Moving to Moku o Keawe

Today was the big day, the First Day of the Rest of My Life! I skipped the walk at Maunalani this morning since I still had a bunch of packing & clean up to do. And since the Nutribullet was packed in the back of the Crosstrek, I had another low tech proothie.

I checked my email this morning & found that the car had arrived in Kawaihae! Originally I was going to call after lunch to see if I could pick it up but as I scanned the email for the number I discovered that I really could not pick up the car today on the way back to the house.

While I was finishing my packing Keala came in to my bedroom; I think she suspects something. I will be interesting to see if she pees on my chair while I am still here. It is apparently her way of letting me know that she is displeased that I am not here to wait on her.

In the end I was not able to pack all the things I wanted to take with me so I had to designate some things for pick up in May when I have to be back for appointments with the dentist & blood donation. I left a bunch of things in my bedroom, the computer room, & the hallway. I also left some items to use when I return in the bathroom, freezer, & kitchen cabinet.

The bed will still be usable if needed.

But the closet will not.

I think the computer room will not be usable.

The desk definitely will not be.

The bathroom is ready for DT to use now.

The shower is totally usable for DT.

I cleared out the empty shelf; my food is below, the one above is for The Most Excellent Cook.

The top part of the spare freezer is also my stuff.

The upper shelf & things in the drawers are mine.

I finally figured out how to get in to the H&R Block MyBlock.com on-line account this morning! However, there was not enough time for me to scan all the tax return documents for Mike. So Curtis drove me by his office & I dropped them off in person; I let him know that not all the documents were there. I told him I would upload the rest on MyBlock.com when they came in. Mike told me he would now have more time to do taxes since he retired from his real job & was now going to work for H&R Block full time.

At the airport I tried to have Curtis drop me off near a porter; I was hoping to be able to get by without paying the overweight fee for my suitcase which I was sure was more than 50 pounds. I figured tipping the porter $20 was cheaper than the overweight bag fee; but there were no porters to be found. My bag weighed in at 67.8 pounds; the overweight bag fee was $35.

All Hawaiian Airlines planes are named after native birds. My plane today was ʻEwaʻEwa (Onychoprion fuscatus, Sooty Tern); I have actually Ubered several ʻEwaʻEwa for the Hawaiʻi Wildlife Center. I wonder if any of them flew to Kona aboard the ʻEwaʻEwa? We taxied over to the Reef Runway & took off from there.

On the taxiway to the Reef Runway.

Aloha ʻoe, Oʻahu!

It was a little overcast in Kona, which is rare; it's usually very sunny. We also approached the airport from the south; usually we come in from the north. By the way, since I will now be living on Hawaiʻi Island this is the last day I will be tagging a post with the "Big Island" label.

Clouds obscure the view of Hualalai.

Taxiing past the new construction.

These gates are more secure than the traditional gates at KOA.

Today was the 1st time that I have seen my suitcase unloaded from the plane! Because it is such an unusual pattern it is easy to spot. I have never seen another bag like it in all the time I have spent flying.

There it is!

He seems intrigued by the design.

I think one of the reasons for the new design at the gates is because of incidents like this. If you have flown in or out of Kona International you know that most gates are just a gate set in a low lava rock wall. Two evenings ago someone took advantage of that easy to breach structure. Unfortunately for a little over 1000 travelers that were waiting for their flights, they had to be rescreened.

Joy picked me up from the airport; I arrange to come in on the day they make the Costco run for their family & the church. Then either she or Arlene pick me up on their way back from the Costco run. It works out well for both of us. Joy will also be taking me to Kawaihae on Monday; I told her how we almost were able to pick up the car today but I was sent an email stating in no uncertain terms that I could not pick the car up today!

On the way to the airport in Honolulu, Curtis made a request, he wanted me to send him a thumbs up text once a week so he would know I was still alive! I told him all he had to do was read the blog; he said he had not read it in a couple of years. So I sent him this photo & text shortly after I got to the house; it is the start of the I Am Still Alive texts.

IASA #1 Got to house about 30 min ago.

My usual activity when I get to the house & it is still light out, is to walk around, checking all the plants & the exterior of the house. Usually I go counterclockwise since I am usually stepping out of the rental car in the garage. But since Joy dropped me off, I was at the front door; I went clockwise today.

Looking at Haleakala between the 2 rooftops.

The westerly bed of the anthurium garden; needs a lot of work.

The spathyphyllum needs to be removed from around the newly planted hāpuʻu.

The easterly anthurium bed is doing much better; these are the new plants.

Look! Ripe persimmons! There are about a dozen still hanging on.

The kalo looks happy!

The avocado is looking well.

L to R: tangerine, lychee, tangerine. There are actually 3 tangerine trees on the lot.

Macadamia in back center; jaboticaba to right.

Close-up of the dragon fruit in front of the macadamia.

Niu, aka coconut.

Auē! The mango died. Feral pigs peeled most of the bark off before property was fenced.

One maiʻa plant (banana) has fruit forming.

There will be a lot of ʻohia ʻai (mountain apple) in a couple of months.

There are some ripe guava ready for picking!

Need to work on those compost bins. Glad the big pile of blue ginger tubers composted away!

The dark pink camellia is almost done blooming.

Before going in the house, I checked in with Jessie; I heard a lot of construction noises & saw an unfamiliar truck in her yard. She is having her kitchen remodeled; there are new cabinets going in & a marble counter top being installed. Jessie bakes a lot so she is looking forward to being able to work her dough on the marble countertop. She also told be that the COVID-19 rapid test kits that I ordered for her arrived on Monday this week.

Here is the view from one of the living room windows. On a clear day Haleakala on Maui is visible between the houses across the street. (Basically it is the earlier view of Haleakala framed by the window.) Now that I am here full time I really should clean off the window & screen for better photos!

 

I sent the Haleakala photo to Mim; she had sent me a photo of Mt. Rainier a couple hours earlier while I was still in transit from the airport. This view is from a point a couple miles from her new place in southwestern Washington. She says she can also see Mt. St. Helens & on a really clear day she can see Mt. Adams. I hope to be able to visit with her on a future trip to Washington.

Mt. Rainier, Washington. (Photo by Mim)

In the house, I found an envelope in the kitchen by the condiments cabinets. I thought it was a note from Ken about the cabinets. But it was from the Hawaiʻi Wildlife Center! Not only did they bring some of my stuff over from Honolulu & unload it in to the house; they also left me a nice little gift!

Some of the things transported by HWC for me.

The Thank You stickers from HWC.

Hoa hānau Laurel has been concerned that I will be without a car for a couple of days & will starve! I took these photos to let her know there is more than enough here to keep that from happening to me! And this is only the freezer; I did not take a photo of the canned goods or my hurricane food supply box.

Until December 31, 2023, it will be free to ride the Hele On Bus. Hulō! All though it won't help me out since the route in this part of the island is basically a commuter bus to the Kona resorts, I fully support this move. They are trying to build ridership; more riders also means more routes, winner!

The Kona Coffee Cultural Festival has put out a call for art for the festival materials. Obviously the artwork has to be Kona coffee themed; the deadline for submissions is March 31st. I'm too busy this year to participate but may be next year ...

Here's something else I can support! Hawaiʻi County is getting a little over $2.5 million to build more charging station for electric vehicles. The entire state is receiving almost $18 million over the next 5 years to increase the number of vehicle charging stations in the State. Right now I know of 1 station in Waimea at the Hawaiian Electric office. I'm sure there must be more but I just don't know where they are.

Kīlauea volcano is continuing with its eruption at the lower output level. The snow on Mauna Kea continues to slowly melt off.

The Aix weather app is a little wonky today; I took a screenshot later in the day. The time marks were off, in fact it showed there being a 5 hour time difference between here & Washington when it should only be a 2 hour difference. It also did not show the weather conditions icon for different hours. Since I did not get the screenshot until the evening I don't really know what Aix predicted for the daylight hours but Honolulu was fairly sunny. For Kapaʻau, Big Island Now forecast sunny with isolated showers in the afternoon with a 20% chance of rain; it was sunny when I arrived & stayed nice throughout the evening. Marysville was partly mainly cloudy.

Kaimukī looking northerly at 6:46 a.m.

Honolulu looking easterly at 2 minutes after sunrise.

Kaimukī looking westerly at 7:28 a.m.

Honomū looking northerly at 7:29 a.m.

Marysville looking southerly at 7:34 a.m. HST.

The surf conditions on the north & west facing shorelines were nice sized; on the east & south dfacing shorelines the surf was smaller.

Laniākea (N) at 7:24 a.m.

Hilo Bay (E) at 7:24 a.m.

Waikīkī (S) cam at 7:25 a.m.; it was stuck on this frame so not sure what it was really doing.

Banyans (W) at 7:26 a.m.

There were 707 new cases of COVID-19 reported today, bringing the total known cases up to 230,238. There were also 8 new deaths reported, increasing the death toll to 1247; currently there are 15,951 cases are considered active. As of today 2,754,202 doses of vaccine have been administered, providing 75.3% of the State population with full vaccination & 82.5% with at least one dose; 36.1% have received a 3rd dose. Currently there are 184 cases in the hospital with 26 in the ICU & 15 on ventilators. Because of all the travel at the end of the day & preparation needed to make my bedroom usable, I did not gather the usual end of the day statistics so it is  a very short COVID-19 update today.

Hauʻoli lā Hānau e Moni & David!