Hialewa, day 1 (to be cont’d)

After yesterday’s early morning and long hours, no surprise that a long night’s sleep felt wonderful.  Waking to birds was nice; used to it in Greenville, but wasn’t aware of it in San Diego.  Nice breezes flowing through the open windows, the fans in the room helping avoid feeling too warm, and the bird song got me up well-rested and happy to get going.

Listening to the news on the HI public radio station made clear that this weather is really severe and unusual.  On the big island they’re dealing with heavy duty flash flood warnings, alerts of areas/roads to avoid for the next 24 hours, and more.  The weather here much easier—rain, but only .3” forecast, only 5 mph gusts—and I imagine we’ll enjoy a pretty nice day, albeit cloudy.

The day began with catching up on lots of school-related work.  I was happy to see the work students are doing as they share the final versions of project begun last semester.  Responding to their work reminds me how much I enjoy working with them, how much I enjoy them as people, and how lucky I am to respond to composers’ ideas and development for a living.  I don’t expect there will be much more of that over the coming months, but I enjoyed the last few hours of engaging their work.

This AirBnB is a little step up from our previous place.  The full kitchen is nice to have; it was not really possible to prepare much in SD (no oven, no microwave, almost no counterspace), but we can here, and it’ll be nice to not eat out as much as we did in SD.  [But we sure did enjoy those North Park restaurants!]

With a momentary break in the rain–only momentary, it turns out–we got in the car to explore a bit. Just heading south down the Kamehameha Hwy, we passed by a few beach fronts which were all showing red flags and “no swimming” signs due to rough surf and high winds. And at each of those places there were 20-30 surfers in the water…

We went through “Old Town” Hialewa with lots of restaurants and shops–we’ll head back here when the weather’s more conducive to walking around a bit. But this area also has a nice waterfront park where, among other things, there’s a container with snorkels/masks just available for use (and return). Nice.

Just as i was taking that video, glad to get a video call from Jackson! Happy to share the view with him, and to hear from his mom and dad and know that all’s good in NY.

Then drove through some gorgeous waterfront neighborhoods on the way to the Dole Plantation. Just the tourist mecca you might imagine, but a tour of the general operation will be interesting at some point…

Dinner options center on the many roadside spots. So we stopped in a spot that had about 6 food trucks, and chose Aji Limo for some poke. Fresh fish, fresh veggies, a beer from the grocery store nearby…very, very happy.

Back to the apt., a quick stroll to Ted’s Bakery, a local spot we’d heard was exceptional…was pretty good for a little end-of-night sweet.

A quick check of the tv showed us what things are all about here…