My Summer Vacation: Errands in Kona

Kaia & I went to Home Depot in Kona to pick up a few more lava rock stepping stones for the garden path. I had also wanted to pick up a vanilla orchid but there were none this time; I found several there last year. We got 5 stepping stones and left to pick Sarah up from her retreat; according to Google Maps we would be right on time!

As luck would have it, Google Maps got us close to the house where the retreat was being held but not near enough or in a manner where we could actually get there. I opened up a text Sarah had sent of the directions projected on the screen; we had to follow GPS to a beach near the downhill end of the road, then go through a gate (they gave us the code), up a long hill, and then up a very long driveway. GPS for the house address on Google Maps took us to the back side of the house to an overgrown, brushy hillside above the house with no access.

The beginning of the driveway.

Part way up the driveway, past the next area in the distance it became to curvy to take photos.

At about 1:30 this morning Kaia woke up screaming, "Aunty! Aunty!" until I showed up in her room. She was upset because she realized she had no clean clothes for today. I calmed her down telling her we couldn't do anything about it at that time, but we would do a load of laundry 1st thing in the morning; she went back to sleep until a more sane hour. (I also knew she had one clean dress that had been hanging in another room to dry & I forgot to get it out of there earlier.)

I woke up again at birdrise but I lolled around in bed for almost an hour before I got out and get Kaia's clean dress out from the sewing room where I had hung it to dry.

Birdrise at 21 minutes before sunrise.

I got out of be 41 minutes after sunrise.

Kaia wanted toast with Darla's Bodacious Blackberry Jam for breakfast again. She polished off the jar we had opened a few days ago. Fortunately, I had another jar, but this is the last one I have.

The last of Jar #1.

She is happy to know we have a 2nd jar!

I made a tactical mistake, I gave a mainly white napkin to an enthusiastic eater!

After breakfast, as promised, I did a load of Kaia's laundry. I can't believe how much laundry she was able to generate in such a short amount of time. I guess the difference between Kaia and Kai is that when Kai got dirty, he didn't care and kept the same clothes on. Kaia, on the other hand, has to change in to something clean whenever she gets her clothes dirty!

Here's another view of the yucca. The 2 uprights behind the gardenia are actually coming up from a horizontal piece hanging over the gardenia.

The gecko came by several times this morning. I put out a piece of eggfruit for it. And even though it is relatively dry it seemed to really like it. That might be because it is sweeter than the other fruit we have put out for it.

We made a trip to Kohala Grown again this morning. We didn't buy any fruit today, I just wanted to check out what they had; after I move here I will try all the different types of fruit they have.

I did get their Chaga mix, it has cacao powder & cinnamon.

We checked the hāpuʻu & the other plants in the holding area.

This is Bed #2, it needs several hāpuʻu added & a bunch of spathyphyllum removed.

Here is a hāpuʻu that I planted last year that did not make it.

Looks like everything in the holding area grew well.

Here's one of the hāpuʻu that was only a tiny sprout when I potted it up last year.

Kalo, orchids, & ginger that I potted last year.

Our list for today.

In the afternoon I got an email from Melissa; she was one of the Data Entry staff at the vaccine POD. In fact, she was one of the last ones. She said, "I thought of you as we closed up the LCC POD yesterday because you'd worked there for so long. Here's an informal update ... On the last day ... we had just one vaccinator and two data entry clerks. I was one of them, and it felt like I'd won an elimination challenge on a reality show, with the last challenge being to run our own vaccinator table in between typing and tallying. ... We only opened for three hours and served 42 participants, but it was one of those rare days when we exceeded the number of appointments set. Nearly all were first time participants including many family pairs. ... It was still a busy time because there weren't many of us working and we had to pack up and move out, so we didn't really get a chance to take a Last Day groups photo, but I believe I will see a few of the others again downtown at DOH starting Monday!"

The shirt Melissa wore for the last day. (Photo by Melissa)

Rock returned to its original habitat. (Photo by Melissa)

After we picked Sarah up we went to find a place for dinner. The closest place was full to overflowing because it was a bar and it was Friday night. We went closer in to town; Sarah wanted to try Kona Brewing, but that was also full, like the other bar. We stopped long enough for Kaia to use the bathroom.

So Sarah called around before we started moving and it sounded like Loko Wraps was open as well as not too busy. We found it easily in the shopping mall and it was busy but not too busy.

Kaia and her Keiki Quesadilla.

The Aix weather app forecast a steady rain for today in Kapaʻau; that wasn't quite true, there were noticeable sunbreaks throughout the day.

Drizzle at 7 a.m.

The eruption at Kīlauea is slowing down.

There were 83 new cases of COVID -19 reported today, bringing the total known cases up to 33,533. There was 1 new death reported, increasing the number of fatalities to 490; currently 1123 cases are considered active. The 7-day new case average for Oʻahu is 50 with a 2.0% positivity rate.