Category: Hawai’i

Exploring the islands

Best Restaurants in Waimea?

The annual 100 best places to eat in the US list for 2015 was published by Yelp this week. A number of Hawaiʻi restaurants make the list, but only one on the Big Island. You will find Da Poke Shack in spot 51, holder of last year’s top spot on the list. Not being a raw fish fan and not getting into Kona very often I can not offer an opinion on that selection. I did wonder what restaurants are best rated for Waimea. Is the list very good?

Hawaiian Style Cafe
The remains of the meal litters a table at Hawaiian Style Cafe.
Yelp’s reviews are reader generated, and as such are subject to a great deal of personal bias. But with a lot of reviews from a large reader base you would hope that the result averages out to something reasonably accurate. Thus I did a quick search on Kamuela, as Waimea is known to the post office to avoid confusion with the other towns of the same name elsewhere in the state.

The top ten does not look that bad…

  1. Hawaiian Style Cafe
  2. Merriman’s
  3. Village Burger
  4. Red Water Cafe
  5. The Fish and the Hog Market Cafe
  6. Big Island Brewhaus
  7. Yong’s Kalbi
  8. Pau
  9. James Angelo’s Underground Pizza
  10. Aka Sushi Bar

The restaurants any local resident would expect to see are there. I would quibble with the placement of some of these establishments on the list, but there are no surprises here. If you really want to read further I will add my own opinions and comments in the remainder of this post…

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Anna Ranch

Often overlooked by tourists driving around the island, Anna Ranch is very much worth the stop. A little piece of island history preserved as it was.

Anna Ranch
The main house at Anna Ranch
At the ranch the paniolo and ranching history of the Waimea area is preserved. The complex of buildings are the heart of a classic Hawaiian ranch. This was the headquarters of a large cattle operation for over a century.

If you catch one of the two daily tours you get to see the interior of the house and hear stories about the history of the ranch. The tour is really the best way to properly visit Anna ranch.

You will hear about the indomitable Anna Lindsey Perry-Fiske who ran the ranch through much of the twentieth century. A horsewoman and cattle expert she successfully kept the family ranch profitable, creating the ranch you see today. It was her dream to see the ranch preserved as a heritage center. Now run by a non-profit organization the ranch is listed in the Hawaii State Register of Historic Places, and on the National Register of Historic Places.

After the tour you can roam the gardens and the short “Discovery Trail” that leads behind the buildings. Along the trail there are interpretive signs that provide another view into the history of the area. This includes a bit on a historic battle that occurred on the hills behind Waimea.

Lanai
An enclosed lanai at Anna Ranch
Unfortunately the smithy was not open for our visit. I have always enjoyed watching a blacksmith at work. Nothing like a forge and hot steel, one of the oldest technologies, to catch the fascination of an engineer like myself. I will have to stop in again some time.

The daily tours are conducted at 10am and again at 1pm. The cost is $10/person and reservations are highly recommended. You might find a spot on a tour at last minute, but do not count on it. Otherwise visiting the ranch is free, unless you stop in the little gift shop.

After so many years of driving past, I am glad we stopped in to see this gem of Waimea history.

A Failed Attempt at the Summit

The instruments were warming up. Liquid nitrogen exhausted, cooling interrupted by loss of power, the cryogenic dewars had begun to warm. Recovering instruments takes many days of vacuum pumps and re-cooling to restore function if cooling has been loss. Other problems caused by the storm and power outages plagued the summit, some systems not responding to remote queries.

Keck Under Ice
Keck Observatory covered in heavy ice
On Friday, the crew had abandoned early in the day in the face of deteriorating weather conditions. With the storm raging, no one had made it to the summit on Saturday. We all watched as remote weather instruments reported sustained winds of over 100mph and gusts as high as 134mph. With the wind came freezing fog, a thick coating of ice forming on every surface. The snowplow crews did not even try Saturday, it was just too dangerous.

Sunday offered at least a hope of making it to the summit. The storm had abated and beautiful sunny skies appeared over the summit. We readied for an attempt at the summit of Mauna Kea. As the engineer on call I would join the support techs at the summit. Maybe we could salvage something from the chaos.

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