Pool close....open 8 o'clock

My daily routine it get up around 5:45 A.M., make myself a really sturdy cup of espresso roast coffee in a french press, watch a little local news and check my email before getting ready for the day.

As I start the day, I go down to the first floor at 7:00 A.M. to take part in a hotel's continental breakfast at the Aqua Aloha Surf.  Well, this morning I got a few minutes late start so when I arrived, the place was wrapped up with Japanese tourists and seating was pretty sparse.  With virtually no place to eat my breakfast, I headed for the pool area where I'd eaten several times before.

A pool guy was inside the gated area wiping the tables after just hosing them off.   As I reached for the gate to go inside, he looked up and said, "Pool close...open eight!"

"No sir, I am not swimming.  I just want to eat my breakfast at the tables."

 "Pool close...open eight!"

Clearly he could see I was dressed in business casuals (aloha shirt, slacks, brown leather shoes, etc.), definitely did not look like a swimmer and sorta important.  Besides, I didn't even have a towel.

"No sir, I'm not going swimming. I only want to sit at the tables," I said forcefully and reached for the gate latch again.

"Pool close...OPEN EIGHT!"

There is no argument if the one you argue with isn't speaking English and I don't know Portuguese, Micronesian or Whatever so I just gave him a blank stare, rolled my eyes and chose to eat my boiled eggs and orange slice standing.

He was simply doing his job, was effective at it and honestly, I can appreciate his boldness to stand by his instructions and not be swayed or bullied to abandon his mission. 

I mumbled, grumbled and sulked in English though.

Oahu - Honolulu

A couple of weekends ago, before the rain, I checked out Manoa Falls here on Oahu.   From the parking lot, it's just less than a mile up to the falls through groves of bamboo and a rocky and somewhat muddy trail.

Well visited by locals and visitors alike, it's not all that difficult and little keikis (local word for children) running ahead of their parents who continued to yell at them to be careful.

Honestly, I pretended to stop a lot to be courteous and let other travelers pass on the narrow trail so I wouldn't appear out of breath.  I was grateful I had brought along my tripod to stabilize myself in fear of slipping on the rocks.  They had gotten very greasy after hundreds of muddy feet had plastered mud on them.

I won't even try to tell you it was the most outstanding thing I've seen on Oahu but it was a better venue  than hanging out with the tourists on Waikiki.

Also, on the trip back, I stopped off at a couple of waysides to get down and visit some small flowing streams.

I had planned on visiting the arboretum near there but ¾ the way down, it began to rain so I opted to speed up and visit the Treetops Restaurant adjacent to the parking lot.  The food was a so-so buffet of Asian/Fusion dishes with some good old mainland bread pudding as a comfort food.

This weekend, I took a tour around the NE side, trying to see if I could find the old Magnum PI TV show location.

 

Failing to find the home of Magnum and Higgins, stumbled onto several hang gliders working the cliffs.

A couple of them really got off on buzzing the half dozen bystanders positioned by the road overlooking the bay.  While looking toward the sea, you could hear a little breezy sound and look up just in time to see them zip over you.  Sometimes they approached head on.

So, after church Sunday, I felt a little guilty just sitting around at the hotel so I strolled on down to Waikiki to see if it was still there. Sure enough, it was crowded with the usual surfers coming and going, old tourists trudging around in shorts, flowered Aloha shirts and sandals with socks on them.

I know I will not get a lot of sympathy from anyone but the temperatures were in the low nineties with high humidity making the real feel at 103°.

So I headed back to the hotel to sit under the air condition until late in the afternoon when I would go out.  The light will be better for photos later...yes, that's it.  The light's better.

So just east of here is Hawaii Kai.  Nice sunset.

Early on the Ala Wai

I'm living at the Aqua Aloha Surf hotel on the corner of Kanekapale and Ala Wai Avenue in Waikiki.  That's a mouthful, huh?

Anyway, I woke early and looked out to see a crescent moon reflection on the Ala Wai Canal and it seemed right and just to grab my faithful Nikon and take a short stroll.  At 4:30 in the morning, I pretty much had it to myself, save a few other insomniacs, joggers and walkers.

 

 

Hard as I tried, I couldn't make the camera produce the beauty I saw with my own eyes.  As the morning brightened, more and more walkers and runners began to take advantage of the early morning beauty.   Being careful to keep my lens pack on my back rather than putting it on the ground so I wouldn't be an easy target for purse and pack snatchers (we have to have our stuff), I squeezed off a hundred or so images hoping to produce "the one" that I was looking for.

I was so enthused about the crescent moon and later the sunrise that came from the same direction and I began to reflect on how God produces miracles served up daily and our only job is to recognize them.  It's like an Easter egg hunt where many eggs are hidden and the children have to search for them, occasionally asking the father or mother for hints to where they can be found.

After feeling all holy and blessed, I observed a man still sleeping on a bench and wondered if his observance of beauty and miracles would be like mine.  I just don't know.

Modesto and San Francisco

Back to the Central Valley after a two week stay in Clovis/Fresno, California.  This time, just 80 miles north in Modesto.

Fortunately, I went over into Yosemite a couple of weeks ago and cruised around in the valley.  Now there is a rim fire, shutting down access.  So, Saturday, I headed west, over to the coast and San Francisco.

The Central Valley daytime temperatures this time of the year range from the mid 90° to the low 100° but the coast is another matter.  Not really thinking about it, I wore only shorts and a cotton t-shirt so with the wind blowing off the Pacific, I found it a little uncomfortable and hunkered down behind a grove of trees at Thornton Beach.  62°.  Yeah, I'm a wimp.

As usual, clicking on the photo will increase resolution and size.

On toward San Francisco my first glimpse of the Golden Gate Bridge showed fog at the tops of the span.

Further around the point, the winds had changed and the skies cleared.

Eastward on Lombard up the hill.

The obligatory trip down the zig-zag side of Lombard.

Sunday afternoon; a trip up along the Stanislaus River at Knights Ferry, California.  This is part of the old gold rush area.  I even saw one guy, just down stream, panning for gold.  I truly doubt he found anything.

Bugs and Flowers

There's a little nature park down by the river near my hotel in Dublin, Ohio, where I found a few flowers and a bug or two after a nice little thunderstorm.

My Ohio Weekend

This weekend, I found myself up for a little exploring.  Cruising the internet, I found the locations of a few waterfalls, for which I have a huge penchant.  The other is ("stalking" is such an ugly word), Amish watching.  So, I decided to do a bit of both.

(as usual, clicking the photos should enlarge them and increase resolution)
I warmed up a bit with a water sculture at the community center near my hotel in Dublin

then progressed down the road, not far away, to Hayden Falls

 where I met a duck.

I set my GPS toward Holmes County, Sugar Creek, Berlin and Millersburg in search of the Amish.

Along the way, I passed a huge 7 story office building that was the home office of Longaberger Baskets in Newark, OH.  It was pretty impressive.

The first thing I try to remember is upon seeing the first road apple on the pavement is start watching, because the roads are sometimes winding, hilly and limited shoulders in some places.

We don't want to run over one of the Yoder boys.

Everything in that region is geared, of course, to Amish.  I even suspect there are folks just pretending to be Amish (I digress) just for business but that's another story.

 It's not like you have to look hard for them

  they come out from small roads and streets and just appear.

 One thing I found interesting was how most of the big box stores, such as Walmart, even had dedicated parking spots for the buggies.  I would guess to protect them from being run over and also, being the cash cow they are, to cater to them as well.

Leaving Millersburg, I started heading back south and found a couple of covered bridges in the process.  One being an active one for anyone to use and another that had been closed only to non-motorized (buggies) vehicles.

 

 This one bears the title of Ohio's longest covered bridge.

At the information sight of the above bridge, I read of another set of waterfalls near there on the road back to Columbus.   It's Honey Run Falls.  A little off the beaten path but still very nice.  It took forever to get shots of it because of kids in the nearby campgrounds playing in them.

Yes, I was more than patient.  I was a kid once myself, so I have been told.

Seriously, it was such a nice place watching the kids and several other photographers trying to grab just the right angle.

Well, outside of going to church with some friends who invited me, that's been pretty much it up here in Ohio.

Until next time...

I need to be out of here!

Not that Iowa (it was my 50th state) or Nebraska is all that bad, weather wise, it's been a really weird 30 days since I've arrived.  It seems as if there's an electrical storm every other day.

As I mentioned before, I flew in on the night of May 1 and was presented with a 3-4 inch snow storm that left even the most seasoned midwesterner baffled.  Driving to work the next morning, I encountered several vehicles off in the ditch or neutral ground mired in snow and mud and passed through small towns and saw people shoveling snow.  Aside from a VERY brief warm spell, it has been unseasonably cool and wet, to the dismay of farmers here.

This weekend is no exception.  I put on a pair of shorts and t-shirt to head into downtown Omaha, only to turn around within seconds of leaving the hotel.  It was 57° at 11:00 AM with a brisk wind blowing.  It's been part of the spring systems that have caused deadly tornadoes in Oklahoma and Missouri.

Anyway, if I can manage another week, I'll be catching a flight out of here for my mother's family reunion next weekend then grabbing a flight the following Monday for a 2 week vacation on Maui.  While I need the vacation, I think Darlene has been looking forward to it with greater anticipation than I.
 

 It will be good to see my old friend, Mr. Green Sea Turtle again offshore from Ulua Beach near Kihei.

Outrageous

The first of May, I blew into Omaha along with a late season snowstorm.  I think they have not seen a snow in May for 50 or 60 years but I managed to be here for it.
 
On my way up to Logan, Iowa, I counted a half dozen cars that had slid off the highway and were waiting on wreckers to pull them out.  On that day, our high in Logan was a brisk 33° with a light wind.  I'm sure the residents sighed a groan when they had to break out the snow shovels but you gotta do what you gotta do.

Ironically, two weeks later, it hit 103° with another light wind.  That's a 70° change in two weeks.

Incidentally, Iowa was my last state on my bucket list.  I now have visited all 50 states.  How about that?