Up early as usual yesterday, the internet wasn't cooperating, so Patty and I took a walk on Kamaole Beach at sunrise. After running into an old guy living in the lava rocks at the water's edge, breakfasting on Ritz crackers, we turned around and beat a hasty retreat back to "our" side. The beach is full of holes and funny markings on the ground, which we discovered later to be really camera shy sand crabs or ghost crabs. While washing off the sand on our return, ever vigil Patty spied this garden snail having HIS breakfast!! He was almost 4 inches long!!!!
It being kind of hot on this side of the island, I thought we should visit Iao (pronounced E-ow) Valley State Park. The original natives lived here in condos like this, using bamboo and other growy things to bring water from the river to their 10 x 10 taro fields. Who thinks up these things??
So the nice King living on the next island, King Kamehameha, came over and killed all of them!!! Their bones were scattered all around the Iao Needle, a piece of rock 2250 feet high. This of course became their sacred place ... and united all of the Hawaiian Islands under one King ... I guess that's one way to do it!!
The Photographer in me couldn't help but notice the huge leaves growing here. Nope ... don't know what it is. Patty thought we should call her brother, the flower expert in San Francisco and ask, but instead we decided to call this the Leaf with Holes!!
Since my eyes are always glued to the camera viewer, Patty's exceptional eyes are finding cool stuff for me to capture. This web was probably two feet across ... plenty to catch lunch!!
All around the park there were fruit trees and flowers ...... Patty says "How brave are you?" She picked up one of these fruits, which we assumed were some kind of small guava, and I tasted ... she ate ... one very ripe red one. The skin was very sour, like nectarines, but the fruit was sweet ... just look out for the seeds!! I'm still alive this morning, so I guess you CAN eat them.
Without knowing the names of all the flowers, we came up with our own ... this one is "Another White Flower"!!
And "Green Fern With Spores" ....
There were many many more, but it takes too long to load them to this site .... and since we don't know the names anyway, I'll save them for another day. We passed by the Bailey House Museum in Wailuku, so on the way down, we stopped in to learn some history. This house was built in the 1700's out of lava rock as a sacred gathering area because of it's vantage point on top of the hill. Later, the King decided that education was all-important, and made it a girls school. Equal rights way back then!!! Special games were played with all the children ... those that were exceptionally good at the games, were allowed to attend school where they learned the ways of chanting their history so it would not be lost. Eventually they learned to read and write. The Baileys were hired as teachers in the school. The buildings eventually became their home. The Hawaiians were pretty smart ... outbuildings were built for the kitchen. They were never attached to the houses. That way if the kitchen caught on fire, the house didn't burn down too. Who thinks up this stuff???
Okay ... one last flower picture. This Spider was in a back corner of the Bailey House garden. A REAL beauty, worth posting!!
It's getting late and we were parched. Jamba Juice worked before ... AND ... it's close to the quilting shop in Kihei where I found this amazing fabric made into a quilt, sliced up and washed, resulting in a soft fascinating pattern .... who thinks UP this stuff????? I came home with the fabric!!!
This morning is a "lay in the sun" morning ..... where will we go today? Your guess is as good as mine!!! ALOHA!!!!
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