Visiting with Julie, et al

I caught the early flight to Kona this morning; my friend Julie, her husband Ryan, & their friends Carol & Terry are visiting. Before I left work, I invited my co-workers to come & visit me here in Hawaiʻi; 3 others have come by already. The plane was packed like pre-pandemic days, no physical distancing; but everyone had a mask on & there was no grumbling about masks.

The Roommates take me to the airport.

A casualty of the pandemic.

In line at TSA.

Waiting at the departure gate.

Each plane is named after a different native bird; I have transported an ʻewaʻewa for HWC.

The plane is full!

There have been changes at the Kona airport that you immediately see as you deplane. There is a covered section of walkway on the tarmac adjacent to the terminal. It leads to a currently empty but very well air-conditioned building; I think it will become the Safe Travels processing area. Currently that is inside the terminal taking up some of the waiting area at the gates. Since I had all my paperwork in order & my QR code I got through relatively quickly. 

The line approaching the check point in the background snakes through the waiting area.

Julie & Ryan picked me up at the airport, then we went to the condo they are staying at in the Waikoloa resort area to pick up Carol & Terry. From there we headed north to Waimea to see the Parker Ranch Headquarters, but they were closed. We also stopped at the Parker Ranch Center; I wanted to show them the 32 paniolo murals; they also wanted to check out the Parker Ranch Store. We also drove past the 2 statues honoring the paniolo.

The weather was nice enough we drove through the Kohala Mountains. We stopped at the viewpoint on the mountain road where you can see Hualālai, Mauna Loa, & Mauna Kea on a clear day; but due to some patchy cloud cover we were not able to see Mauna Kea today. We were also unable to see Maui today from any vantage point.

We stopped at the house so I could give them a tour of both the house & the yard. The tangerines were full of fruit; they picked a bunch to take back to the condo plus a couple of guavas. The coconut, macadamia, & jaboticaba also had ripening fruit along with flowers. The avocado had a whole lot of flowers; maybe there will be a few fruit this year. The mango is hanging in there but it is not looking well. It is apparent that the baby pigs have made another hole in the fence I share with Jessie; they have been rooting around under the macadamia & mountain apple as well as under the hapuʻu. I will have to talk to Jessie about replacing that 55+ year old fence when I am here in May.

L to R: Ryan, Julie, Carol, & Terry.

Look at all the flowers on the avocado!

I hope there will be some fruit this year.

While we were wrapping up our tour, I got a call. Delphine had seen the rental car parked in the driveway so he called to make sure everything was all right; he was at their place washing his car. I let him know we were only there for the day; I will have to remember to text him & Dena when I get ready for my visit in May.

We went to Kings View Cafe for lunch; my usual spot, Minnie's, has been closed on the weekends during the pandemic. Kings View has improved the ordering area; it used to be a table set across the doorway to prevent people from entering the dining area. Now they have installed a plastic sneeze guard barrier at the register. Last March only 1 guy was taking orders, cooking the food, preparing it to go, & getting it to the customer; this time there seemed to be at least 3 people working. The others had some sort of pizza for lunch; I had the Mahimahi Salad.

The ice cream choices.

The touchless menu.

Mahimahi Salad.

Just as we were finishing lunch, Kai IMed me a photo of what their backyard looked like; it was covered in snow! Through out the morning Julie, Ryan, Carol, & Terry had been getting texts from their friends about the snow conditions where they live, which is about an hour south of where Kai is. Being the horrible mom that I am, I sent him a photo from where we sat, looking across at the original King Kamehameha statue in 80 degree weather! 

Kai's view. (Photo by Kai)

My view.

After lunch we briefly stopped at the Hawaiʻi Wildlife Center to pick up a bunch of empty carriers. Since I had no suitcase, I told Linda & Heidi I would take back a bunch of carriers as my free piece of checked luggage. We had to take apart the bundle they had prepared so it would fit in the trunk of the rental car; they were held together by zip ties & I learned there are zip ties that you can reuse! They are called releasable cable ties; they have a tab that allows you to open up the cable tie instead of cutting it off. Hulo!

We took a quick trip to the east, to the Pololū Valley overlook. It was crazy! There were more parked cars there than before the pandemic; I wonder if people are wanting to get out doors and throught there might be less people at a place like Pololū where you have to hike down a steep trail? People are loving  it to death; I don't think I want to hike down to see how much has changed & how much damage people have done.

We turned around and headed back to Kona airport. There are a number of things I wasn't able to show them, like ʻUpolu Airport & the road to Kokoiki where Kamehameha the Great was born. We also weren't able to stop to see the Kohala Welcome Center which has a lot of old photos of the area, Māhukona where cattle & sugar was shipped out, Lapakahi State Historical Park which has an interpretive trail through an ancient Hawaiian village, Hamakua Macadamia Nut Company which has a factory tour during normal times, Kawaihae where Kevin Costner used as a base for his film Waterworld, & Pu'ukoholā Heiau National Historic Site which has a great interpretive center with docents & a self-guided trail. I guess theyʻll just have to come back again. Next time I think I need to make my return flight later. If I had made it for after dinner, we could have also had dinner at Bamboo Restaurant which I have been told is one of the best restaurants on the island.

When I went to check in I found that things were arranged a little differently here, too. The check-in  kiosks were in nearly the same place, but the bag-drop area had changed. I went up and stood at the head of the new line; there was one woman standing at the counter kind of looking off to the side. All of a sudden 3 teenagers and their 5 bags barged through, pushing me aside! Then they took their time checking in their bags & putting them on the scale. When they were done they lingered at the counter; the gate agent had to ask them to move so I could get up there and check the carriers in. Auē! Rude people!

The Rude Family.

I had to ask for directions to get to the TSA checkpoint; it is entirely different than before. It's now on the north side of the bag drop; it used to be on the south side. And it's not very well signed so that you really know this is the direction to go in until you go around a non-descript looking area. When I got out of TSA & turned to go to the gate I discovered the area near the bathrooms that had been previously walled off was now open! So that's what they were doing behind those temporary plywood barriers!

The TSA line starts behind & to the right of this area.

When you come out the other side you turn left to get to the gates for Hawaiian Air.

On the return flight there were less people than on the morning flight. There was a little more physical distancing; the middle seat was vacant in the 3-seat wide row I was in. It appeared there were a lot more rows with the same vacant middle seat. And the Rude Family was on the same flight; apparently they were trying to hold up the bag drop line for Dad to catch up with them. He must have arrived quite late since I did not see them in the waiting area & they were seated behind me in the rows that were called ahead of my row. Based on their behavior at the bag drop I don't think they would have voluntarily waited until the end of boarding to be seated.

The middle seats are vacant.

The Roommates picked me up from the airport; I took them out to dinner at Chili's Reststaurant. Chili's is trying to go paperless; but the pdf menu took so long to download I had to ask for a hard copy when the waiter came back to ask for our orders. Which they had; looks like I'm not the only one who had problems with their paperless menu. The Potential Most Favorite Roommate had the Classic Sirloin, The Roommate Who Likes to Wash Dishes had the Honey-Chipotle Crispers & Waffles, & I had the House BBQ Half Order Ribs.

The physcially distanced outdoor waiting area.

A good attempt, just need to work on the download speed.

Chili's trying to be cute for Valentine's Day?

The bottomless chip basket.

Classic Sirloin.

House BBQ Half Order Ribs.

Honey-Chipotle Crispers & Waffles.

For dessert I heated up one of the jin dui that Mrs. Loi had delivered fresh & hot in the morning; the Roommate Who Likes to Wash Dishes had sent me a photo right after they were delivered. I heated it up in the air fryer and it was almost as good as fresh; it was definitely better than heating it up in the microwave.

Jin dui. (Photo be The Roommate Who Likes to Wash Dishes)

Last night I had forgotten to check-in for my flight this morning, so I did it as soon as I got up. I had never noticed that the icon while waiting for things to load was a guy in a swinging hammock strung between 2 niu. 

In the morning, as we were in Waimea, I got an email from Marjorie; I'm scheduled to work at the vaccine POD on Wednesday. 

Since I wasn't in Honolulu, I was not able to see how accurate the Aix weather app forecast was for Honolulu. But since I was on Moku o Keawe & at Kapaʻau for a few hours, I was able to see how accurate it was for Kapaʻau. It did not seem to be too accurate; Aix showed rain all day. It didn't. But it was cloudy most of the day, becoming cloudier later in the day, which Tesla showed. I had also done a screenshot later in the day to see what the forecast was for Everett; it shows it snowing until about 1 in the afternoon tomorrow though it looks like it will be warm enough to turn to rain on the way down.

Snow in Everett area all day seemed to be accurate.

There were 71 new cases of COVID-19 reported today, bringing the number of known cases up to 26,810. There were no new deaths reported so the death toll remains at 425; currently 983 cases are considered active. The 7-day new case average for Oʻahu is 39 with a positivity rate of 1.3%.

On the vaccine tracker I found that I can actually get data at a state level. Here is a comparison of the vaccine administration for the entire country versus how we are doing here. We're slightly ahead of the National rate for administering 1st doses,

The national stats.

Stats for Hawaiʻi.

Hauʻoli lā Hānau e Timna!