Catching up - no that is not Ketchup on my shirt

Tuesday, I drove into Kailua-Kona and found a parking space like THAT (snapping fingers). I am glad this place is not full of tourists, but it is kinda sad to see how empty the shops and restaurants are. You can tell folks are hurting for business...i am not a good customer as I rarely buy anything....It was overcast but still hotter than heck!! I wandered all the shops. Up and down Ali'i drive, from the pier on down by the seawall where they start the Ironman, then on down past the Hulihe'e Palace and the first Christian Church - the Mokuaikaua church, which can be seen in this photo. It was forced upon the islanders by missionaries in 1820. I continued on down, to the farmers market, and then went by and through lots of shops and restaurants. Found Huggos, Jim, but they were closed and I didn't want to wait til they opened for lunch...another day...

On Wednesday, I went back to Hapuna Beach - it reallyy is a nice beach. I waded and swam and got my ass knocked over pretty good by a rogue wave. Then I walked the beach a couple of times..they say it is a 1/2 mile, but by my reckoning, it is closer to 1/3 of a mile....On the way back south, i drove through the Hilton Waikoloa resort area and stopped in some of the shops. I have a new favorite set of artists:: Stephen Shortridge, who actually was an actor at one time - he was in lots of commercials and on Welcome Back Kotter, but now he paints and if I had some thousands of dollars, I would outfit my home with his work...wish I had a picture of the painting I found. Here is a link to a painting that has a similar light, but the one at the gallery really had a fire. Should have gotten the name of the painting. The other one's name is Maya, and here is a link - this is definetely not my usual taste or style, but something in the tryptch I saw smacked me good. Back in Kona, I went to a starbucks so I could log on and use the nice reliable internet while drinking not bad, but definitely not Kona, coffee.

Thurday was June 11, King Kamehameha Day and it was a gorgeous, bright, sunny day. I thought the big parade was today, so I headed down to town and found a good parking spot...and then, no parade...nope. It is on Saturday. So I wandered down the seawall, and just as I was about to turn around and go find some breakfast, I saw some native looking folks in a proscession towards the pier...I followed, and they ended up at the Aheuna Heiau, where he died in 1818. The heiau (temple) was built in 800ad, and while I watched they made offerings and chanted prayers and did dances...it was very lightly attended by tourists and family of the participants, and I was really happy that I got to see it.., After the ceremony, I was starving and had heard about this place with great coffee and good cinnamon buns...Lava Java, so I walked down to it. Sadly by the time I got there, there were sold out of the buns, so I had eggs and toast and diet coke for breakfast. It was outstanding, sitting there, watching the waves POUND the lava rocks. There were a bunch of little birds waiting for crumbs. They were cute, to a point, but then they were just annoying as hell. I wonder if people once thought the pigeons in NYC were cute...these little bastards were mean! And were pooping with abandon on the people unfortunate enough not to have an umbrella. Maybe it is just by attitude towards birds right now in general, but I wanted to shoot them.

After breakfast, I headed back to Airport Beach, which I really do like. It was VERY warm and I found a tree to lie under and I fell asleep listening to the waves....I took this sunset photo on Monday, but I thought it was worthy.

sorry this isn't more poetic or creative...right now I am just trying to get the words on paper, as it were...I will try to make it pretty later...