mark. We shall see. We are learning that wave height predictions are similar to how the weather predictions used to be before the satillites and all that jazz. Not too accruate.

The girls have been doing a great job keeping up with their schoolwork (at least we think they have) and having a good time too. We looked into a surf lesson for Shelby today.

Also, I HAVE to say just how NICE people are.
**I have met people on the beach that have offered us to use their beach stuff, kayaks, boogieboards, etc.
** I made a post to a person that owns a place at the Mauna Lani and he asked quesitons about what's up with us (i.e. why we are here for two months with the kids out of school, etc.) and he rented us his 3br 2ba luxury condo for an amazing price. This is a link to his place, and if you ever want to stay there, all I can say is that the owner is a good person and certainly more than fair. http://www.vacationrentals.com/vacation-rentals/38630.html
** I made a post looking for a fishing buddy and have found two. One of them i've already posted about our trip, so thanks again to Tony, the other is a guy that owns a local tour company called Hidden Hawaii, Inc. and has offered to take me out for the cost of expenses on the boat. I'm planning to go out with him on Thursday so will post more about that later.
I'll post some more sort of fate related events on my other blog at http://billshiblog.blogspot.com

Peace, Bill

Comments from Rachel

Hey everybody its me Rachel, I have ben doing a ton of stuff, today at the
farmers market me and my sisters found a......PUPPY!!!!! He was so CUTE,(saying that dramatically)Plus yesterday we found a turtle on the beach. It was really cool, but Jillian touched it and dad got mad at her because noone is supposed to touch turtles and it scared him away. Dad might put a picture of it on the blog. We have gone body surfing a LOT. A few days ago we went in the Kayak. My dad caught a wave that was really big and the front started tipping over and getting water in it, but it was fun. Last night we found a ton of humongous sand crabs. Today my dad might use them for bait for fishing. Hopefully we can keep one. Last night we also roasted marshmellows. The waves today are HUGE outside our house, but my dad said I can't go body surfing in them because they are too big! Thanks for commenting me.
Thanks, Bye. Rachel

Eh, You da Kine, uh!

Seriously, this was the name of a show we saw on TV. Absoultely hilarious if you are not from here, but very "local" if you are. It is a show that features local events and "feel good" types of stories. Even had its own little song to go with it with the same name as the show. Basically, it's this rotund local guy with the thick Pidgin accent interviewing people about local stuff. Classic name though.

I knew the surf was coming in last night because every time I woke up it sounded like there was a freight train out on the reef. All day, the train shows up about every 7 or 8 minutes for a set or two. Plus there's lots of Helicopters all over the place, I guess both filming the surf and looking for people to rescue. Seeing the sun and the huge waves, we went to Pipe this am and it was going off. Epic waves. We saw a few snapped surfboards, and Heidi saw a dude go out on a stretcher with some type of nasty injury. We hope he's OK. It is amazing to see these guys, both the boogie boarders and the surfers on these waves. The ones that make it look so cool, and then you see someone get pounded or go over the falls and it's like...ok, that's why I don't want to do that. Heidi heard that the waves are going to keep getting bigger this week! That means that Waimea might go off, which is a very cool and rare thing to get to see. I'd say the biggest waves today were 18-20, and really they need another 5-10 before Waimea gets really going. We'll see!

Also, you probably know that Jilli loves penguins, so she got to see a few yesterday at the Hilton.

It was georgeous this am, but is raining now, so here I sit on the blog! SamCamo the lizard is next door ---->, and some pix of Pipe from this am below the other posts...

Cheers, B.

Wednesday update:

Hi Everybody,
Well, we finally had a BEAUTIFUL day here on Oahu. The sun was shining the wind was down and we had a blast. I took the girls all out for turns on the "quickraft" kayak that they have here at the house for use. It was fun. We did some "whipping" out there for papio, but didn't get any luck. Rachel and I caught a wave and had a bit of excitement. Mostly we just paddled around and threw out the lure a few times. I would throw it out and then let the girls reel it in. Jillian was not into the kayaking and decided to dig a big hole in the beach instead. hmmm...

The girls have been having fun. They caught a chamelion (sp?) yesterday and named it Cammy, and then they caught "another one" today in roughly the same place but named him Bob. They were sure that it was a different lizard, but me, not so much. I will post a photo of the soon to be famous "CamBob" in a bit.

The highlight of their week last week was doing the video conferences with their classes in CO.

Also met today with a good dude named Harrison who has volunteered his 25' Donzi sportfisher to got out and try to get some offshore fishing in. I think we will wait until next week though as the weather pattern is supposed to be mo' betta. He also has some interesting business ideas to discuss, and T-bolt might be able to help him out too, so now I can write off my whole trip...Just kidding John.

This afternoon we went over to the Hilton Hawaiian Village (my fav. Oahu hotel) and hung out for a bit. We had dinner at Benihana, and the girls just loved the way the Chef prepared the dinner. I've had that type of dinner about 5 times and this guy was the best i've seen. The way he flipped the food around (even flipping the rice bowls full of rice) and he made an "onion volcano" fully flaming with lava and the works.

Also, don't know if you have heard, but there is big news in the ALS realm. Aparrently, Lithium has been proven to slow the progression of the disease, which is very good news. Heidi was ahead of this curve based on her internet research and following of the ALSTDI discussion groups, and has already been on Lithium for about 2 weeks. Let's all pray for everyone with this terrible diagnosis that this will be helpful to them, and at least delay progression long enough to find a treatment that will stop the progression and begin to heal. You can find out more about this on this link:
http://www.pdfdownload.org/pdf2html/pdf2html.php?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.pnas.org%2Fcgi%2Freprint%2F0708022105v1.pdf&images=yes

Peace.
Bill

Comments from Shelby:

Hi Everyone, It's me Shelby, I feel bad for you all in those snow jackets when were in a tropical paradise, but we have lots and lots of rain. That's fair enough wouldn't you say? Well I have to get going bye , Shelby

Mud Bowl and Super Haku Leis

Hi everybody,
Just a note to give a quick update and post some photos.
We went to the Punahou carnival yesterday and with all the rain we have been having, it was an absolute muddy mess. I wish I would have gotten some photos of the mud, but missed the opportunity.
The girls got to do a couple of rides and play some of the games. They got to find out what the nature of the word "rigged" means. I hate the way that they make the games look easy but make them so hard. The old throw the dart in the star and win a price, but, uh, only in the RED part of the star, not touching any of the black outline, or throw the ball in the hole that is only 3.5 feet away but the hole is a triangle and the ball is, of course round, so the hole looks much bigger than it is. Shelby actually won a little stuffed doggy a that one. Oh well, it was still fun and wow what a crowd. I'm surprised Punahou has to charge any tuition at all with all the fundraising that was going on.

Heidi just "HAD" to have haku leis for the girls, so we got a couple photos with them on this am and am posting them here. Also, of course note the very fashionable new swim suits that the girls picked up at Splash the other day in the Ala Moana mall. Let's just say it's been an expensive week here in paradise!
B.