Home for Easter

Although I'm living in paradise, it's been 3 months since I was last home and I really miss my family, friends and just being home.

I caught a plane out of Honolulu Thursday night and arrived dead tired in Baton Rouge late Friday morning. I cashed in a free rental car and headed north with Darlene for a whirlwind trip to see all of the North Louisiana bunch.

We met at my brother Ricky's new home. My Mama arrived shortly after Darren and I arrived then soon Darlene came with Donna and the two boys. 3 of Rick's girls were there as well and we cooked fish outside around the pool. It sure was great seeing everyone in one place because I was dog tired from flying and driving.

After spending the night with Mama, I met Darlene, Donna and the boys at the Biedenhorn home on Riverside Drive in Monroe to take a few Easter shots of Devin and Hagan.

By noon, we're on the road again toward Baton Rouge to meet at Jared and Jaime's house for an Easter dinner there with Laurie, Jo Ann and Lindsey. It was nice and relaxing there, no pressure and everyone was really laid back. I'd now been home for 36 hours and had not yet been to my own home so around 8:00 PM, we blast off home.

Sunday, I'm still dragging around half asleep and very tired from the jet lag, so after a noon lunch at Robert and Janet's with Lou and Blaise and Susan and her kids, Kate and Nick, we slipped back to the house for a couple of hours worth of nap time.

We had tentatively agreed to drive up to St Francisville to meet our friends, Louis and Jan so we managed to drag ourselves out off the sofa and recliner and drive up there for coffee and pie.

Monday morning, I rode Boudreau back up to meet Louis in St Francisville. After gassing up, wet crossed the Mississippi on the ferry and headed up through New Roads along the river on old Highway 15. It was pretty desolate but it was good to get the cobwebs out of my brain by putting some miles on those Harleys. Overall, it was a 200 mile round trip from and to St Francisville and would be 300 for me when I eventually arrived at Dutchtown.

Crossing the river from Vidalia to Natchez, we stopped off at Fat Mama's Tamales for some Gringo Pie before heading east over to Roxie, MS to head south back into Woodville, MS. That's just north of Louis' home. I left him back there and headed back toward Baton Rouge for a short visit again with Jared, Jaime and Henry. It was a short visit but I had to pack up for my flight out back to Honolulu at 9 AM the next morning.

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It was a great visit but tiresome. To add to it all, it took me a couple more days to recover from the flight back here in Hawaii.

Week in review

(click on image to enlarge)

It's been a slow week, which really is good. However, that's like Louisiana weather; if you don't like how it is, wait a day and you'll get an entire different version.

For the past three months, I've made the same 15 mile trek to work 5 days a week and sometimes you don't even remember what you saw barring anything different. Every day, I pass the same watercress farm on Kamehameha in Pearl Ridge and every day, I see workers out harvesting watercress and think, that would be an awesome shot if those workers were somehow out in the middle of the field/pond. Well, it finally happened. The only thing better would be a little more light. Anyway, I parked my car up a way and walked back down the road so I could take advantage of the best angle for the shot.

Incidentally, you'll see a band of aluminum wrapped around most of the palm trees. I've been told that's to keep rats from climbing up and nesting among the coconuts.

This weekend, I just didn't have much of a plan so early, I took a long walk checking out things going on at 6 AM. ( I'll make a post on the "Night Shift" at a more appropriate time). One thing about early mornings is there is virtually no one out under 40 years old unless they were going home, arriving for work or sleeping on the beach.

I watched for a while as Japanese tourists offered up prayers at an alter next to the Waikiki Beach police office while surfboard kiosk owners unlocked their inventory of rental equipment. I must confess, at first I thought they were taking pictures of something with little digital cameras, the way they had their hands out. Perhaps it's time for that optometric appointment I've been putting off.

Later, I walked the Ala Wai canal as Hawaiian canoe racers lined up for a sprint down to the McCully Street bridge.

Enough of this nonsense, it was time to scrounge up a breakfast somewhere.

(click here for a link to some Oahu trivia)

HereTamaNui

"HereTama Nui - Man with Great Love"

I've always tried NEVER to be a tourist and always a traveler or visitor. Since Hawai'i is my favorite spot in the world, visitor carries a little different connotation than it would in Louisiana. Visitor in Hawai'i is just a kind way of saying tourist and some definitions of traveler relates to Gypsy of which I definitely am not. (I digress)

Anyway, what I'm getting at is, I've been working here on Oahu for several months now and slowly the loveliness of the culture reveals itself. This week, Michelle, the nice lady with whom I work, presented me with a T-shirt from Heretama Nui, a drum and dancing group that she and her significant other (Allen) are members. Heretama Nui is a Tahitian style group that is widely known here and has won contests locally as well as first place at the 2000 Tahiti Fête of San Jose. Allen's mother founded the dancing group years ago and he and his brothers are the drummers. At this point there are at least 100 members of the group. Check out this YouTube video of a practice session. Sorry, I can't find one of their dances or an actual contest.

Scuba Dive at Hawaii Kai / Koko Head

* Click on the photos for a larger view*

After receiving an invitation to dive off Koko Head, I boarded Captain Joe's boat at the Hawaii Kai boat ramp and went out with a dozen or so brave souls for a cave and drift dive. For the first dive, we dropped down to 55 feet to the mouth of Spitting Cave. It goes back a couple of hundred feet and to where you can see the surface. There wasn't a lot of wild life in there but lots of small starfish on the corals.


As we exited the cave, we began a drift dive seeing fish, eels, turtles and various corals. The current was moderate and the idea behind it was that Captain Joe would follow our bubble trails until we surfaced.

After 40 minutes or so, we were nearing the end of our air so we surfaced for about 45 minutes before dropping back down for another drift dive.

One thing different this time was the audible sounds of whales. We had not seen any of them from the boat but under the water, you knew they were there. If you choose, turn up your volume and you can hear the whale songs as well as my regulator. The diver is Katie, one of our diving buddies for that dive.

Also, Dave, another dive buddy found a sea snake. Being from Louisiana and growing up around water moccasins, I've never been all that fond of playing with snakes but didn't have any qualms about watching someone else do it.

If you watched it, you'll see that as Dave got a little personal with the snake, I began to rise away from it. It wasn't intentional but I guess the anticipation of the snake coming out of the coral caused me to take a deep breath therefore I began to rise.

Bye noon, we were back at the harbor and off the boat. It was a very nice day and enjoyed it.