It was not until much later that I realized what we had stumbled upon. One of those interesting places that makes Hawaiʻi special. One of those places that is now gone forever. It was a few years ago now, just travelling around the island with my sister-in-law, on island to visit for a week…
Nene’s aloha shirts on display in the shopWandering up the street ahead of the gals I saw it. A shop full of fabric is a problem, the bright colors would attract my wife like a bee to flowers. The little shops along main street of Honokaʻa all had colorful window displays designed to attract tourists. I expected there would be delays as the gals wandered in and out of the shops, just to be expected. Among these Nene’s Sewing Corner was definitely a problem. I casually blocked the door as my wife strolled up.
She, of course, realized what I was doing. Despite her attraction to the bolts of cloth, we were hungry and it took little to convince her to move on in the direction of food. Our stop in Honokaʻa was for lunch, not fabric shopping.
On the way back to the car we again wandered past the little shops, this time there was nothing to do but give in to the inevitable and go in.
I have a growing collection of wreck photographs, to which I added another this week. What is it about the local roads that causes this?
A overturned car resulting from a single vehicle accident on Waikoloa Road 12Feb2015Many of the wreck photos in my collection came from the old saddle road. That road was truly dangerous, I did not even photograph every wreck I encountered. Not so much anymore, the rebuilt road is much safer. there are still wrecks, just not nearly as often. It is usually tired or drunk drivers running through the guardrail at the end of the road. That has happened four times now.
The latest wreck on Waikoloa Road seems to have been a single vehicle affair, encountered while returning from work. Best guess is that the driver put a couple wheels on the gravel shoulder for some reason, from there they lost control and flipped the vehicle. There was gravel all over the road just above the accident site.
Aside from the old Saddle Road, island roads are just not that bad. In comparison to the winding country roads I grew up on these should be much safer. Yet the accident count seems much higher in proportion to the cars on the road. It is also not that unusual to witness some really bad driving.
Checking the data shows Hawaiʻi is not the worst state. The traffic fatality rate is right in the middle for the states, about 1.01 deaths per 100 million miles driven for 2013. Data for Hawaiʻi County would be interesting to compare, a different situation than the other islands with our more rural nature. Hawaii is noted to have the largest proportion of single vehicle wrecks in the same set of data.
This morning there is news of three more fatalities, a fiery crash down in Kona that closed the Queen Kaʻahumanu Highway all morning. A reminder to be careful on the local roads.
A few fireworks from my neighbor’s modest show. At least somewhat modest compared to many in the village. With so many families practicing oriental traditions, the amount of fireworks expended for the new year celebration is rather staggering in a Hawaiian neighborhood. Then there are the resort shows, big professional aerials, I can just see them from the front lanai. They are distant, but the sounds reverberate and they light up the low cloud deck with a colorful glow.
Wishing you a happy new year, may it bring good memories and fun adventures!
Andrew
Hurricane Ana brought nothing more than a day of soaking rain to our part of the island. It was the lack of wind that was striking, with the hurricane directly offshore we had calm conditions. There was some flooding and moderate winds along the Kaʻu coast. Not much word on damage, I suspect it was minimal, nothing like what would have happened if the storm had followed the original forecast track.
A new week has begin, time to see what next adventure life will bring…
Hurricane Ana as it appeared at 3pm 16Oct2014, 4km IR image from GEOS-West
The evening started as if there was no storm. Partly cloudy skies and a very pretty sunset. There was an odd element… Very hot and muggy, no wind. Bad enough you wanted the hurricane to start just to get the air moving.
Late in the evening the rain started, a soft steady rain that has lasted for several hours now. The storm is bringing a huge mass of moisture over the island. The satellite shows enormous blobs of angry red, you would expect the world to be ending under colors like that. Instead we have soft rain and almost no wind.
Hurricane Ana at midnight as it passes the island of Hawai’i
Here we go with hurricane two for the season. The forecast continues to put the island of Hawaiʻi directly in the path of the storm. If anything the news is a little worse, with the storm tracking up the west side of the island.
I suspect we will need to take this storm even more seriously than Iselle. Time to put the patio furniture away again, and check around the house for anything loose that may be an issue. Pick a few of my ripe grapefruits as well.
The observatory is reactivating the response plan we had a chance to refine and put into action for hurricane Iselle. Time to batten down the hatches, somewhat literally in the case of the summit facility. We are working on the Keck 1 shutter today, checking the seals and resetting the fully closed position to deal with some leaks.
The predicted path for hurricane Ana from the Pacific Hurricane Center
Our new CloudCam is undergoing testing. It assembles a video each night, just like the original CFHT CloudCam. The website is not quite public yet, but I had to share this one…
Heather mentioned at breakfast that she had been watching thunderstorms on CloudCam as she ran the telescope through the night. Thanks to the new camera we can all enjoy the spectacle.
