Thursday February 16th 2017 - Oh My What Now

Thursday February 16th 2017 - Oh My What Now

Today we awoke to a beautiful day once again.  Skies are clear and no rain.  As usual we had coffee on the balcony.  

Looks like most other days.  If you catch the sun at the right time the view looks the same.  Because of the warm trade winds were increasing we decided to eat inside. 

Cheesy scrambled eggs.  You can't beat that.

I sat down to read the paper and then start yesterdays blog.  I had some technical problems with the wifi and I couldn't start anything.  Just when I started the blog I got a phone call from the realtor saying the owner of the condo didn't want to list his property on their web site, thus canceling our condo for next year.  Oh my what do we do now?  They offered a different condo for five dollars less a day.

We said what condo? She said 647.  We said we are staying in 647 and it has a lot of problems.  They said they had nothing else. We said we would think about.  She said would you consider other resorts such as the El Dorado.  We said we have looked at the resort but didn't like how far it was from the ocean.  They have a shuffle to take you down to the ocean.  We said we will think about it.  Now we are sitting here in limbo.  We put half down on the other place.  She was going to get back to us this morning.  We thought about it and called her back saying we would take this place.  She said she had meeting with the rest of the staff trying to come up with a solution and would call us back.  This kind of tied us to our condo for the rest of the day.  This meant us staying close to the condo for just about a day or  two days, one day for planing and one day with us in limbo.  We finally went down to the ocean.

Once again only one chair but that was only for about 15 minutes.  

Got to say we do have beauty in front of us.  We stayed there all the time checking the phone with no missed call.  We stayed for about an hour.  We then headed for the pool to swim. 

On our way, we decided to see if there was any more erosion to the walk way between the two resorts.  

Wow what a change. The sidewalk that was there last week has collapsed now.  What a way to get more beach.  Poor joke.  

We went for a swim, the water seems to get warmer.

 Upon getting out of the pool you guessed it, there was a missed call.  We called her back and she said the best solution and to keep us happy, they texted the owner to see if he would allow us to rent his condo next year.  She has the next two days off and would get back to us Sunday.  We still have a hold on this place so we will have a place next year.

We had supper inside tonight and it looked good and it tasted good.  

Good wine, Lasagna with a salad.   From the both of us in limbo, See you tomorrow.  

Wednesday February 15 - Talking about next year

Wednesday February 15 - Talking about next year
Good morning everyone it is a day of change in the weather.  It's not 35 degrees or 55 like they are have promised you for tomorrow.  Today we have rain and and sun.

I like these pictures because there was this little slit of sun shining over Molokai.  I'm standing in the rain to take these pictures.

 It still warm and we chose to eat outside.
While preparing our food we wanted to eat the local green papaya.

We sliced it open and to our surprise there was only one seed.  Clela tried a slice.  It wasn't sweet, very starchy.  We went to Google and found this type of papaya was used as an vegetables in cooking.  When we had soup in Makawao Clela couldn't identify thin slices of vegetable  she thinks that was green papaya.  Needless to say we did eat it.

French toast with Log Cabin was my choice of topping, Clela choice was Lilikoi cream cheese.

After breakfast we went down to our spot to see whales and found out it's like we did in Florida you went down and put your towel on chairs.  Wouldn't ya know it was to late, I mean it was 9 in the morning.  So Clela found a chair and I went back to get the car keys so I could get our little blue chairs.  So off we went and found some shade under a tree.

We always liked this tree anyway.  More people are bringing their own chairs here also.  Well since I was here I decided to take a walk on our beach.

Hey I am on the beach. I walked down to the steps and back.  Don't get me wrong the waves still go up to the rocks and this was low tide.  As I was walking back I took a picture of this family.  A family of seven.

The kids were having a great time.

After staying here for a short time we went back to the small pool and had a swim. Clela said we should have been doing this every day.  We dried off and went up to our condo.

We had a great lunch of salad

After lunch we started thinking about next year.  We plan to stay four weeks and flying first class.  Time to run numbers.  Whoa the numbers are high.  We had a long discussion about health and flying with a layover or flying direct form Minnesota.  You have more choices when paying full price.  So off we went to the rental agent.  We killed two birds by securing our rental for net year and picking up somethings from the store.  Things went well they knocked some off the price because returning business and that makes you feel better.  They said sign the agreement on email and that was a big load off our minds.  Can you believe it, this took all after noon.

When we got back I could hear someone singing and said today is Wednesday so let's go down and see the show.  Okay, it was Clela's idea.

A young dancer.  Oh did I say there was no place to sit so I watched from the fence and so did Clela.  While standing there our torch lighter was blowing this conch shell.

The show was over and Clela wanted to see the sunset.  here are a couple pictures.

Which one did you like.
Upon reaching our room, we ate leftovers from Valentines Day.  That was our day we didn't do much but we did secure a condo for next year.  So long, see you tomorrow.

Tuesday February 14 2017 - Valentines Day

Tuesday February 14 2017 - Valentines Day
Gut margn (Good morning) to all my Jewish speaking friends.  This morning the weather has changed several times.  It's warm the way we like it.  So you will find us out on the balcony drinking our coffee.

Simple breakfast this morning.  We were going out this morning but decided since we are going out tonight we'd stayed in.

Can you see all those red hearts in my cereal?

This morning we ran some errands including a stop at Food Land.  Nice store.

This whole place was what we would call an olive bar.

We paid $3.69 an pound.  We could have gone to the farmers market and got it for less.

For lunch we went to the refrigerator, good food at a low cost.

The last of the pulled pork.  Ya know when in Maui you eat Maui chips.

After a short break we went down to the ocean. On the way we saw food being delivered to the restaurant.  Clela said there is our food for tonight.

 More people here and no place to sit where we like to watch whales, so off to the large pool we went.  It's hard to see through the glass wall.  I decided since I could walk on what beach that was there, off I went.  It had been two years since we had a beach so it was fun.  Maybe there will be more next year.

I'm going to try some filters on this picture.  I like it's composition.

Everything looks different at this level.  We almost found chairs in the shade, by the ocean.  By the time I walked back to get Clela, the chairs were gone.  Good thing we have other places to go.  We were off.

We found some chairs here in the shade of palm trees.  There was a nice breeze blowing, it's quite  different compared to the ocean.  We use to sit under the palms and listen to our story, ear bids and a splitter. You can just lay back close your eyes and listen to the story.  You could also play some Hawaiian music.  I think we will try this.  You know you just about get everything figured out, it is time to go home.

The sun is out and so are the families.  No sun, no families.  We stayed here until four and then went in to get ready for our big Valentine evening.  Takes older people longer to get ready.
Well, we are ready so lets take a picture.

Nice don't you think.  No car to take, just a stroll down to the restaurant.  We got lucky when we arrived because we got a place by the pool and the ocean.  The sun started to set all right in front of us.

I tried some different editing filters here.

Wow, was that beautiful.

Next our drinks arrived.

Your looking at two Mango Surprise.  Good drink, not too much alcohol in it, you know we do have to walk back to our condo.  While drinking our Mango Surprise the music started, wonderful music by a great artist.  He played to the crowed.  All he had to do is look at all the white heads and he was ready to play music of the sixties with ballads sung by an Hawaiian, from ballads of Elvis to songs sung in Hawaiian language.  He took request and Clela asked him to sing one of IZ songs, White Sandy Beach of Hawaii.  IZ is short for Israel Kamakawwiwo'ole.  Now you know why we call him IZ.It is about a man who has a dream of seeing his lover on the white sandy beach of Hawaii.

Now for our food.

We had a salad and then our main course.  Clela had prime rib

I had short ribs.  We both had little red potatoes.  I think there must have been a mistake here there is enough food for a family of four.  Us Midwesterners  would call mine roast beef vegetables and potatoes. I ate about half of one piece of meat and stopped.  It was the best food we have had this year and maybe ever,  The meat was so tender I didn't need that knife.

I also stopped because I knew we had a dessert as part of our Valentine special.

I'm glad there was just one piece of pie. Some people call this a Hula pie.  It's ice cream and whipped cream.  That's it our night out.  We held hands and singed along the the musician while he sang, Can't Help Failing In Love With You.  It was a very special night I spent with a very special person, Clela don't ya know.  That's all folks.  A gute nakht (good night) to all my Jewish friends.

Monday February 13th - Going Up Country

Monday February 13th - Going Up Country

Good Morning.  What no foreign language? Help I need more.  Today is another beautiful day.

We ate outside again today.  The morning was warm but the breeze started to pick up.

Nice way to add color to plane waffles.  The last of the Eggo's.  By the way we drink Guava Nectar each morning.

We decided we need to hit the road more and eat out more.  So we decided to go "up country".  We headed up the mountain, Haleakala that is.  We went to a small town called Makawao.  This was an ear popping journey.  Once we got there the biggest problem was finding a place to park.  The streets are narrow.  There was some angle and parallel parking.  We got lucky and I didn't have to parallel park, just slide in.

Sidewalks were about two feet wide.

We ate lunch at the Green Cafe, a quaint homey place.

Lots of art work on the walls.  I ordered a half of sandwich, a breast of chicken sandwich with a small bowel of Tai coconut soup.  Why the soup? Because Clela ordered soup.  Everyone was bragging about this soup, the soup was nicely spiced with a touch heat.

The soup was vegan, lots of vegetables.  Clela ordered half a sandwich, egg plant and soup.  While eating we started talking to a mother and daughter.  The daughter was from Minnesota and the mother was from Florida.  The daughter had friends in Elm Grove. It really is a small world.  After eating they were off to Oprah house.  How they got this invite we don't know.  Oprah was not there.  I wish we could have followed them.

We took a walk around town, interesting.  There was a bakery that Trip Advisor recommended.
Their thing to buy was malasada, you know fried donuts with filling inside.

I would say every eclectic inside.  We were out of luck.  All the filled  malasada were gone so we bought two  malasada on a stick.  Yes a donut on a stick.

Milwaukee's Pactzi are better.

There was a Rodeo General Store we went into.  A real general store.  There was a little bit of everything in it.

I should have taken more pictures because they had a lot of prepared food.  This caught our eye, we bought our supper here, it all looked so good.

Once you go "Up Country", you must go down.  Oh my, Clela kept saying keep your eyes on the road as we were going down on this road with may turns.  This road was not like the one we had going up.  

 I kept saying take a picture, and Clela said oh.  Part of the reason of going to this area was to find the fence made out of surf boards. A clerk in the general store said oh that fence is in Haiku so off we went.  Haiku was real a real small community where the people were mostly artist, thus everyone had something to sell. The clerk said the fence was in a nice part of town so off we went.  We drove past this beautiful estate that stretch about a quarter of a mile.  The estate had beautiful pristine well cut lawn leading to this big mansion.  Now remember we were on a quest to find this fence, never mind the estate.  All the gates were closed so why bother stopping to take pictures. Never thinking we were looking at Oprah's estate, that was an after thought.  We gave up trying to find this fence, but we did find a smaller one as we were driving down the road

Everyone is trying to replicate this famous fence.  

We decided since we were just outside of Paia we would go watch the wind surfers at Hookipa Beach Park.  This park was for a time captured by radical group clamming to be the Sovereign State Of Hawaii.  So they put up signs and a flag to voice their movement.  If you went down by the beach area they would tell you you were not welcome in so many nice words like you f..... haoles you don't belong here.  This siege lasted about four or five years,  Anyway the signs are gone and we did see tourist on the beach.  We got out of the car and the wind almost blew us over.  Hold on to your hat and small children because they might blow away.

I took a lot of video here but it won't work on my blog.

Tired now we left to go back to our condo.  

We took an interesting way home a short detour, but we got back.

For supper we had as you might say was our catch of the day from the general store.  

Okay, here we have bar-b-que chicken, mashed potatoes with asparagus.  It looked better in the store.

That was our day.  It has been a lot of years since we done something different.  It was fun with a quest to find a fence.  Oh by the way Makawao has a glass blowing.  They weren't making anything, so you know we will be back.  We won't take anything from the general store.

See ya tomorrow.